Hypermnestra

Hypermnestra (Ancient Greek: Ὑπερμνήστρα, Hypermnēstra), in Greek mythology, is the daughter of Danaus, son of Belus and one of the Danaids.[1]

For other uses, see Hypermnestra (mythology).

Hypermnestra, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Mythology

Hypermnestra's father, Danaus was the twin brother of Aegyptus who demanded the marriage of the Danaids and his 50 sons. But her father Danaus who was unhappy with this kind of arrangement, decided they should flee to Argos where King Pelasgus (Gelanor) ruled. When Aegyptus and his sons arrived to take the Danaides, Danaus gave them to spare the Argives the pain of a battle. However, Danaus instructed Hypermnestra and the other Danaids to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Her forty-nine sisters followed through except her because her husband, Lynceus,[2] honored her wish to remain a virgin. Danaus was angry with this disobedience and threw her to the Argive courts. Aphrodite intervened and saved Hypermnestra. Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers. Together with her husband, Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaid Dynasty), beginning with Abas their son. In some versions of the legend, the Danaides were punished in the underworld by being forced to carry water through a jug with holes, or a sieve, so the water always leaked out. Hypermnestra, however, went straight to Elysium.

Argive genealogy

Argive genealogy in Greek mythology

Inachus Melia Zeus Io Phoroneus Epaphus Memphis Libya Poseidon Belus Achiroë Agenor Telephassa Danaus Pieria Aegyptus Cadmus Cilix Europa Phoenix Mantineus Hypermnestra Lynceus Harmonia Zeus Polydorus Sparta Lacedaemon Ocalea Abas Agave Sarpedon Rhadamanthus Autonoë Eurydice Acrisius Ino Minos Zeus Danaë Semele Zeus Perseus Dionysus

Colour key:      Male      Female      Deity

In literature and music

Ovid wrote a letter from Hypermnestra to Lynceus which appears in his Heroides.[3]

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a Legend of Hypermnestra.[4]

Francesco Cavalli wrote Hipermestra, first performed at Florence on 12 June 1658, as a festa teatrale opera.

Charles-Hubert Gervais composed the opera Hypermnestre, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) on 3 November 1716.

Ignaz Holzbauer composed a German opera entitled Hypermnestra with a German libretto by Johann Leopold van Ghelen that was performed in Vienna in 1741.

Antonio Salieri composed the opera Les Danaïdes with a French libretto by François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet and Louis-Théodore de Tschudi in 1784, premiering in Paris.

See also

• City of Lyrceia

References

1. Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 2.1.5
2. William Smith, Mahmoud Saba (1857). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (volume II). Original from the University of Michigan: Walton and Maberly. p. 231.
3. Ovid, Heroides 14
4. A Curious Error?: Geoffrey Chaucer’s Legend of Hypermnestra, The Chaucer Review, Vol 36, Number 1, 2001, accessed 2 May 2013

Sources

• Ovid, Heroides 14.
• Eusebuis, Chronicon 46.8-12, 47.22-23.
• Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos I.ii.i.
• Lactantius Placidus, Commentarii in Statii Thebaida II.222.