Admetus monologue — Mr. Punch's Dramatic Sequels

Ye gods, how long must I endure all this, The ceaseless clamour of a woman's tongue? Was it for this ye granted me the boon That she might give her life in place of mine, Only that Heracles might bring her back, Torn from the arms of Death to plague me thus? This was your boon, in sooth no boon to me. How blind is man, not knowing when he is blest! Fool that I was, I mourned Alcestis' death Almost as much as I should mourn my own. Indeed I thought, so great my grief appeared, I would almost have laid my own life down --Almost I say--to bring her back to earth. Yet, now she lives once more she makes me weep More bitter tears than I did ever shed When I believed her gone beyond recall.