817. Mors et Matrona. Matrona quaedam admodum pudica et viri amantissima, aegre ferebat maritum adversa valetudine detineri. Lamentabatur, ingemiscebat et ut suum in virum amorem testaretur, rogabat Mortem, ut si maritum sibi esset ereptura, se potius quam illum vellet occidere. Inter haec verba Mortem cernit horribili aspectu venientem, cuius timore perterrita et iam sui voti paenitens, “Non sum ego,” inquit, “quem petis; iacet ibi in lecto, quem occisura venisti.”
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M0817 (not in Perry). Source: Abstemius 60. This fable is not in Perry’s catalog; Perry omitted most of Abstemius’s fables. This woman is just the opposite of Alcestis, the Greek mythological heroine who was truly willing to go to the land of the dead in place of her husband, Admetus.
