Hypermnestra

Hypermnestra, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Hypermnestra (Ὑπερμνήστρα: the much wooed one, or the one wooed by many), in Greek mythology, is the daughter of Danaus and the ancestor of the Danaids.

The Danaid

Hypermnestra was the daughter of Danaus. Danaus was the twin brother of Aegyptus and son of Belus. He had fifty daughters, the Danaides, and Aegyptus had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides and Danaus fled to Argos, ruled by King Pelasgus. When Aegyptus and his sons arrived to take the Danaides, Danaus gave them to spare the Argives the pain of a battle. However, he instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Forty-nine followed through, but one, Hypermnestra refused because her husband, Lynceus,^[1] honored her wish to remain a virgin. Danaus was angry with his disobedient daughter and threw her to the Argive courts. Aphrodite intervened and saved her. Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers. Lynceus and Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaid Dynasty), beginning with Abas. 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 in Greek mythology

In literature and music

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a Legend of Hypermnestra.^[2] Ignaz Holzbauer composed a German opera entitled Hypermnestra with a German libretto by Johann Leopold van Ghelen that was performed in Vienna in 1741.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hypermnestra (mythology).

• City of Lyrceia

References

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.