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Hypermnestra and her sisters on their wedding night, drawn for a German translation by Heinrich Steinhöwel (1412-1482) of De Mulieribus Claris by Florentine writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), and printed by Johannes Zainer (?-?1541) at Ulm in about 1474. Hypermnestra and Lynceus (Linus) are at the righthand edge. In his Heroides XIV, Roman poet Ovid included a passionate and conflicted letter such as Hypermnestra might have written from gaol to Lynceus, the husband she had helped to escape in defiance of her father.
Introduction
The fifty daughters of Danaus, a mythical ruler dwelling on the banks of the River Nile, are chiefly remembered for murdering all but one of their fifty husbands on their wedding night, and for the hopeless doom to which the stern rulers of Hades put them. And yet what mortal, knowing the girls’ whole story, could not feel pity for them?
THE Danaides were the fifty daughters of Danaus, who lived beside the Nile. As it happened, his brother Aegyptus had fifty sons, and Aegyptus suggested rather strongly that the cousins should marry. The idea dismayed the girls, and they fled with their father to Argos,* where they were received kindly; and when the sons of Aegyptus came to claim their brides, the brave men of Argos defied them. But their defiance was in vain. The sons of Aegyptus besieged Argos, and cut off its water-supply. To spare the citizens, Danaus capitulated, and the hated marriage went ahead.
Although the wedding feast was awkward, to most eyes Danaus carried out his parental duties scrupulously; but he also brought his daughters fifty unusual wedding gifts, in the form of fifty concealed daggers. That same night, forty-nine brides each slew the drunken intruder in her bed. Hypermnestra alone felt pity: thrice she brought her knife to the neck of Lynceus, the husband who had fallen to her lot, but then she smuggled him to safety.* Her disobedience made Danaus so angry that he dragged her to gaol by her hair, and demanded that King Pelasgus put her to death; but the good people of Argos forbade it.
* Pronounced (by English speakers) da-NAY-ee-deez. The name is derived from their father Danaus, pronounced DA-nay-us. Homer, in his tale of the Trojan War, frequently refers to the Greeks as Danaans, i.e. people of Danaus’s clan.
* Argos is an ancient city in the Peloponnese, Greece’s southern mainland. It stands at the head of the Argolic Gulf, about 24 miles southwest of Corinth. Another name for the Greeks used by Homer was Argives, i.e. people from Argos.
* So imagined Ovid in his Heroides XIV, writing as if from Hypermnestra in her prison cell to her husband Lynceus (pronounced LINS-yoos). As some tell the tale, Lynceus was spared because he alone had not violated his allotted bride on that wedding night — inviting us to reflect on how this small addition changes the credit and blame attached to each of the players in the drama.
Précis
After Danaus’s fifty daughters refused to marry their fifty cousins, he took them to Argos for safety. However, their cousins followed them, and besieged them into submission. At the wedding feast, Danaus supplied each of his daughters with a knife, and that night they slew their domineering husbands - all except Hypermnestra, who helped her Lynceum to get away. (58 / 60 words)
After Danaus’s fifty daughters refused to marry their fifty cousins, he took them to Argos for safety. However, their cousins followed them, and besieged them into submission. At the wedding feast, Danaus supplied each of his daughters with a knife, and that night they slew their domineering husbands - all except Hypermnestra, who helped her Lynceum to get away.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, if, just, or, otherwise, ought, since, until.
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