Hypermestra

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Hypermestra writes to Lynkeus (illustration on the Heroides of Ovid )

Hypermestra ( Greek  Ὑπερμήστρα ; also Ὑπερμνήστρα Hypermnestra ) was one of the 50 Danaids in Greek mythology , the eldest daughter of King Danaos of Argos with Elephantis .

myth

She was the only one of them to kill her husband and cousin Lynkeus - one of the 50 sons of Aegyptus - not on the wedding night as ordered by her father , but enabled him to escape, either because she had fallen in love with him or because he was hers Had spared virginity.

Because of her disobedience, Hypermestra is imprisoned and charged by Danaos. Tied in this situation, in prison and in chains, Hypermestra writes one of the fictitious letters in the Heroides of Ovid at her groom Lynkeus in which she describes the events of the night in dramatic form and their fate complained.

She is brought to trial in Argos , but acquitted through Aphrodite's intercession. It is possible that this trial was the subject of a lost tragedy for Aeschylus. In gratitude, Hypermestra consecrated Aphrodite Nikephoros , the "victorious Aphrodite ", a statue in the temple of Apollon and donated a sanctuary to Artemis Peitho , the "eloquent Artemis ".

In another version, Lynkeus killed the Danaos and the murderous sisters of Hypermestra. Through him, Hypermestra became the mother of Abas and thus the ancestor of a number of heroes , such as Perseus and Heracles .

Horace treats the story of Dana's daughters in a poem and praises Hypermestra for not betraying her love, but rather breaking the oath to her father, with the oxymoron splendide mendax ( admirably hypocritical ).

Hypermestra and Lynkeus were worshiped as heroes in a common sanctuary in Argos . Her grave was not far from the altar of Zeus Phyxius. In Delphi , statues of the two donated by the Argives were placed in a temple.

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literature

  • Gratia Berger-Doer:  Hypermestra . In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). Volume V, Zurich / Munich 1990, pp. 588-590.
  • Robert W. Carrubba: Hypermestra's Speech in Horace, Odes 3.11.37-52. In: The Classical Journal , Vol. 84, No. 2 (Dec., 1988 - Jan., 1989), pp. 113-116
  • Laurel Fulkerson: Chain (ed) mail: Hypermestra and the dual readership of Heroides 14. In: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 133 (2003), pp. 123-145
  • Siegfried Jäkel: The 14th Heroid Letter of Ovid and the Danaid Trilogy of Aeschylus. In: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 26, Fasc. 3 (1973), pp. 239-248
  • Hans B. Jessen: Hypermestra. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IX, 1, Stuttgart 1914, Col. 289-292.
  • Katharina Waldner: Hypermestra 1. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 5, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01475-4 , column 806 f.
  • V. Vaiopoulos: Hypermestra as seen by Ovid in Epist. 14. In: Eikasmos. Quaderni Bolognesi di filologia classica, Vol. 20 (2009), pp. 199-222

Web links

Commons : Hypermestra  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aeschylus Prometheus 865-868
  2. ↑ Apollodorus 2,1,5
  3. ↑ Pausanias 2,20,7
  4. ↑ Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta III fr. 43-46
  5. ↑ Pausanias 2,19,6
  6. ↑ Pausanias 2,21,1
  7. ↑ Pausanias 2,16,1f
  8. ^ Maurus Servius Honoratius Commentarius in Virgilii Aeneida 10.497
  9. ↑ Scholion to Euripides Hecuba 869
  10. ↑ Pausanias 10,10,5
  11. ↑ carmina 3:11
  12. ↑ Verse 35
  13. ↑ Hyginus Fabulae 168. Pausanias 2,21,2
  14. ↑ Pausanias 10:10, 2