The New Student's Reference Work/Alcestis

Alcestis (al-ses' tēs). In classic mythology, the daughter of Pelias and wife of Admetus, king of Thessaly. She is said to have sacrificed herself that her husband's life, then in danger, might be spared, as Apollo had promised her. She was brought back from Hades by Hercules. The story of her wifely devotion is the theme of a tragedy, or rather of a melodrama, by Euripides.