Alcestis or Alceste, was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her life story was told by pseudo-Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca, and a version of her death and return from the dead was also popularized in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis.
Many suitors appeared before King Pelias and tried to woo Alcestis when she came of age to marry. It was declared by her father that she would marry the first man to yoke a lion and a boar to a chariot. The man who would do this, King Admetus, was helped by Apollo, who had been banished from Olympus for one year to serve as a shepherd to Admetus. With Apollo's help, Admetus completed the challenge set by King Pelias, and was allowed to marry Alcestis. But in a sacrifice after the wedding, Admetus forgot to make the required offering to Artemis, therefore when he opened the marriage chamber he found his bed full of coiled snakes. Admetus interpreted it a portent of an early death. Apollo again helped the newlywed king, this time by making the Fates drunk, extracting from them a promise that if anyone would want to die instead of Admetus, they would allow it. And when the day of his death came near, no one volunteered, not even his elderly parents, but Alcestis stepped forth to die in his stead. Shortly after fighting with Thanatos, Heracles rescued Alcestis from the underworld as a token of appreciation for Admetus' hospitality. In some accounts Persephone, 'the Maiden', sent her up again. But when she comes back alive she is mute. She chooses not to speak.
Appearance in other works
Milton's famous sonnet, "Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint", c. 1650, alludes to the myth, with the speaker of the poem dreaming of his dead wife being brought to him "like Alcestis".
Lully wrote an opera, first performed in 1674, based on the story.
In his poem "Past Ruin'd Ilion", English writer and poet Walter Savage Landor wrote the line "Alcestis rises from the shades" as having a double meaning, evoking her rise from Hades while demonstrating the ability of enduring poetry to give her vitality, drawing her into the light from the shadows of historical oblivion.
H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia Greene collaborated on a play called Alcestis.
Thornton Wilder wrote A Life in the Sun based on Euripides' play, later producing an operatic version called The Alcestiad.
The American choreographer Martha Graham created a ballet entitled Alcestis in 1960.
In the animated Disney filmHercules, the background story of the Megara character also alludes to Alcestis. As Hades tells it, Megara sells her soul for her lover, who does not honor the sacrifice and very soon gives his heart to some other girl.
In The Silent Patient, a thriller written by Alex Michaelides, Alcestis plays a prominent role. In the story, Alicia Berenson is an artist who somehow shoots and kills her husband, and before she was tried and convicted, drew an engimatic drawing of Alcestis and refuses or cannot talk. A forensic psychotherapist makes it his goal to join the mental institution that Alicia is committed to, and goes about trying to figure out her story. Twists and turns abound and the book has a final twist that has been hailed by some as being masterful.
