Now that it was too late, her husband was broken-hearted at having caused his wife’s death for the sake of what had been but a selfish whim. All he could do for her in return was honor her love and devotion by a splendid funeral, to which people came from far and near to cover her grave with flowers.
Alcestis was buried, and the farewell hymn was being sung, when there thrust his way, rather roughly, through the crowded temple a stranger of mighty build, carrying a club, and clad with a lion’s skin, seemingly the worse for wine. Admetus was too absorbed in his grief to notice this rude intrusion; but some of the bystanders cried shame on the stranger, and one of the priests came in his way, and said sternly—
“Who are you that dare to trouble grief like ours?”
“Who am I? Why, the servant of Eurystheus, King of Argos and Mycenæ. Is this how you receive strangers in your land? I had heard that Admetus of Pheræ is the most generous of kings, and Alcestis the most gracious of queens; and here I find you all like ghosts at a funeral. Where is the king?”
“There stands the king,” said the priest, solemnly. And then he told the stranger the story which many a poet has told since—the story of how strong true love is, and how foolish it is to measure life by the number of its years.
Hercules—for he the stranger was—was sobered in a moment. “It is a shame!” he exclaimed, bringing down his club on the floor. “Fates or no fates, it shall not be! I am bound to Hades on an errand for my own king, and I will not come back unless I do a better one for yours.”
So, leaving them all offended at what they took for a drunken boast, he dropped into the open grave: the people only thinking that he had passed from the temple somewhat suddenly. Hence he followed the passage taken by the queen’s soul till he reached the Styx; and hard work must poor old Charon have had to row across such a weight as Hercules instead of the ghosts to which he was accustomed. On he went, finding his way as best he could without a guide, until, chancing upon the black gate of Tartarus, there growled in the middle of his path the three-headed dog Cerberus, with flashing eyes and flaming jaws.
Orpheus, you remember, had quieted Cerberus with the music of his lute: Hercules, going to work in other fashion, brought down his club upon one of the dog’s skulls in a way that bewildered the other two. Then, seizing the monster by the throat, and in spite of its furious struggles, he fairly dragged it along with him by sheer strength, even into the very presence of Pluto and Proserpine.
“And,” he cried, “god and goddess though you are, I will brain this dog of yours upon the steps of your throne unless you surrender to me the soul of Alcestis, that I may deliver her from death, and lead her back into life again.”
It was an unheard-of thing that a man should thus take Hades by storm, and dictate terms to its king and queen. But for that moment I verily believe that Hercules became more than man—nay, more than Alcestis, because, while she had betaken herself to Elysium for the love of one who was dear to her, he had dared the torments of Tartarus out of pity for strangers and hate of wrong. Nay, I think it was truly this which had made his grip so fast on the dog’s throat, and his club so heavy on the dog’s three skulls; and this that made a mortal stand as their master before even Pluto and Proserpine.