章节正文
But these things are a God's doing and are thus.
Well! Do not forget this gift, for I shall ask-not a recompense,
since nothing is more precious than life, but-only what is just, as
you yourself will say, since if you have not lost your senses you must
love these children no less than I. Let them be masters in my house;
marry not again, and set a stepmother over them, a woman harsher
than I, who in her jealousy will lift her hand against my children and
yours. Ah! not this, let not this be, I entreat you! The new
stepmother hates the first wife's children, the viper itself is not
more cruel. The son indeed finds a strong rampart in his father-but
you, my daughter, how shall you live your virgin life out in
happiness? How will you fare with your father's new wife? Ah! Let
her not cast evil report upon you and thus wreck your marriage in
the height of your youth! You will have no mother, O my child, to give
you in marriage, to comfort you in childbed when none is tenderer than
a mother!
And I must die. Not to-morrow. nor to-morrow's morrow comes this
misfortune on me, but even now I shall be named with those that are no
more. Farewell! Live happy! You, my husband, may boast you had the
best of wives; and you, my children, that you lost the best of
mothers!
(She falls back.)
LEADER
Take heart! I do not hesitate to speak for him. This he will do,
unless he has lost his senses.
ADMETUS
It shall be so, it shall be! Have no fear! And since I held you
living as my wife, so, when dead, you only shall be called my wife,
and in your place no bride of Thessaly shall salute me hers; no
other woman is noble enough for that, no other indeed so beautiful
of face. My children shall suffice me; I pray the Gods I may enjoy
them, since you we have not enjoyed.
I shall wear mourning for you, O my wife, not for one year but all
my days, abhorring the woman who bore me, hating my father-for they
loved me in words, not deeds. But you-to save my life you give the
dearest thing you have! Should I not weep then, losing such a wife
as you?
I shall make an end of merry drinking parties, and of
flower-crowned feasts and of the music which possessed my house. Never
again shall I touch the lyre, never again shall I raise my spirits
to sing to the Libyan flute-for you have taken from me all my joy.
Your image, carven by the skilled hands of artists, shall be laid in
our marriage-bed; I shall clasp it, and my hands shall cling to it and
I shall speak your name and so, not having you, shall think I have
my dear wife in my arms-a cold delight, I know, but it will lighten
the burden of my days. Often you will gladden me, appearing in my
dreams; for sweet it is to look on those we love in dreams, however
brief the night.
Ah! If I had the tongue and song of Orpheus so that I might
charm Demeter's Daughter or her Lord, and snatch you back from
Hades, would go down to hell; and neither Pluto's dog nor Charon,
Leader of the Dead, should hinder me until I had brought your life
back to the light!
At least await me there whenever I shall die, and prepare the
house where you will dwell with me. I shall lay a solemncharge upon
these children to stretch me in the same cedar shroud with you, and
lay my side against your side; for even in death let me not be
separate from you, you who alone were faithful to me!
LEADER (to ADMETUS)
And I also will keep this sad mourning with you, as a friend
with a friend; for she is worthy of it.
ALCESTIS
O my children, you have heard your father say that never will he
set another wife over you and never thus insult me.
ADMETUS
Again I say it, and will perform it too!
ALCESTIS (placing the children's hands in his)
Then take these children from my hand.
ADMETUS
I take them-dear gifts from a dear hand.
ALCESTIS
Now you must be the mother for me to my children.
ADMETUS
It must be so, since they are robbed of you.
ALCESTIS
O children, I should have lived my life out-and I go to the
Underworld.
ADMETUS
Alas! What shall I do, left alone by you?
ALCESTIS
Time will console you. The dead are nothing.
ADMETUS
Take me with you, by the Gods! Take me to the Underworld!
ALCESTIS
It is enough that I should die-for you.
ADMETUS
O Fate, what a wife you steal from me!
ALCESTIS (growing faint)
My dimmed eyes are heavily oppressed.
ADMETUS
O woman, I am lost if you leave me!
ALCESTIS
You may say of me that I am nothing.
ADMETUS
Lift up your head! Do not abandon your children!
ALCESTIS
Ah! Indeed it is unwillingly-but, farewell, my children!
ADMETUS
Look at them, look....
ALCESTIS
I am nothing.
ADMETUS
What are you doing? Are you leaving me?
ALCESTIS (falling back dead)
Farewell.
ADMETUS (staring at the body)
Wretch that I am, I am lost!
LEADER
She is gone! The wife of Admetus is no more.
EUMELUS (chanting)
Ah! Misery!
Mother has gone,
Gone to the Underworld!
She lives no more,
O my Father,
In the sunlight.
O sad one,
You have left us
To live motherless!
See, Oh, see her eyelids
And her drooping hands!
Mother, Mother,
Hearken to me, listen,
I beseech you!
I-I-Mother!-
I am calling to you,
Your little bird fallen upon your face!
ADMETUS
She hears not, she sees not. You and I are smitten by a dread
calamity.
EUMELUS (chanting)
Father, I am a child,
And I am left
Like a lonely ship
By the mother I loved.
Oh! The cruel things I suffer!
And you, little sister,
Suffer with me.
O my Father,
Vain, vain was your wedding,
You did not walk with her
To the end of old age.
She died first;
And your death, O Mother,
Destroys our house.
LEADER
Admetus, you must endure this calamity. You are not the first
and will not be the last to lose a noble wife. We all are doomed to
die.
ADMETUS
I know it.
Not unawares did this woe swoop down on me; for long it has gnawed
at me.
But, since I shall ordain the funeral rites for this dead body,
you must be there, and meanwhile let a threnody re-echo to the
implacable God of the Underworld. And all you men of Thessaly whom I
rule-I order you to share the mourning for this woman with severed
hair and black-robed garb. You who yoke the four-horsed chariot and
the swift single horses, cut the mane from their necks with your
steel.
Let there be no noise of flutes or lyre within the city until
twelve moons are fulfilled. Never shall I bury another body so dear to
me, never one that has loved me better. From me she deserves all
honour, since she alone would die for me!
(The body of ALCESTIS is carried solemnly into the Palace,
followed by ADMETUS, With bowed head, holding one of his children by
each hand. When all have entered, the great doors are quietly shut.)
CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
O Daughter of Pelias,
Hail to you in the house of Hades,
In the sunless home where you shall dwell!
Let Hades, the dark-haired God,
Let the old man, Leader of the Dead,
Who sits at the oar and helm,
Know you:
Far, far off is the best of women
Borne beyond the flood of Acheron
In the two-oared boat!
antistrophe 1
Often shall the Muses' servants
Sing of you to the seven-toned
Lyre-shell of the mountain-tortoise,
And praise you with mourning songs at Sparta
When the circling season
Brings back the month Carneius
Under the nightlong upraised moon,
And in bright glad Athens.
Such a theme do you leave by your death
For the music of singers!
strophe 2
Ah! That I had the power
To bring you back to the light
From the dark halls of Hades,
And from the waves of Cocytus
With the oar of the river of hell
Oh, you only,
O dearest of women,
You only dared give your life
For the life of your lord in Hades!
Light rest the earth above you,
Well! Do not forget this gift, for I shall ask-not a recompense,
since nothing is more precious than life, but-only what is just, as
you yourself will say, since if you have not lost your senses you must
love these children no less than I. Let them be masters in my house;
marry not again, and set a stepmother over them, a woman harsher
than I, who in her jealousy will lift her hand against my children and
yours. Ah! not this, let not this be, I entreat you! The new
stepmother hates the first wife's children, the viper itself is not
more cruel. The son indeed finds a strong rampart in his father-but
you, my daughter, how shall you live your virgin life out in
happiness? How will you fare with your father's new wife? Ah! Let
her not cast evil report upon you and thus wreck your marriage in
the height of your youth! You will have no mother, O my child, to give
you in marriage, to comfort you in childbed when none is tenderer than
a mother!
And I must die. Not to-morrow. nor to-morrow's morrow comes this
misfortune on me, but even now I shall be named with those that are no
more. Farewell! Live happy! You, my husband, may boast you had the
best of wives; and you, my children, that you lost the best of
mothers!
(She falls back.)
LEADER
Take heart! I do not hesitate to speak for him. This he will do,
unless he has lost his senses.
ADMETUS
It shall be so, it shall be! Have no fear! And since I held you
living as my wife, so, when dead, you only shall be called my wife,
and in your place no bride of Thessaly shall salute me hers; no
other woman is noble enough for that, no other indeed so beautiful
of face. My children shall suffice me; I pray the Gods I may enjoy
them, since you we have not enjoyed.
I shall wear mourning for you, O my wife, not for one year but all
my days, abhorring the woman who bore me, hating my father-for they
loved me in words, not deeds. But you-to save my life you give the
dearest thing you have! Should I not weep then, losing such a wife
as you?
I shall make an end of merry drinking parties, and of
flower-crowned feasts and of the music which possessed my house. Never
again shall I touch the lyre, never again shall I raise my spirits
to sing to the Libyan flute-for you have taken from me all my joy.
Your image, carven by the skilled hands of artists, shall be laid in
our marriage-bed; I shall clasp it, and my hands shall cling to it and
I shall speak your name and so, not having you, shall think I have
my dear wife in my arms-a cold delight, I know, but it will lighten
the burden of my days. Often you will gladden me, appearing in my
dreams; for sweet it is to look on those we love in dreams, however
brief the night.
Ah! If I had the tongue and song of Orpheus so that I might
charm Demeter's Daughter or her Lord, and snatch you back from
Hades, would go down to hell; and neither Pluto's dog nor Charon,
Leader of the Dead, should hinder me until I had brought your life
back to the light!
At least await me there whenever I shall die, and prepare the
house where you will dwell with me. I shall lay a solemncharge upon
these children to stretch me in the same cedar shroud with you, and
lay my side against your side; for even in death let me not be
separate from you, you who alone were faithful to me!
LEADER (to ADMETUS)
And I also will keep this sad mourning with you, as a friend
with a friend; for she is worthy of it.
ALCESTIS
O my children, you have heard your father say that never will he
set another wife over you and never thus insult me.
ADMETUS
Again I say it, and will perform it too!
ALCESTIS (placing the children's hands in his)
Then take these children from my hand.
ADMETUS
I take them-dear gifts from a dear hand.
ALCESTIS
Now you must be the mother for me to my children.
ADMETUS
It must be so, since they are robbed of you.
ALCESTIS
O children, I should have lived my life out-and I go to the
Underworld.
ADMETUS
Alas! What shall I do, left alone by you?
ALCESTIS
Time will console you. The dead are nothing.
ADMETUS
Take me with you, by the Gods! Take me to the Underworld!
ALCESTIS
It is enough that I should die-for you.
ADMETUS
O Fate, what a wife you steal from me!
ALCESTIS (growing faint)
My dimmed eyes are heavily oppressed.
ADMETUS
O woman, I am lost if you leave me!
ALCESTIS
You may say of me that I am nothing.
ADMETUS
Lift up your head! Do not abandon your children!
ALCESTIS
Ah! Indeed it is unwillingly-but, farewell, my children!
ADMETUS
Look at them, look....
ALCESTIS
I am nothing.
ADMETUS
What are you doing? Are you leaving me?
ALCESTIS (falling back dead)
Farewell.
ADMETUS (staring at the body)
Wretch that I am, I am lost!
LEADER
She is gone! The wife of Admetus is no more.
EUMELUS (chanting)
Ah! Misery!
Mother has gone,
Gone to the Underworld!
She lives no more,
O my Father,
In the sunlight.
O sad one,
You have left us
To live motherless!
See, Oh, see her eyelids
And her drooping hands!
Mother, Mother,
Hearken to me, listen,
I beseech you!
I-I-Mother!-
I am calling to you,
Your little bird fallen upon your face!
ADMETUS
She hears not, she sees not. You and I are smitten by a dread
calamity.
EUMELUS (chanting)
Father, I am a child,
And I am left
Like a lonely ship
By the mother I loved.
Oh! The cruel things I suffer!
And you, little sister,
Suffer with me.
O my Father,
Vain, vain was your wedding,
You did not walk with her
To the end of old age.
She died first;
And your death, O Mother,
Destroys our house.
LEADER
Admetus, you must endure this calamity. You are not the first
and will not be the last to lose a noble wife. We all are doomed to
die.
ADMETUS
I know it.
Not unawares did this woe swoop down on me; for long it has gnawed
at me.
But, since I shall ordain the funeral rites for this dead body,
you must be there, and meanwhile let a threnody re-echo to the
implacable God of the Underworld. And all you men of Thessaly whom I
rule-I order you to share the mourning for this woman with severed
hair and black-robed garb. You who yoke the four-horsed chariot and
the swift single horses, cut the mane from their necks with your
steel.
Let there be no noise of flutes or lyre within the city until
twelve moons are fulfilled. Never shall I bury another body so dear to
me, never one that has loved me better. From me she deserves all
honour, since she alone would die for me!
(The body of ALCESTIS is carried solemnly into the Palace,
followed by ADMETUS, With bowed head, holding one of his children by
each hand. When all have entered, the great doors are quietly shut.)
CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
O Daughter of Pelias,
Hail to you in the house of Hades,
In the sunless home where you shall dwell!
Let Hades, the dark-haired God,
Let the old man, Leader of the Dead,
Who sits at the oar and helm,
Know you:
Far, far off is the best of women
Borne beyond the flood of Acheron
In the two-oared boat!
antistrophe 1
Often shall the Muses' servants
Sing of you to the seven-toned
Lyre-shell of the mountain-tortoise,
And praise you with mourning songs at Sparta
When the circling season
Brings back the month Carneius
Under the nightlong upraised moon,
And in bright glad Athens.
Such a theme do you leave by your death
For the music of singers!
strophe 2
Ah! That I had the power
To bring you back to the light
From the dark halls of Hades,
And from the waves of Cocytus
With the oar of the river of hell
Oh, you only,
O dearest of women,
You only dared give your life
For the life of your lord in Hades!
Light rest the earth above you,
- height [hait]
n.高度；顶点；卓越 (初中英语单词) - hesitate [´heziteit] vi.犹豫，踌躇 (初中英语单词)
- salute [sə´lu:t] n.&v.招呼；行礼；敬礼 (初中英语单词)
- mourning [´mɔ:niŋ] n.悲伤；治丧；戴孝 (初中英语单词)
- snatch [snætʃ] v.&n.抢，夺取，抓住 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- insult [in´sʌlt, ´insʌlt] n.&vt.侮辱；损害 (初中英语单词)
- abandon [ə´bændən] vt.抛弃，放弃，离弃 (初中英语单词)
- farewell [feə´wel] int.再见 n.&a.告别 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- endure [in´djuə] vt.忍耐，忍受；坚持 (初中英语单词)
- funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
- meanwhile [´mi:n´wail] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- jealousy [´dʒeləsi] n.妒忌；猜忌 (高中英语单词)
- virgin [´və:dʒin] a.处女(般)的 n.处女 (高中英语单词)
- suffice [sə´fais] vt.使满足 vi.足够 (高中英语单词)
- skilled [skild] a.有技能的，熟练的 (高中英语单词)
- hinder [´hində, ´haində] vt.阻止 a.后面的 (高中英语单词)
- beseech [bi´si:tʃ] v.恳求，哀求 (高中英语单词)
- ordain [ɔ:´dein] v.规定；颁布命令 (高中英语单词)
- chariot [´tʃæriət] n.古时双轮战车 (高中英语单词)
- solemnly [´sɔləmli] ad.严肃地，庄严地 (高中英语单词)
- entreat [in´tri:t] vt.恳求，恳请 (英语四级单词)
- morrow [´mɔrəu] n.翌日 (英语四级单词)
- shroud [ʃraud] n.尸衣；覆盖物；罩 (英语四级单词)
- console [kən´səul] vt.安慰；慰问 (英语四级单词)
- calamity [kə´læmiti] n.灾害，大灾难 (英语四级单词)
- stepmother [´step,mʌðə] n.继母，后母 (英语六级单词)
- rampart [´ræmpɑ:t] n.壁垒 vt.防护 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- smitten [´smitn] smite的过去分词 (英语六级单词)
- underworld [´ʌndəwə:ld] n.阴间；下层社会 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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