Mr. Punch's Dramatic Sequels — Reading Companion

uripides did not do was to give us any hint of the subsequent history of the reunited couple. Did they live happily ever afterwards, or----? But the sequel must show. It is written in the woman-hating vein so often seen in Euripides, and its title has been Latinized for the benefit of those who have forgotten their Greek._

SCENE.--_Before ADMETUS' Palace. That worthy enters hurriedly through the Royal doors, which he bangs behind him with a slight want of dignity. He soliloquises._

Ye gods, how long must I endure all this, The ceaseless clamour of a woman's tongue? Was it for this ye granted me the boon That she might give her life in place of mine, Only that Heracles might bring her back, Torn from the arms of Death to plague me thus? This was your boon, in sooth no boon to me. How blind is man, not knowing when he is blest! Fool that I was, I mourned Alcestis' death Almost as much as I should mourn my own. Indeed I thought, so great my grief appeared, I would almost have laid my own life down --Almost I say--to bring her back to earth. Yet, now she lives once more she makes me weep More bitter tears than I did ever shed When I believed her gone beyond recall.

Oh, what a doubtful blessing is a wife Who saves your life And then doth make it doubly hard to live! Alas, she doth but give A gift we cannot prize But count it in our eyes As nothing worth--a thing to spurn, to cast away, To form the theme of this depreciatory lay!

Alcestis, what a shame it is to find This kingly mind So much disturbed, this kingly heart so wrung, By thy too active tongue Thou gav'st thy life for his But oh, how wrong it is To make that life which thou so nobly didst restore A thing he values not at all, in fact a bore!

O wretched race of men, When shall we see again The peace that once ye had Ere woman bad, Or mad, Did cross your happy path In wrath, And doom you to a tedious life of fear and fret, Of unavailing tears and unconcealed regret!

O Heracles, what shame Shall cloud thy previous fame Who brought this lady back Along the black Steep track, Where Death and she did fare, A pair (At least, as far as we can ascertain) content To those Tartarean halls which hear no argument!

[_Enter ALCESTIS. She is in a bad temper, and is weeping as only Euripides' characters can._

Ah! woe is me! Why was I ever born? And why, once dead, did I return again To this distressful earth? Oh, Heracles, Why did you bear me back to this sad place, This palace where Admetus sits enthroned? Oh, what a disagreeable fate it is To live with such a husband--hear his voice Raised ever in complaint, and have no word Of gratitude for all I did for him! Was there another creature in the world Who willingly would die for such a man? Not one! His father, aged though he was, Scouted the proposition as absurd. His mother, when approached, declined in terms Which I should hesitate to reproduce, So frank and so unflattering they were. But I, I gave my life instead of his, And what is my reward? A few cold words Of thanks, a complimentary phrase or two, And then he drops the subject, thinks no more About the matter and is quite annoyed When, as may happen once or twice a day, I accidentally allude to it!

[_Bursting into indignant stichomuthia._] Not once or twice but fifty times a day.

Nay, you can have too much of a good thing.

I don't agree. Speech is a good to men....

Your drift, as yet, I do not well perceive.

... Yet too much speech is an undoubted ill.

Ah, you rail ever at a woman's tongue.

Where the cap fits, why, let it there be worn.

You spoke not thus when I redeemed your life.

No, for I thought you gone ne'er to return.

'Twas not of mine own will that I came back.

I'm very certain that 'twas not of mine!

Tell that to Heracles who rescued me.

I will, next time he comes to stay with us.

You say that, knowing that he cannot come.

Why should he not? What keeps him then away?

Cleansing Augean stables: a good work!

Idiot! He never will let well alone.

[_Tired of only getting in one line at a time._]