[3] 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.

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.

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

[15] 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.

[16] 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.