COMMENTARY ON HEROlDES 14 HYPERMESTRA TO L YNCEUS
Synopsis qf the myth
Danaus and Aegyptus, sons of Belus and descendants of 10, father respectively fifty daughters and fifty sons. A quarrelover the king• ship of Egypt breaks out between the brothers, which, according to a fragment from the lost epic Danais, escalates into full-blown war• fare. When Aegyptus seeks to marry his sons to Danaus' daughters, Danaus is sensibly suspicious: Aegyptus wishes to prevent Danaus from marrying his daughters to another's sons and thus forming an alliance against hirn (Servius); in Hyginus' version, the intended mar• riage is a ruse to encompass the murder of Danaus and his family; and, according to the scholiast on Aeschylus' Prometheus, an orade has warned Danaus to be wary of his nephews. Danaus flees Egypt with Minerva's help, sailing in the first pen• tekonter, apparently with his daughters as oarswomen: the scholiast on Aeschylus' Prometheus draws attention to the correspondance between the number of oars and the number of Danaids, 'the famous fifty• oarer, to suit his fifty daughters'. Mter a short stop at Rhodes to dedicate an image to Minerva (pseudo-Apollodorus), Danaus and his daughters arrive at Argos, dosely pursued by the sons of Aegyptus, who are intent on murdering their unde; the sources disagree over whether or not Aegyptus accompanies his sons. In some versions, Danaus becomes king of Argos; and pseudo-Apollodorus and Hesiod describe how the Danaids discover springs in that previously un• watered land. Fighting breaks out between the two ho stile parties. The Danaids' attempts to secure sanctuary and assistance from the native king Pelasgus is the subject of Aeschylus' extant play Supplices. Eventually, Danaus agrees to marry his daughters to their cousins, but he has a grim ulterior motive. Arming his daughters with daggers on their wedding-day, he commands them to murder their grooms before the following morning. Forty nine daughters obey: Hyginus lists the murderers and their respective victims. Only Hypermestra spares her husband: her motives vary from version to version, and indude fear, love, and gratitude for her spared virginity. Lynceus HYPERMESTRA TO L YNCEUS 211 ftees from the brida1 chamber, and 1ights a beacon to show to Hypermestra that he is safe (Pausanias 2.25.4). Danaus discovers Hypermestra's disobedience, and incarcerates her: it is at this point in the myth that Ovid's Hypermestra writes the epistle to Lynceus. She faces trial; but the Argives acquit her, and condemn the mur• derous Danaids instead. Lynceus appears to have been temporarily captured by Danaus in Theodectes' lost play Lynceus; but elsewhere he may have had a role in his wife's acquittal, and insome versions he returns as a murderous avenger, slaughtering Danaus and/or his forty nine obedient daughters. A happy ending ensues for Hypermestra and Lynceus, whose son Abas founds a dynasty in Argos. The mythological tradition divides over the fate of the Danaids: death at the hands of Lynceus and an eternity filling leaky jars in the underworld; or purification and mar• riage to new grooms, who, in some accounts, are persuaded to marry murderesses by a new act of cunning by the ever-inventive Danaus: 'As nobody was willing to take a wife from among them because of the pollution, Danaus sent word that he would give them away with• out bride-gifts, and that each groom could choose whichever one pleased hirn for her beauty. Among the few suitors that came, Danaus held a running-race: the winner could choose before the others, and after hirn the second, and then so on until the last. The daughters that were left had to await the arrival of more suitors, and another foot-race' (Pausanias 3.12.2).
Sources
Adespota TrCF 454 Aeschylus Danaides TrCF 43-6, Prometheus Bound 853ff. and the scholiast there, Supplices Danais fr. (see Johansen-Whittle (1980) 44) Euripides Archelaus fr. 228 Nauck, Hecuba 886 and the scholiast there, Hercules Furens 1016, Orestes 871-3 and the scholiast there, Uncertain P1ay fr. 846 Nauck Eustathius on Homer Iliad 1.42, 4.171 Hesiod Inachi Progenies fr. 127-8 Horace Carmina 3.11 Hyginus Fabulae 168, 170, 273 Lucretius 3.1003-10 Nonnus Dionysiaca 3.300ff. Ovid Amores 2.2.4, Ars Amatoria 1.74, Ibis 177, 356, Metamorphoses 4.462-3, 10.43-4, Tristia 3.1.61-2