heracles to admetus

From the play Alcestis, by Euripides:

Heracles
Come here, I will tell you something that will make you wise.
Do you really know what things are like, the way they are?
I don't think so. How could you?
Well, then, listen to me.
Death is an obligation which we all must pay.
There is not one man living who can truly say
If he will be alive or dead on the next day.
Fortune is dark; she moves, but we cannot see the way
Nor can we pin her down by science and study her.
There, I have told you. Now you can understand.
Go on, enjoy yourself, drink, call the life you live today your own,
But only that, the rest belongs to chance.

Alcestis is about a man, Admetus, who has to die young. But, because he is the utmost hospitable host for Apollo, the god allows Admetus to live into old age if he is able to find someone to die in his place. His mother and father say no, even though they are old, but his young wife, Alcestis, is willing to die for him. At first, the play seems to be about Alcestis's dignity and honor, for she is one of the few Greek women who is portrayed in a good light. However, Alcestis dies halfway through the play, and the audience is left with Admetus crying and lamenting her death, only to proclaim, "I wish I were dead!" One should ask -- not how can a wife a die for her husband, but -- what kind of a man would let his wife die for him? The thought that he could die himself never even crosses his mind.

After the above conversation with Admetus, Heracles goes to fight Death. He brings Alcestis back from the dead. The painting above is by Lord Frederic Leighton, and it is called Hercules Wrestling Death for the Body of Alcestis.