Alcestis, the wife who died in place of her husband

Alcestis is the daughter of Pelias, king of Iolcus, and the wife of Admetus, king of Pherae in Thessaly. Throughout Western tradition she has been the wife who agreed to die for her husband: when a privilege won by Apollo allows Admetus to escape death if someone else dies instead, she is the only one who volunteers. Brought back from the grave, she is also one of the very few mortals to return alive from the realm of Hades. Her story survives almost entirely through one play, Euripides’ Alcestis, and that play set the terms of every later retelling.

A daughter of Pelias

Alcestis’ father is Pelias, the usurping king of Iolcus who sent Jason after the Golden Fleece; her mother is Anaxibia (Apollodorus 1.9.10). Homer already knows her. In the Catalogue of Ships he notes that the finest horses in the Greek army belong to Eumelus, son of Admetus, “whom Alcestis bore, noblest of women, the loveliest of Pelias’ daughters” (Iliad 2.711-715).

That family tie puts her at the heart of the Argonaut cycle. When Jason returns, Medea persuades Pelias’ daughters to cut up their father and boil him, supposedly to make him young again. According to Diodorus Siculus, Alcestis alone refused to take part, out of respect for her father (4.52-53) — an early hint of the character tragedy would give her.

The wedding and the divine herdsman

Pelias promised his daughter to the man who could yoke a lion and a boar to a chariot. Admetus managed it with the help of Apollo, who was then living in his household as a herdsman. The god was serving out a sentence: when Zeus struck down Apollo’s son Asclepius for raising the dead, Apollo killed the Cyclopes who forged the thunderbolt, and Zeus bound him to serve a mortal for a year (Apollodorus 3.10.4). Admetus was a fair master, and the god repaid him.

On the wedding day, Admetus forgot to sacrifice to Artemis, and when he opened the bridal chamber he found it full of coiled snakes. Apollo calmed his sister and went further, winning from the Fates a unique concession: when Admetus’ day of death arrived, he could avoid it if someone agreed to die in his place (Apollodorus 1.9.15). Aeschylus reveals how: Apollo got the Fates drunk (Eumenides 723-728).

The sacrifice

When the day came, Admetus looked for a substitute. His parents, Pheres and his wife, were at the end of their lives, yet both refused. Alcestis accepted. Euripides’ play opens at the very moment she is about to die: Apollo leaves the house he has protected, while Thanatos, Death himself, arrives sword in hand to cut the lock of hair that dedicates the victim to the gods below.

Her farewell is one of the most admired scenes in Greek drama. Alcestis does not ask to be mourned; she asks Admetus not to give their children a stepmother. He promises never to remarry, never again to hold a feast in the house, and even to have a statue of her made to hold in his arms. Then she dies.

Euripides does not let Admetus off lightly. At the funeral he accuses his father of cowardice, and the old man turns the charge straight back: it is Admetus who let a young woman die for him. The quarrel is savage, and it lays bare what the myth leaves unspoken — the one who profits from a sacrifice does not come out of it well.

Heracles wrestles Death

At this point Heracles arrives, on his way to Thrace to capture the man-eating mares of Diomedes. Admetus, bound by the laws of hospitality, hides his mourning and lodges him in the guest wing. Heracles eats, drinks and sings until an outraged servant tells him the truth. Ashamed, he runs to the tomb, lies in wait for Thanatos as he comes to drink the blood of the offerings, and wrestles him until he gives Alcestis back.

He returns with a veiled woman, claims he won her as a prize in an athletic contest, and asks Admetus to look after her. Admetus refuses, true to his vow, then gives in; the veil is lifted and he recognises his wife. But Alcestis does not speak: she cannot, Heracles explains, until she has been purified from her consecration to the dead, on the third day. The play ends on that silence.

Versions and sources

• Homer (Iliad 2) knows Alcestis only as the wife of Admetus and mother of Eumelus.
• Aeschylus (Eumenides) alludes to the Fates made drunk by Apollo, proof that the bargain predates Euripides.
• Euripides (Alcestis, 438 BC) fixes the story: the sacrifice, the quarrel with Pheres, Heracles against Thanatos.
• Plato (Symposium 179b-d) holds her up as the supreme example of love unto death and sets her against Orpheus, who tried to enter Hades alive rather than die for his wife: the gods sent Alcestis’ soul back as a reward, but gave Orpheus only a phantom.
• Apollodorus (1.9.15) offers two endings: “Kore sent her back up”, or, as some say, Heracles fought Hades to recover her.
• Pausanias (5.17.9-11) describes the Chest of Cypselus at Olympia, which showed the funeral games of Pelias with Admetus among the competitors.

Legacy

Alcestis has been part of opera since its beginnings: Lully’s Alceste (1674), Handel’s Admeto (1727) and above all Gluck’s Alceste (1767), whose preface became the manifesto of his reform of opera. Rilke wrote a poem on her in the New Poems, and T. S. Eliot transposed the myth into a drawing-room comedy, The Cocktail Party (1949). Every age asks the same question of her story: what is a love worth that accepts another’s sacrifice?

Further reading

For the god of death defeated at her tomb, read Thanatos. For her rescuer, see Heracles and the labours of Heracles, since the expedition to the mares of Diomedes frames the play. For the counter-example Plato sets beside her, read Orpheus and Eurydice. For her father Pelias’ cycle, continue with Jason, Medea and Jason and the Golden Fleece.