Hercules Wrestling with Death (Thanatos) for the Body of Alcestis by Frederic Lord Leighton 1869-1871

"O heart of me, much-enduring heart, O right arm, now indeed must you show what son was born to Zeus by Alcmena, the Tirynthian, daughter of Electryon! For I must save this dead woman, and bring back Alcestis to this house as a grace to Admetus.

I shall watch for Death, the black-robed Lord of the Dead, and I know I shall find him near the tomb, drinking the blood of the sacrifices. If can leap upon him from an ambush, seize him, grasp him in my arms, no power in the world shall tear his bruised sides from me until he has yielded up this woman. If I miss my prey, if he does not come near the bleeding sacrifice, I will go down to Kore and her lord in their sunless dwelling, and I will make my entreaty to them, and I know they will give me Alcestis to bring back to the hands of the host who welcomed me, who did not repulse me from his house, though he was smitten with heavy woe which most nobly he hid from me! Where would be a warmer welcome in Thessaly or in all the dwellings of Hellas?"

-Alcestis, by Euripides

 

Hercules Wrestling with Death (Thanatos) for the Body of Alcestis by Frederic Lord Leighton 1869-1871.

 

Source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hercules_Wrestling_with_Death_for_the_Body_of_Alcestis,_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton,_England,_c._1869-1871,_oil_on_canvas_-_Wadsworth_Atheneum_-_Hartford,_CT_-_DSC05068.jpg

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/322992604498521473/

 

Quote:

http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/alcestis.html