Adm. That is thy reproach, for thou didst refuse to die.
Phe. Dear is the light of the sun-god, dear to all.
Adm. A coward soul is thine, not to be reckoned among men.
Phe. No laughing now for thee at bearing forth my aged corpse.
Adm. Thy death will surely be a death of shame, come when it will.
Phe. Once dead I little reck of foul report.
Adm. Alas! how void of shame the old can be!
Phe. Hers was no want of shame; 'twas want of sense in her that thou didst find.
Adm. Begone! and leave me to bury my dead.
Phe. I go; bury thy victim, thyself her murderer. Her kinsmen yet will call for an account. Else surely has Acastus ceased to be a man, if he avenge not on thee his sister's blood.
Adm. Perdition seize thee and that wife of thine! grow old, as ye deserve, childless, though your son yet lives, for ye shall never enter the same abode with me; nay! were it needful I should disown thy paternal hearth by heralds' voice, I had disowned it. (Exit Pheres). Now, since we must bear our present woe, let us go and lay the dead upon the pyre.
[Exit Admetus.
Cho. Woe, woe for thee! Alas, for thy hardihood! Noble spirit, good beyond compare, farewell! May Hermes in the nether world, and Hades, too, give thee a kindly welcome! and if even in that other life the good are rewarded, mayst thou have thy share therein and take thy seat by Hades' bride!
Att. Many the guests ere now from every corner of the world I have seen come to the halls of Admetus, for whom I have spread the board, but never yet have I welcomed to this hearth a guest so shameless as this; a man who, in the first place, though he saw my master's grief, yet entered and
