My children, see, your mother is no more.
Farewell, my children, take my last farewell,
And live rejoicing in the light of day.

Admetus, Alas! these words of sadness that I hear,
Are harder than the pangs of death to bear.
Forsake me not, by all the Gods I pray,

And by thy children, whom thou leavest orphans;

But take new strength, and rise from sickness up.
For shouldst thou die, I can no longer live:
My life and death on thee alone depend,

For I regard thy love with reverence.

Alcestis. Admetus, for thou seest my present state;
I wish to tell thee, ere I die, my prayer.
I held thee dearer than my life, and now
At life's dear cost, I give thee yet to see
The blessed light, and for thy safety die;
Although I might have lived, and wedded whom
Of the Thessalian lords I will'd, and dwelt
Amidst the splendors of the kingly state.

But torn from thee, and with my children orphans,
I would not live, and all the gifts of youth
In which I joy'd, I willingly gave up.
And yet thy father and thy mother left thee,
Although it well beseem'd their hoary age
To die with glory, and to save their son.
For thou alone wast given them, and no more,
If thou shouldst die, could any hope remain
Of other offspring, in their lingering years;
And we together had lived out our days,

Nor thou hadst mourn'd thy wife too soon laid low,
Nor seen thy children orphans; but this doom
The Gods decree, and we must bow thereto.
Well, be it so; but hear my only prayer;
Not that an equal favor I shall ask,
For nothing is more precious than our life,-
But justice only, as thyself wilt say.
Thy love for these thy children equals mine
If thou dost think aright; sustain them then
To be hereafter masters of my house;
Nor set a step-dame o'er my children's head,
Who feeling not the love I bear, shall lay
On our dear ones, the envious hand of hate.
Oh! I beseech thee, let it never be.
A step-dame set o'er offspring of another
Is nothing gentler than a viper towards them.

A son indeed hath in his father's love

A bulwark to protect his youthful years,
Exchanging with him question and reply.

But thou, my daughter, how wilt thou pass through
Thy virgin years, in honorable state?

And what will she, thy father's bride, be to thee?
Oh, may she never fasten on thy name

Some low-born slander, that in bloom of youth,
Shall blight thy fame, and blast thy nuptial hour;
For thou wilt have no mother at thy bridals,
No mother's soothing in the throes of child-birth,
When naught is kinder than her gentle care;
For I must die, - not when to-morrow comes,
Nor some more distant, and uncertain day,
But even now am number'd with the dead.
Farewell, then, and be happy; thou mayest boast
That thou wast wedded to the best of wives,
And ye, of springing from the best of mothers.
Chorus. Be calm; for I fear not in his behalf
To give my faith that he will do thy will,
Unless he turn from reason's path away.

Admetus. It shall be done, it shall be done, fear not;
Since in thy lifetime thou hast been my wife,
In death, too, thou alone shalt bear the name,
And no Thessalian bride shall call me husband,
Be she the daughter of a high-born sire,

Or loveliest in the beauty of her form.

I

pray the Gods to grant a father's joy

In these my children, since I have no more
The dear delight thy gentle presence gave.
And I shall mourn thee, not one year alone,
But every day my lingering life holds out,
Scorning my father, hating her who bare me,
Who show'd their love in idle words alone.
But thou didst save me, yielding for my life
All that was dearest; must I not then mourn
My sad bereavement of a wife like thee?
Yes, cease the festal throng, the social scene;
No more the wreath, and music's dulcet strain,
In these lone halls, where they but lately reign'd.
For I can never touch the lyre again,

Nor stir my spirit to the Lybian flute,

Since thou art gone, and joy is fled with thee.
The Sculptor's cunning hand shall shape thy form,
And I will lay me fondly by its side,

Enfolding still within my eager arms

The marble semblance resting on my couch,
And speak thy name, and press the lifeless form,
And think I hold thee, though I hold thee not.
I know indeed, 't will be a chilling joy,
But it will lift the burthen from

my heart.
And in my dreams oft coming thou wilt cheer
My sadden'd spirit, while my senses sleep;
For e'en in shadowy visions of the night

'T is sweet to see the loved one stand before us,
Though swiftly flits the well-known form away.'
If Orpheus' voice and wondrous song were mine,
That Ceres' daughter and her mighty lord
Subduing by the magic of my strain,
I might from Hades bring thee to the day,
I would descend, and neither Pluto's dog,
Nor Charop at the oar, the guide of ghosts,
Should hold me, ere I sped thee back to life.
But since I may not, wait my coming there
When I shall die; and have a home prepared
That we may dwell together in that world.
For I will bid them lay my breathless corse
In the same cedar, side by side with thee;
For I will not be sunder'd e'en in death

From thee, who hast alone been faithful to me."

Of the farther development of the plot, and the issue of the drama, but little remains to be said. The burthen of the following dialogue is the mourning for the death of Alcestis, and the celebration of her virtues. The choral songs grow naturally out of the situation of the dramatic characters, and some of them are eminently beautiful; this is particularly true of the song in praise of Admetus, beginning at line 569, and that on the irresistible power of Fate, beginning at line 962. The character and conduct of Hercules, bring to light some curious traits of ancient life. As he is quite a subordinate. personage, so far as the main interest of the poem goes, an example of high intellectual dignity will scarcely be required of him. But with all his boisterous and unseasonable merriment, he is actuated by noble and generous feelings. As soon as he learns the fate of Alcestis, he resolves to restore her to her husband's arms; and as he is the son of a god, and as the descent to Pluto's kingdom was no uncommon adventure in those old times, it will not do to be over sceptical about his ability to accomplish his resolution. The final issue of the piece is not unnatural, according to the mythological notions of the Greeks, and, making due allowance for differences of time,

religion, and character, is not unlike, as Mr. Woolsey intimates, the conclusion of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale.

The Preface and Commentary to Antigone, are even more creditable to Mr. Woolsey's ability, than those to Alcestis. The sketch of the poem, in the preface, is written with clearness and brevity. The difficulties in this play, that call for a commentator's explanation, are far more numerous, than in the Alcestis. Besides the many subtle forms of expression in the jambic dialogue, the choral songs, rising to a high strain of lyrical boldness, abound in far-sought and fabulous allusions, which heightened their effect on an Athenian audience, familiar from childhood with the whole circle of mythological tales, but which are a terrible stumbling block to the modern reader. Even the fine song of triumph, almost at the opening of the poem, has difficulties of text, of construction, and of allusion, which have given rise to a wide diversity of opinions among the commentators. And in that most intricate passage, beginning at verse 944, there are entangled expressions, of which no satisfactory meaning can be made out. In Mr. Woolsey's commentaries on these, and numberless other knotty passages, he puts them together in a more intelligible form, and shows a sharper perception of delicate shades of meaning, than we have ever met with, in explanations of any other edition what

ever.

The style of Sophocles differs in several particulars from that of Euripides. The former had a more creative imagination, and dealt more in an ideal elevation of character, than the latter. It was, therefore, more natural for him than for Euripides, to select a form of language removed from that of daily life; and his choice of words is in accordance with the tone of his mind. He clothes the calm dignity of his thoughts, in elevated expressions, polished to the last degree. In every language, there are turns of phraseology, which have gone out of use for the common purposes of life, but have a solemn effect when brought into devotional exercises, and the higher kinds of poetry. This portion of Greek was probably greater than the corresponding part of other languages, being drawn from the copious springs of Homer's early epics, and Hesiod's venerable poems; and it probably admitted of being used with greater power, because the education of the young men of Athens imbued their minds with a love of ancient poetry, which was fostered afterwards by hearing it chanted at the Panathenaic festivals. Sophocles availed himself of this por

tion of the Greek language and this taste of his countrymen, with consummate art. He selected the most refined phraseology of his day, but softened it down with the mellow tints. of antiquity; he heightened its effect by mingling with it venerable forms of expression, with which an Athenian's pride of ancestry and patriotic recollections were closely allied. In this respect, Sophocles is not unlike Milton, whose stately muse assumes a greater majesty, by investing herself in a certain antique gravity, beyond the usage of the age, in which his poems were composed. But the style of Euripides was hardly above the tone of polished society in his own day. It is elegant and flowing, often negligent and diffuse, sometimes highly expressive, but never reminds the reader of the heroic simplicity of Homer. Setting aside the metre and a few poetical ornaments, it is little above the language which we may easily imagine Athenian gentlemen to have used in the discussions and conversations of their symposia. Hence Sophocles requires more labor to understand him, than Euripides. He is also more elaborate and methodical in the structure of his plot, than Euripides. The dialogues of the latter often run into long sophistical arguments, which have little to do with dramatic propriety. The dialogues of Sophocles are always compact, and to the point. In almost every one of his poems, there is a leading idea to which all the details are subordinate and in proportion; in other words a strict unity of subject, an harmonious development, and a regularly increasing interest.

Sophocles had also a more poetical and powerful conception of destiny, than Euripides. This profoundly mysterious power, appears under different lights, according to the age and individual character of the poet. In Homer, it is irresistible and omnipotent. In Eschylus, it has the same general attributes, but is more dark, gloomy and terrible, holding Jupiter himself in its inextricable meshes. In Sophocles, it is still terrible, but offers the consolations of religion, and the idea of atonement by death, even while it overwhelms with calamity involuntary crime. In general, as conceived by the tragedians, it was the hidden source from which human events took their unalterable direction, against which it was in vain for man to struggle. Sometimes it appears in the form of a curse, pronounced upon some particular family, and extending down to remote generations. In this form, it is the source of the deepest tragedy, and gives rise to those contests of man