ing shadows on the dial often render the old less sensible of others' woe. And this tribute from the elders of the neighbourhood completes the circle of grief on the removal of Alcestis from all she had loved -from the cheering sunlight, the lucid streams, the green pastures, which from the palace windows had so often gladdened her eyes.

Next to Alcestis in interest is her deliverer. Without Hercules the play would, like "The Trojan Women," have been too "infected with grief." Almost from the moment of his entrance a ray of hope begins to streak the gloom, and this an Athenian spectator would feel more immediately than an English reader. The theatrical as well as the legendary Hercules, if not a comic, was at least a cheery, personage. On his right arm victory rested. He was no stranger to the Pheræans. His deeds were sung at festivals, and told by the hearth in winter. The very armour he wore was a trophy: the lion's skin he had won in fight with a king of beasts with his club he had slain the wild boar who had gored other mighty hunters: he had wrestled with and prevailed over the giants of the earth: he was as generous and genial as he was valiant and strong: none but the proud and cruel fear him: he has ever kind words for women and children: his presence, when he is off duty, is a holiday he may sing out of tune, yet his laugh is music to the ear.

The other dramatis persona are kept, perhaps purposely, in the background. Admetus makes almost as poor a figure in this play as Jason does in the

"Medea." Self-preservation is the leading feature in his character. He loves Alcestis much, but he loves himself more. He cannot look his situation in the face. For some time he has known his wife's promise to die for him, but, until the hour of its fulfilment is striking, he is too weak to realise the import of her pledge. He lays flattering unction on his soul-perhaps somewhat in this wise: "My wife, as well as myself, must one day die: perchance the Fates may not be in haste for either of us-may even, with Apollo to friend us, renew the bond." When the inexorable missive comes for her, he is indeed deeply cast down yet even then there is not a spark of manliness in him. Provided the Fates got one victim, they might not have been particular as to which of the twain was "nominated in the bond." But no- -for him there is a saving clause in it, and he will not forego the benefit of it. He will do everything but the one thing it is in his power to do, to prove his conjugal affection. There shall be no more mirth or feasting in his dominions; the sound of tabret and harp shall never more be heard in his dwelling; black shall be his only wear; no second wife shall occupy the room of his first; had he the lute of Orpheus, he would go down to Pluto's gloomy realm, and bring her to upper air. He "doth profess too much :" he lacks the heroic spirit that dwelt in Polyxena, Macaria, and Iphigenia. Some excuse for one so weak as Admetus may perhaps be found in the view of death, or life after death, taken by the Greeks generally. Even their Elysian fields were inhabited by melancholy spectres. For with

them, to die either was to be annihilated or to pass a monotonous existence without fear but also without hope. In the one case Wordsworth's lines are applicable to them as well as to "Lucy:"

"No motion has she now, no force:

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks and stones and trees."

They held with Claudio that

"The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death."*

Or they would say with the great Achilles in the Shades, when Ulysses congratulated him on being so honoured among dead heroes:

"Renowned Ulysses, think not death a theme

Of consolation: I had rather live,

The servile hind for hire, and eat the bread

Of some man scantily himself sustained,

Than sovereign empire hold o'er all the Shades."+

There may be an approach to comedy in the scene between Admetus and his father Pheres. The son asks his grey-haired sire, who brings gifts to the funeral, "if he is not ashamed of himself for cumbering the ground so long? Why did he not, an old fellow and a useless, take the place of poor Alcestis?" Pheres replies, and with some show of reason, "If you were + Odyssey, xi. (Cowper.)

*Measure for Measure."

so fond of your late wife as you pretend to be, why did you not go when you were summoned for remember it was not I but you on whom the citation of the Fates was originally served. For my part, I had a great regard for my daughter-in-law-she was a most exemplary young woman; but as for taking her place, I crave to be excused. I am an old man, it is true; still I am remarkably well for my years and as for cumbering the ground, I hope to do so a little while longer. You may have been a tender husband and a faithful, and I daresay will be a good father, and not vex the two poor orphans with a stepmother at least, just at present: but I must say your language to myself is very uncivil, not to say unfilial." The timid or selfish nature of Admetus is reflected in that of his sire: it is easy to conceive the son another Pheres, when years shall have grizzled his beard.

The reluctance of Admetus, in the final scene, to take Alcestis back again, when "brought to him from the grave," has been regarded as a comic situation; but it is by no means certain either that Euripides intended it for one, or that the spectators so interpreted it. The revived wife is a mute person, and her still disconsolate husband, who has so lately sworn never again to marry, believes for a few minutes that Hercules has indelicately, though with the best intentions, brought him a new partner. The real drift of this incident depends very much on the view of the deliverer taken commonly by an Athenian audience. Setting aside the use made of Hercules by the comic

poets, we may

inquire how painters represented him. He is delineated on vases either as doing valiant deeds with his club or by his fatal arrows, or as indulging himself with the wine-cup. In one instance his weapons have been stolen from him by the God of Love, and he himself is running after a girl who has carried off his pitcher. The tragedians also do not treat him with much ceremony in their dramas: he was only a Boeotian hero, and so they took liberties with him.

This choral song, the last in the play, comes immediately before the reappearance of Hercules with the rescued Alcestis :

"I too have been borne along

Through the airy realms of song.
Searched I have historic page,
Yet ne'er found in any age
Power that with thine can vie,
Masterless Necessity.

Thee nor Orpheus' mystic scrolls
Graved by him on Thracian pine,
Thee nor Phoebus' art controls,
Esculapian art divine.

Of the Powers thou alone
Altar hast not, image, throne:
Sacrifices wilt thou none.-
Pains too sharp for mortal state
Lay not on me, mighty Fate.
Jove doth aye thy hests fulfil,

His to work and thine to will.

Hardest iron delved from mine

Thou canst break and bend and twine:
Harsh in purpose, heart of stone,

Mercy is to thee unknown.