First Episode

(Enter from the Castle a HANDMAID, almost in tears.)

LEADER.But see, a handmaid cometh, and the tearWet on her cheek! What tiding shall we hear?...Thy grief is natural, daughter, if some illHath fallen to-day. Say, is she living stillOr dead, your mistress? Speak, if speak you may.

MAID.Alive. No, dead.... Oh, read it either way.

LEADER.Nay, daughter, can the same soul live and die?

MAID.Her life is broken; death is in her eye.

LEADER.Poor King, to think what she was, and what thou!

MAID.He never knew her worth.... He will know it now.

LEADER.There is no hope, methinks, to save her still?

MAID.The hour is come, and breaks all human will.

LEADER.She hath such tendance as the dying crave?

MAID.For sure: and rich robes ready for her grave.

LEADER.'Fore God, she dies high-hearted, aye, and farIn honour raised above all wives that are!

MAID.Far above all! How other? What must she,Who seeketh to surpass this woman, be?Or how could any wife more shining makeHer lord's love, than by dying for his sake?But thus much all the city knows. 'Tis here,In her own rooms, the tale will touch thine earWith strangeness. When she knew the day was come,She rose and washed her body, white as foam,With running water; then the cedarn pressShe opened, and took forth her funeral dressAnd rich adornment. So she stood arrayedBefore the Hearth-Fire of her home, and prayed:"Mother, since I must vanish from the day,This last, last time I kneel to thee and pray;Be mother to my two children! Find some dearHelpmate for him, some gentle lord for her.And let not them, like me, before their hourDie; let them live in happiness, in ourOld home, till life be full and age content."To every household altar then she wentAnd made for each his garland of the greenBoughs of the wind-blown myrtle, and was seenPraying, without a sob, without a tear.She knew the dread thing coming, but her clearCheek never changed: till suddenly she fledBack to her own chamber and bridal bed:Then came the tears and she spoke all her thought."O bed, whereon my laughing girlhood's knotWas severed by this man, for whom I die,Farewell! 'Tis thou ... I speak not bitterly....'Tis thou hast slain me. All alone I goLest I be false to him or thee. And lo,Some woman shall lie here instead of me--Happier perhaps; more true she cannot be."She kissed the pillow as she knelt, and wetWith flooding tears was that fair coverlet.At last she had had her fill of weeping; thenShe tore herself away, and rose again,Walking with downcast eyes; yet turned beforeShe had left the room, and cast her down once moreKneeling beside the bed. Then to her sideThe children came, and clung to her and cried,And her arms hugged them, and a long good-byeShe gave to each, like one who goes to die.The whole house then was weeping, every slaveIn sorrow for his mistress. And she gaveHer hand to all; aye, none so base was thereShe gave him not good words and he to her.So on Admetus falls from either sideSorrow. 'Twere bitter grief to him to have diedHimself; and being escaped, how sore a woeHe hath earned instead--Ah, some day he shall know!

LEADER.Surely Admetus suffers, even to-day,For this true-hearted love he hath cast away?

MAID.He weeps; begs her not leave him desolate,And holds her to his heart--too late, too late!She is sinking now, and there, beneath his eyeFading, the poor cold hand falls languidly,And faint is all her breath. Yet still she fainWould look once on the sunlight--once againAnd never more. I will go in and tellThy presence. Few there be, will serve so wellMy master and stand by him to the end.But thou hast been from olden days our friend.(The MAID goes in.)