Hypermnestra

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For other uses, see Hypermnestra (mythology).
Hypermnestra, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Hypermnestra (Ancient Greek: Ὑπερμνήστρα, Hypermnēstra), in Greek mythology, was a Libyan princess as one of the 50 Danaids the daughter of King Danaus, son of King Belus of Egypt. Her mother was Elephantis and full sister to Gorgophone.[1]

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. Hypermnestra and Lynceus' son, Abas, would be the first king of the Danaid Dynasty. 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
  • v
  • t
InachusMelia
ZeusIoPhoroneus
EpaphusMemphis
LibyaPoseidon
BelusAchiroëAgenorTelephassa
DanausElephantisAegyptusCadmusCilixEuropaPhoenix
MantineusHypermnestraLynceusHarmoniaZeus
Polydorus
SpartaLacedaemonOcaleaAbasAgaveSarpedonRhadamanthus
Autonoë
EurydiceAcrisiusInoMinos
ZeusDanaëSemeleZeus
PerseusDionysus
Colour key:

  Male
  Female
  Deity


Cultural depictions[]

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

Notes[]

  1. ^ Apollodorus, 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

References[]

  • 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.
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