HERACLES
Let me go, and I will give you a thousand thanks.
ADMETUS
No, you shall not go to another man's hearth. (To a servant) Guide him, and open for him the guest-rooms apart from the house.
(HERACLES enters the Palace by the guests' door; when he has gone in, ADMETUS turns to the other servants) Close the inner door of the courtyard; it is unseemly that guests rejoicing at table should hear lamentations, and be saddened.
(The attendants go into the Palace.)
LEADER
What are you about? When such a calamity has fallen upon you, Admetus, have you the heart to entertain a guest? Are you mad?
ADMETUS
And if I had driven away a guest who came to my house and city, would you have praised me more? No, indeed! My misfortune would have been no less, and I inhospitable. One more ill would have been added to those I have if my house were called inhospitable. I myself find him the best of hosts when I enter the thirsty land of Argos.
LEADER
But why did you hide from him the fate that has befallen, if the man came as a friend, as you say?
ADMETUS
Never would he have entered my house if he had guessed my misfortune.
To some, I know, I shall appear senseless in doing this, and they will blame me; but my roof knows not to reject or insult a guest.
(He goes into the Palace, as the CHORUS begins its song.)CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
O house of a bountiful lord, Ever open to many guests, The God of Pytho, Apollo of the beautiful lyre, Deigned to dwell in you And to live a shepherd in your lands!
On the slope of the hillsides He played melodies of mating On the Pipes of Pan to his herds.
antistrophe 1
And the dappled lynxes fed with them In joy at your singing;From the wooded vale of Orthrys Came a yellow troop of lions;To the sound of your lyre, O Phoebus, Danced the dappled fawn Moving on light feet Beyond the high-crested pines, Charmed by your sweet singing.
strophe 2
He dwells in a home most rich in flocks By the lovely moving Boebian lake.