Excerpt from Sisyphus: An Operatic Fable Act I. Scence I. (In front of the palace of Sisyphus. Before the closed doors is a platform, raised a few feet above the level of the stage. In the street below, and on the broad stone steps leading down to it, groups of men and women are sitting and standing. It is early dawn when the curtain rises, and becomes continually lighter during the following chorus.) Chorus. Light dawns; the pale stars waste; The night is dead: Yet Sisyphus still lives. O Death, Death! Hither, we pray thee, haste To his death-bed. Haste, oh haste thee hither, Death! Stone-dead, the proverb saith, Hath no fellow. Moan by moan, Gasp by gasp, groan by groan, O just, benign and holy Death, Draw thou forth his sinful breath, Till he lieth cold as stone. Thanatos, O just Thanatos! Oh delay not; hither haste thee, That this Sisyphus, the tyrannous, the abominable, Thou may'st carry to Acheron away with thee! Haste, oh haste thee hither, Death! Stone-dead, the proverb saith, Hath no fellow: then haste thee, Death. (The central doors of the palace open, and Sisyphus is carried out on a couch by slaves, and set down on the platform. Merope, Sinon, and several courtiers, enter and range themselves at a little distance behind and on each side of Sisyphus.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.