"So, to the struggle off strode Herakles, When silence closed behind the lion-garb, Back came our dull fact settling in its place, Though heartiness and passion half-dispersed The inevitable fate. And presently In came the mourners from the funeral, One after one, until we hoped the last Would be Alkestis, and so end our dream. Could they have really left Alkestis lone I' the wayside sepulchre! Home, all save she! And when Admetos felt that it was so, By the stand-still: when he lifted head and face From the two hiding hands and peplos' fold, And looked forth, knew the palace, knew the hills, Knew the plains, knew the friendly frequence there, And no Alkestis any more again, Why, the whole woe billow-like broke on him." Again, her criticism of Admetos gives at once the natural feeling of a girl who could not be satisfied with what seemed to her his selfish action, and Browning's feeling that Euripides saw its selfishness just as surely as Balaustion, despite the fact that it was in keeping, as numerous critics declare, with the customs of the age, and would not by any of his contemporaries be regarded as selfish on his part: "So he stood sobbing: nowise insincere, But somehow child-like, like his children, like Childishness the world over. What was new In this announcement that his wife must die? What particle of pain beyond the pact He made with his eyes wide open, long ago-- Made and was, if not glad, content to make? Now that the sorrow, he had called for, came, He sorrowed to the height: none heard him say, However, what would seem so pertinent, 'To keep this pact, I find surpass my power; Rescind it, Moirai! Give me back her life, And take the life I kept by base exchange! Or, failing that, here stands your laughing-stock Fooled by you, worthy just the fate o' the fool Who makes a pother to escape the best And gain the worst you wiser Powers allot!' No, not one word of this; nor did his wife Despite the sobbing, and the silence soon To follow, judge so much was in his thought-- Fancy that, should the Moirai acquiesce, He would relinquish life nor let her die. The man was like some merchant who in storm, Throws the freight over to redeem the ship; No question, saving both were better still, As it was,--why, he sorrowed, which sufficed. So, all she seemed to notice in his speech Was what concerned her children." Among modern critics who take the conventional ground in regard to Admetos may be cited Churton Collins, whose opinion is, of course, weighty. He writes: