Hypsipyle

[11] Traces of the story can be found in the Iliad (c. 8th century), where Lemnos is referred to as the "city of godlike Thoas",[12] and Euneus, Jason's son by Hypsipyle, is mentioned.

"[14] 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.

[16] The lyric poet Pindar (late 6th century-early 5th century BC) mentions "the race of the Lemnian women, who killed their husbands.

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.

The 1st-century AD Latin poet Valerius Flaccus, in his Argonautica, gives a different reason for Aphrodite (Venus) causing the Lemnian men to reject their wives.

He says it was because of the goddess' anger with her husband, the god Hephaestus (Vulcan)—who had a home on Lemnos—for his having caught her in a tryst with Ares (Mars).

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.

[27] According to the Greek mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD), the women of Lemnos were rejected by their husbands because Aphrodite had caused them to emit a foul odor.

[29] The first adventure (usually) 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.

[39] 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.

[40] 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.

[41] 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.

[48] 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?

"[49] 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", (i.e Vulcan), 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.

[57] As the action of the play begins, Hypsipyle's twin sons by Jason, Euneus and Thoas, arrive seeking shelter for the night.

[65] According to the Second Vatican Mythographer, 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.

[66] The Cyzicene epigrams, the third book of the Palatine Anthology, describes a depiction, on a temple in Cyzicus, of Euneus and Thoas showing Hypsipyle a gold ornament ("the golden vine") as proof of their identities.

[72] As in Euripides, Hypsipyle, who has become the nurse of Lycurgus and Eurydice's son Opheltes, encounters the Seven against Thebes, who are in urgent need of water.

[73] However in Statius' account, Hypsipyle does not take Opheltes with her to the spring, instead, in her haste to provide water for the Seven, she leaves the child behind, lying on the ground, "lest she be too slow a guide".

[76] Meanwhile, with Hypsipyle long delayed at the spring telling her story, and "oblivious (so the gods would have it) of her absent charge", Opheltes has fallen asleep in the grass,[77] and though unnoticed, he is killed by an unwitting swish of the tail of the enormous serpent who guards Zeus' sacred grove.