here!" thrills them with the sense that something good and opportune is
at hand:--

"Sudden into the midst of sorrow leapt,
Along with the gay cheer of that great voice
Hope, joy, salvation: Herakles was here!
Himself o' the threshold, sent his voice on first
To herald all that human and divine
I' the weary, happy face of him,--half god,
Half man, which made the god-part god the more."

The heroic helpfulness of Herakles is no doubt the chief thing for
Browning in the story. The large gladness of spirit with which he
confronts the meticulous and perfunctory mourning of the stricken
household reflected his own habitual temper with peculiar vividness. But
it is clear that the Euripidean story contained an element which
Browning could not assimilate--Admetos' acceptance of Alkestis'
sacrifice. To the Greek the action seemed quite in order; the persons
who really incurred his reproof were Admetos' parents, who in spite of
their advanced years refused to anticipate their approaching death in
their son's favour. Browning cannot away with an Admetos who, from sheer
reluctance to die, allowed his wife to suffer death in his place; and he
characteristically suggests a version of the story in which its issues
are determined from first to last, and on both sides, by
self-sacrificing love. Admetos is now the large-minded king who grieves
to be called away before his work for his people is done. Alkestis
seeks, with Apollo's leave, to take his place, so that her lord may live
and carry out the purposes of his soul,--

"Nor let Zeus lose the monarch meant in thee."