Hypsipyle

The killings on Lemnos

Hypsipyle is the daughter of Thoas, on the island of Lemnos. Her story comes mainly from Apollonius of Rhodes, the poet of the Argonautica, a long poem about the voyage of the Argonauts. Apollodorus, a later writer who retold the Greek myths, gives a shorter version.

Both writers trace the trouble to the goddess Aphrodite. The women of Lemnos neglect her, and she turns their husbands against them. The men take captive women from Thrace into their homes. The women of Lemnos answer by killing all the grown men on the island.

Hypsipyle does not kill Thoas. In Apollonius, she puts him in a chest and sends him out to sea, and fishermen bring him to safety. Apollodorus also names her as the daughter who hid her father.

His survival sets Hypsipyle apart from the other women. But she does not expose them or turn against the new order. She becomes its queen, and her rule rests on a secret.

The Argo arrives

Apollonius begins his fullest account after the killings. Lemnos is watchful and armed. Then a ship appears: the Argo, carrying Jason and his crew, the Argonauts. At first the women fear that enemies from Thrace have come.

Once they know who the visitors are, a second problem arises. Letting them in may give the island a future. But it may also reveal the crime on which the women’s rule now depends.

The women meet in an assembly to debate whether to receive the Argonauts. An older woman, Polyxo, argues that the island cannot go on forever without men. The women agree to invite the newcomers into their houses, and to keep the killings hidden.

As queen, Hypsipyle must now speak for a community bound together by an act she did not fully share.

What Hypsipyle tells Jason

Hypsipyle takes the decision to Jason, and she tells him a story of desertion. She says the men turned against their wives, preferred the captive women from Thrace and in the end left Lemnos with their sons. Her story explains an island ruled only by women without naming the bloodshed behind it.

Then she holds out more than a welcome to Jason. He may stay, take the throne of Thoas and rule the fertile island. Jason accepts the welcome but not the crown. He and the crew enter the city. The voyage pauses while the Argonauts make homes with the women of Lemnos.

Hypsipyle’s conduct is neither simply innocent nor simply deceitful. She saved the father whom the other women expected her to kill. As queen, she also protects those women by telling the agreed lie. Her private choice and her public duty pull different ways, and Apollonius shows both.

Heracles and the departure

The stay lasts until Heracles, who has stayed with the ship, scolds his companions. Their task is to fetch the fleece in Colchis, not to start a new life on Lemnos. His rebuke gets moving again a voyage that the welcome on the island had nearly ended.

Before Jason leaves, Hypsipyle asks him to remember her. She asks what she should do if she bears his child. He tells her that, if he does not return, she should send a son to his parents at Iolcos. Apollodorus later names two sons, Euneus and Nebrophonus, but does not repeat the long farewell.

The departure of the Argo does not settle Hypsipyle’s position. Jason has turned down the kingdom. Thoas is still gone, and only the queen knows that he survived. For the Argonauts, Lemnos is a delay on the way out. For Hypsipyle, their visit shows the harder path in front of her: ruling after a shared act of violence while protecting the one life she refused to take.