Hypsipyle
In Greek mythology, Hypsipyle was a queen of Lemnos, and the daughter of King Thoas of Lemnos, and the granddaughter of Dionysus and Ariadne. When the women of Lemnos killed all the males on the island, Hypsipyle saved her father Thoas. She ruled Lemnos when the Argonauts visited the island, and had two sons by Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. Later the women of Lemnos discovered that Thoas had been saved by Hypsipyle and she was sold as a slave to Lycurgus, the king of Nemea, where she became the nurse of the king's infant son Opheltes, who was killed by a serpent while in her care. She is eventually freed from her servitude by her sons.
Family
Hypsipyle's father was Thoas, who was the son of Dionysus and Ariadne. According to the Iliad, Hypsipyle was the mother, by Jason, of Euneus. Later sources say that Hypsipyle had, in addition to Euneus, a second son by Jason. In Euripides' partially preserved play Hypsipyle, she and Jason had twin sons: Euneus and Thoas. According to Apollodorus, the second son was Nebrophonus, while according to Hyginus, the second son was Deipylus, Ovid says simply that Hypsipyle bore Jason twins, without naming them.The Lemnian crime and the rescue of Thoas
The women of Lemnos killed all the males on the island, except for Thoas, who was saved by Hypsipyle. Traces of the story can be found in the Iliad, where Lemnos is referred to as the "city of godlike Thoas", and Euneus, Jason's son by Hypsipyle, is mentioned. As early as Aeschylus the story was famous: "the Lemnian holds first place among evils in story: it has long been told with groans as an abominable calamity. Men compare each new horror to Lemnian troubles." And by the time of the mid-5th-century BC historian Herodotus, the story had given rise to the proverbial phrase "Lemnian crime" used to mean any cruel deed. Aeschylus probably dealt with it in his' lost tragedies Hypsipyle and Lemniai. The lyric poet Pindar mentions "the race of the Lemnian women, who killed their husbands."''Hypsipyle''
There is a brief mention of the story in Euripides' partially preserved play Hypsipyle, in an exchange between Hypsipyle and her son Euneus:Apollonius of Rhodes' ''Argonautica''
The earliest extant telling of the story in detail occurs in the 3rd-century BC Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes. According to this account, the women of Lemnos had long neglected the worship of Aphrodite, and because of this the goddess caused their husbands to spurn them in favor of captive Thracian women. In revenge, the women massacred all the males on the island, except for the "aged" Thoas, whom Hypsipyle put into a "hollow chest," setting him adrift on the open sea. Fishermen pulled him ashore on the island of Sicinus. The Lemnian women took over all the previous work of the men, cattle-herding, plowing, and warfare.Valerius Flaccus' ''Argonautica''
The 1st-century AD Latin poet Valerius Flaccus, in his Argonautica, gives a different reason for Aphrodite causing the Lemnian men to reject their wives. He says it was because of the goddess' anger with her husband, the god Hephaestus —who had a home on Lemnos—for his having caught her in a tryst with Ares. He also gives a more detailed account of Thoas' rescue and escape. During the night of the massacre, Hypsipyle woke Thoas, covered his head, and took him to Dionysus' temple where she hid him. The next morning, Hypsipyle disguised Thoas as the temples' cult statue of Dionysus, placed him on the ritual chariot. She then took Thoas through the streets of the city, crying aloud that the god's statue had been polluted by the night's bloody murders, and needed to be cleansed in the sea. By this subterfuge, and with the god Dionysus' help, Thoas was safely hid outside the city. But fearing discovery, Hypsipyle finds an old abandoned boat, in which Thoas put to sea, eventually reaching the land of the Taurians, where "Diana put a sword in his hand, and didst appoint him warden of thy cheerless altar". And the women of Lemnos bestow on Hypsipyle "the throne and sceptre of her father as by right".Other accounts
Other accounts tell similar stories, with variations. According to the 1st-century AD Latin poet Statius, Hypsipyle hid Thoas on a ship, while according to the late 1st-century BC Latin mythographer Hyginus, who identifies Thoas with the Thoas who was the Taurian king, Hypsipyle put Thoas onto a ship which a storm carried to the "island Taurica".According to the Greek mythographer Apollodorus, the women of Lemnos were rejected by their husbands because Aphrodite had caused them to emit a foul odor. Apollodorus also gives a different ending to the story: while Thoas was saved when Hypsipyle hid him, when, sometime later, the Lemnian women discovered that Thoas had escaped the initial slaughter, they killed Thoas, and sold Hypsipyle into slavery.
Affair with Jason
The first adventure of Jason and the Argonauts, on their quest for the Golden Fleece, is their visit to the island of Lemnos, where Hypsipyle was then queen. The story seems at least as old as the Iliad, since Euneus is said to be a son of Jason and Hypsipyle, and was dealt with in Aeschylus' lost tragedies Hypsipyle and Lemniai, although the only surviving detail is that the Lemnian women "in arms" refused to allow the Argonauts to land until they agreed to mate with them. Pindar refers to the visit, mentioning the Argonauts engaging in athletic contests, receiving garments made by the Lemnian women as prizes, and sharing the women's beds. In Sophocles' lost play Lemniai, there was apparently a battle between the Argonauts and the Lemnian women. The story also played a part in Euripides' partially preserved play Hypsipyle, where Hypsipyle is reunited with her twin sons by Jason, Euneus and Thoas, and learns, to her sorrow, of Jason's death.Apollonius of Rhodes' ''Argonautica''
The first complete account of the Argonauts encounter with Hypsipyle on Lemnos is given in Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica. According to Apollonius of Rhodes' version of the story, when the Argonauts first arrive, Hypsipyle and the women, fearing that the Argonauts' were Thracians coming to attack them, put on armour and rush to the beach, to defend their island. However the Argonauts herald Aethalides was able to persuade Hypsipyle to allow the Argonauts to stay for one night on the island.The next day, sitting on her father's throne, Hypsipyle spoke to the assembled women of the Island:
However, Hypsipyle's old nurse Polyxo said that, rather than live in continual fear of attack, they should take the Argonauts as their mates and protectors. All the women agreed to this plan, and so Hypsipyle received the Argonauts as welcome guests.
Hypsipyle told Jason the Lemnian women's story, saying that because of Aphrodite, the men of Lemnos had come to hate their wives, expelling them from their homes, and replacing them with Thracian girls captured on their frequent raids on nearby Thrace. Finally, after enduring terrible hardship, the women found the courage to take action. But Hypsipyle did not tell of the massacre, instead she deceived Jason, saying that one day when the men were returning from a raid, the women refused to allow the men to reenter the city, so the men took their sons and resettled in Thrace. Hypsipyle then asked Jason and his men to stay and take up residence on the island.
So the Argonauts stayed for a while on the island, residing with the women in their homes, including Jason, who lived with Hypsipyle in her palace. But finally, at the urging of Heracles, who had remained apart, the Argonauts agreed to leave the women, and continue their quest for the Golden Fleece.
Hypsipyle told Jason that "her father's scepter will be waiting" for him should he return to the island, but that she does not think that he will, and asked him to promise to remember her always, and to tell her what she should do with any children of his she might bear. And Jason told her to send any son, when grown, to Jason's parents in Iolcus. Jason took with him a "sacred purple robe", given to him by Hypsipyle, which had been made by the Graces for Dionysus, who gave it to his son Thoas, who in turn gave it to Hypsipyle.
Later accounts
The Roman poets Ovid, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius, all wrote about the affair of Hypsipyle and Jason. Their accounts are all similar to that of Apollonius of Rhodes, with a few variations and additional details.In his Heroides 6, Ovid has Hypsipyle, in an angry letter, rebuke Jason for having forsaken her for Medea, who she says "intrudes upon my marriage-bed". She says that Jason spent two years on Lemnos, and that, although he promised her "thine own will I ever be", and told her of his hope to share in the parenting of their offspring then in her womb, she now knows that Jason has taken up with Medea, and calls all these words of Jason "lies".
In his Argonautica, Valerius Flaccus, when the Argonauts are making ready to leave Lemnos, has a "weeping" Hypsipyle say to Jason: "So quickly, at the first clear sky, dost thou resolve to unfurl thy sails, O dearer to me than mine own father?... Is it then to the sky and to the waves that hindered thy course that we owed thy tarrying?" She then gives Jason a "tunic of woven handiwork", and her father's sword "with its renowned emblem", "the flaming gift of Aetna's god",, asking him to "forget not the land that first folded you to its peaceful bosom; and from Colchis' conquered shores bring back hither thy sails, I pray thee, by this Jason whom thou leavest in my womb."
Statius in his Thebaid has Hypsipyle say that her union with Jason "was not by my will", calling Jason her "ungentle guest", and her twin offspring by Jason, "memorials of a forced bed". She describes Jason as a "brute... uncaring for his children and pledged word!".