_Phe._ Can there be grief when from his bed of death Admetus rises? What deep mystery lurks Within thy words? What mean’st thou? Gracious heaven! Thou, whose deep love is all his own, who hear’st The tidings of his safety, and dost bear Transport and life in that glad oracle To his despairing sire; thy cheek is tinged With death, and on thy pure ingenuous brow, To the brief lightning of a sudden joy, Shades dark as night succeed, and thou art wrapt In troubled silence. Speak! oh, speak! _Alc._ The gods Themselves have limitations to their power Impassable, eternal--and their will Resists not the tremendous laws of fate: Nor small the boon they grant thee in the life Of thy restored Admetus. _Phe._ In thy looks There is expression, more than in thy words, Which thrills my shuddering heart. Declare, what terms Can render fatal to thyself and us The rescued life of him thy soul adores? _Alc._ O father! could my silence aught avail To keep that fearful secret from thine ear, Still should it rest unheard, till all fulfill’d Were the dread sacrifice. But vain the wish; And since too soon, too well it must be known, Hear it from me. _Phe._ Throughout my curdling veins Runs a cold, deathlike horror; and I feel I am not all a father. In my heart Strive many deep affections. Thee I love, O fair and high-soul’d consort of my son! More than a daughter; and thine infant race, The cherish’d hope and glory of my age; And, unimpair’d by time, within my breast, High, holy, and unalterable love For her, the partner of my cares and joys, Dwells pure and perfect yet. Bethink thee, then, In what suspense, what agony of fear, I wait thy words; for well, too well, I see Thy lips are fraught with fatal auguries, To some one of my race. _Alc._ Death hath his rights, Of which not e’en the great Supernal Powers May hope to rob him. By his ruthless hand, Already seized, the noble victim lay, The heir of empire, in his glowing prime And noonday, struck:--Admetus, the revered, The bless’d, the loved, by all who own’d his sway-- By his illustrious parents, by the realms Surrounding his--and oh! what need to add, How much by his Alcestis?--Such was he, Already in th’ unsparing grasp of death Withering, a certain prey. Apollo thence Hath snatch’d him, and another in his stead, Though not an equal--(who can equal him?) Must fall a voluntary sacrifice. Another, of his lineage or to him By closest bonds united, must descend To the dark realm of Orcus in _his_ place, Who thus alone is saved. _Phe._ What do I hear? Woe to us, woe!--what victim?--who shall be Accepted in his stead?