Just at this time Hercules arrived at the palace of Admetus, and found all the inmates in great distress for the impending loss of the devoted wife and beloved mistress. Hercules, to whom no labor was too arduous, resolved to attempt her rescue. He went and lay in wait at the door of the chamber of the dying queen, and when Death came for his prey, he seized him and forced him to resign his victim. Alcestis recovered, and was restored to her husband.
Milton alludes to the story of Alcestis in his Sonnet “on his deceased wife”:
“Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.”
J. R. Lowell has chosen the “Shepherd of King Admetus” for the subject of a short poem. He makes that event the first introduction of poetry to men.
“Men called him but a shiftless youth, In whom no good they saw, And yet unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law.
“And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother was a god.”
A large proportion both of the interesting persons and of the exalted acts of legendary Greece belongs to the female sex. Antigone was as bright an example of filial and sisterly fidelity as was Alcestis of connubial devotion. She was the daughter of Œdipus and Jocasta, who with all their descendants were the victims of an unrelenting fate, dooming them to destruction. Œdipus in his madness had torn out his eyes, and was driven forth from his kingdom Thebes, dreaded and abandoned by all men, as an object of divine vengeance. Antigone, his daughter, alone shared his wanderings and remained with him till he died, and then returned to Thebes.
Her brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had agreed to share the kingdom between them, and reign alternately year by year. The first year fell to the lot of Eteocles, who, when his time expired, refused to surrender the kingdom to his brother. Polynices fled to Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him with an army to enforce his claim to the kingdom. This led to the celebrated expedition of the “Seven against Thebes,” which furnished ample materials for the epic and tragic poets of Greece.