One day Death came and stood beside him, and put his seal upon his brow, and Admetus knew that he must die. When he felt that now he stood upon the threshold of Hades, the dim dark world of the dead, where high and low, rich and poor, strong and weak, wander for ever as voiceless shades through the sunless groves, where kingship and slavery are one, his heart was turned to water, and his spirit called aloud in his anguish, "Apollo, O Apollo! Hear me in my sore distress, and deliver me from death." Far away on the sunlit peak of Olympus Apollo heard his cry, and swift as the lightning crosses the sky he came and stood beside him. "What wouldst thou with me, Admetus?" he asked. "I have come in answer to thy prayer." Then Admetus raised his head, and pointed to his brow, and Apollo gazed sadly at him. "I see the seal upon thy brow, my friend--the seal that none may break." "Ah, say not that, my lord! Am I not even now in the prime of my manhood, when others look forward to many a long year of joyous life? Why should I die before my time? My mother and my aged father still live, and rejoice in the sunlight, yet no kingdom standeth by the might of their right arm. The meanest slave within my palace is more fortunate than I. Why, out of them all, hath Death laid his hand on me?" "He is but the servant of the Fates, Admetus, whose ways neither gods nor men can understand." "The Fates? Are they lower than the beasts, then, and will not listen to the voice of reason?" "The voice of man's reason is to them as the baying of jackals in the wilderness, Admetus." "O god of Light, is there nothing that will touch their hearts? Canst thou by thy music turn the souls of man and beast, and soothe the fury of the whirlwind and the crying of the rain, and yet over them alone hast thou no power? Ah! by the love thou once didst bear me, go, strike thy lyre before them, and sing thy song of magic. Surely they will not withstand thee, but will put my life into thy hands in return for the beauty of thy song." "Because I love thee I will go, Admetus. Yet, if I go, it is because they call me; and if I prevail, or if I fail, it is because they have willed it long ago. Farewell."