''Hypsipyle'' () is a partially preserved

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

, about the legend of queen

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 r ...

Lemnos Lemnos ( ) or Limnos ( ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos (regional unit), Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean modern regions of Greece ...

, daughter of King Thoas. It was one of his last and most elaborate plays. It was performed c. 411–407, along with ''

The Phoenician Women ''The Phoenician Women'' (, ''Phoinissai'') is a tragedy by Euripides, based on the same story as Aeschylus' play ''Seven Against Thebes''. It was presented along with the tragedies '' Hypsipyle'' and '' Antiope.'' With this trilogy, Euripides wo ...

'' which survives in full, and the lost ''Antiope''. Originally only known from a few fragments, knowledge of the play was greatly expanded with the discovery of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 852 in 1905, and its publication by Grenfell and Hunt in 1908. Of his lost plays, it is the one with the most extensive fragments. The prologue referenced

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

leading a dance along

Mount Parnassus Mount Parnassus (; , ''Parnassós'') is a mountain range of central Greece that is, and historically has been, especially valuable to the Greek nation and the earlier Greek city-states for many reasons. In peace, it offers scenic views of the c ...

Plot

The heroine of Euripides' play is

, the former queen of

, and lover of

Jason Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece is featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Med ...

. When the women of

killed all the men on the island, Hypsipyle had refused to kill her father Thoas, the king, and instead secretly helped him flee the island. She ruled Lemnos when Jason and the

Argonauts The Argonauts ( ; ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', named after it ...

visited the island, and she had, by Jason, twin sons Thoas and Euneus. Later, when the Lemnian women discovered Hypsipyle's deception, she fled the island, but was captured by pirates, and sold as a slave to Lycurgus, the priest of Zeus at

Nemea Nemea (; ; ) is an ancient site in the northeastern part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. Formerly part of the territory of Cleonae (Argolis), Cleonae in ancient Argolis, it is today situated in the regional units of Greece, regional unit of Corin ...

. Hypsipyle has come to be the nursemaid of

Opheltes In Greek mythology, Opheltes (Ancient Greek: Ὀφέλτης), also called Archemorus (Αρχέμορος, Beginning of Doom), was a son of Lycurgus (of Nemea), Lycurgus of Nemea. His mother is variously given as Eurydice (Greek myth), Eurydice, ...

, the infant son of Lycurgus, and his wife Eurydice. As the action of the play begins, Hypsipyle's twin sons by Jason, Euneus and Thoas, arrive seeking shelter for the night. The sons have been separated from Hypsipyle since infancy, so neither recognizes the other. When Jason left Lemnos he had taken his sons to

Colchis In classical antiquity and Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the ...

. After he died, Jason's fellow argonaut

Orpheus In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in se ...

took the boys to

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

, where he raised them. They eventually met Hypsipyles' father Thoas, who took them back to Lemnos. From there they embarked on a search for their mother. The Seven against Thebes have also just arrived and encounter Hypsipyle. Amphiaraus tells Hypsipyle that they need water for a sacrifice, and she leads the Seven to a spring. Hypsipyle brings Opheltes with her, and somehow, in a moment of neglect, Opheltes is killed by a serpent. The child's mother Eurydice is about to have Hypsipyle put to death, when Amphiaraus arrives and Hypsipyle pleads with him to speak in her defense. Amphiaraus tells Eurydice that the child's death was destined, proposes that funeral games be held in Opheltes' honor, and is able to convince Eurydice to spare Hypsipyle's life. Funeral games are held, and Hypsypyle's sons participate, as a result of which, a recognition and reunion between Hypsipyle and her sons is effected, who then manage to free Hypsipyle from her servitude. The surviving fragments of Euripides' play do not make it clear how the recognition between Hypsipyle and her sons was brought about, but two later accounts may have been based on the play. According to the

Second Vatican Mythographer The so-called Vatican Mythographers () are the anonymous authors of three Latin mythographical texts found together in a single medieval manuscript, Vatican Reg. lat. 1401. The name is that used by Angelo Mai when he published the first edition o ...

, after the sons won the foot-race, at the funeral games, their names and parents were announced, and in this way their identities were revealed. The

Cyzicene epigrams The Cyzicene epigrams are a collection of nineteen numbered Greek epigrams, each accompanied by a short prose preamble, which, together with a one-sentence introduction, constitute the third and shortest book of the ''Palatine Anthology''. The epigr ...

, the third book of the ''

Palatine Anthology The ''Palatine Anthology'' (or ''Anthologia Palatina''), sometimes abbreviated ''AP'', is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantine Keph ...

'', describes a depiction, on a temple in

Cyzicus Cyzicus ( ; ; ) was an ancient Greek town in Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peninsula (the classical Arctonnesus), a tombolo which is said to have or ...

, of Euneus and Thoas showing Hypsipyle a gold ornament ("the golden vine") as proof of their identities.''

Greek Anthology The ''Greek Anthology'' () is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical Greece, Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Palatine ...

'
3.10
[= ''

'' 3.10 = Euripides ''Hypsipyle'
test. iv
. Compare with

''Hypsipyle'
fr. 759a.110
where Euneus mentions a "wine-dark grape-bunch".

Notes

References

* Bravo, Jorge J., III, ''Excavations at Nemea IV: The Shrine of Opheltes'', Univ of California Press, 2018. . * Collard, Christopher and Martin Cropp, ''Euripides Fragments: Oedipus-Chrysippus: Other Fragments'',

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 506. Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

, 2008.
Online version at Harvard University Press
* Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). * Grenfell, B. P.. and Hunt, A. S., ''P. Oxy VI 852'', London, 1908. * Paton, W. R. (ed.), ''Greek Anthology, Volume I: Book 1: Christian Epigrams, Book 2: Description of the Statues in the Gymnasium of Zeuxippus, Book 3: Epigrams in the Temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus, Book 4: Prefaces to the Various Anthologies, Book 5: Erotic Epigrams'', translated by W. R. Paton. Revised by Michael A. Tueller,

No. 67, Cambridge, Massachusetts,

, 2014.
Online version at Harvard University Press
* Pepin, Ronald E., ''The Vatican Mythographers'', Fordham University Press, 2008. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Hypsipyle Plays by Euripides Plays set in ancient Greece Lost plays Nemea Plays based on classical mythology