1. Prologue (Hypsipyle's opening lines)

One must begin at the beginning and ask, where in the world is the Euripidean Hypsipyle? From the first words that come out of her mouth, Euripides teases his audience about her identity and her concerns:

The compact sequence of images in these opening lines gives no clear indication of the identity of the old woman who is speaking. Instead, it is Dionysus’ name that begins the play. Of course, it is not unusual for the speaker of a Euripidean prologue to begin with a god's name, lead into a genealogy, and only gradually reveal his or her identity.Footnote ⁹ But although it is conventional, Euripides’ choice of words is deliberate and unique to each dramatic situation. Hypsipyle evokes the god in terms that are immediately familiar to Athenians who understood his cult practices; yet these same terms are exotic because of their cult-specific dress and movement. Dionysus is ἐν πɛύκῃσι (‘among the pine-torches’, fr. 752.2), which implies movement, since for proper use, torches must be lifted. Because torches provide light, a time of day for worship is also suggested: the night-time. Even a time of year can be inferred, for Dionysus Παρνασσὸν κάτα πηδᾷ (‘leaps across Parnassus’, fr. 752.2–3), specifically Mt. Parnassus where tradition held that he spent the winter months overseeing the Delphic oracle that was ordinarily the domain of his half-brother, Apollo. Altogether, the words evoke a mountainous location (Parnassus and Delphi) that is far away and the opposite topography of the play's actual setting (the plains of Nemea) and an activity (dancing) with people (Delphian maidens, the Thyiads) at a time of day (night-time) and season (winter) that are altogether the inverse of what is happening in the play, in which an old woman stands alone before the door of a priest's house in the day-time and, as the audience will soon learn, is baby-sitting and scarcely in the mood to dance. In a moment, an army will come marching through empty fields in search of water, and a military campaign is an activity for the summer, not the winter. Thus, this play's first three lines depict an other-world, an other-place, suggesting the possibility that the speaker of the prologue has a habit of invoking other-worlds and other-places.

Tantalisingly, it is not precisely known when the prologue speaker identifies herself as Hypsipyle, the former princess of Lemnos. This is because the rest of Hypsipyle's prologue survives only in fragments from two papyri. What remains of P.Hamb 118b (fr. 752a) are line-beginnings that are presumed to follow soon after the three opening lines. Some proper names can be presumed: perhaps Staphylos in line 1 of the papyrus, Peparēthos in line 2, Hera in line 5, Dionysus in line 6, Dionysus again in line 7, Chios in line 8, and finally—at line 10—Lemnos in the accusative (Λῆμνον). Cropp suggests that Staphylos (the personification of the grape-bunch) and Peparēthos are introduced as sons of Dionysus, that a third son is granted lordship over the island of Chios, and that the fourth son Thoas is given the island of Lemnos.Footnote ¹⁰ If so, then Hypsipyle has spent a good ten lines explaining the genealogy of her grandfather Dionysus and the various lands given to her uncles and her father, Thoas, building up to introducing herself. Such a litany of royal genealogy and Aegean islands introduces an important theme: it will be revealed that she is now a slave in exile in land-locked Nemea, and the other-places of her family's history (Delphi, Chios, and especially her native Lemnos) are part of distant and happier life gone by.

All that survives of the remainder of Hypsipyle's prologue speech are the ends of a few iambic trimeters in P.Oxy. 852, col. 2 (fr. 752b), which Cropp notes accord to ~ lines 90–120.Footnote ¹¹ Words like [ἀπ]όπτολιν (‘away from home’, line 1), τύχαις (‘misfortunes’, 2), φάος (‘light’, 6), ζυγῷ (‘yoke’, 7), and [Συμ]πληγάδων (5) are preserved. It is this last that stands out: the Symplegades, the mythical ‘Clashing Rocks’ through which Jason's ship Argo had to pass in order to reach Colchis and retrieve the Golden Fleece. In order to evaluate its significance, readers of these fragments must jump ahead to the play's end and reconstruct the lost beginning. The well-preserved recognition scene (fr. 759a.1591–632) where the mother is reunited with her long-lost sons reveals a particular sequence of events twenty-odd years in the past, after Hypsipyle gave birth to Jason's twins during the Argonauts’ visit on Lemnos. Euneus (indicating his twin brother Thoas) explains: Ἀργώ μɛ καὶ τόνδ᾿ ἤγαγ᾿ ɛἰς Κόλχων πόλιν (‘The Argo brought me and him to the Colchians’ city’, fr. 759a.1614), and Hypsipyle replies in song: ‘Yes, weaned from my breasts’ (fr. 759a.1615). This was the last time that Hypsipyle saw her sons alive, and it was Jason who took them with him on his mission to fetch the Golden Fleece. Thus, the Argonauts’ sojourn on Lemnos occurred before their arrival in Colchis and must have lasted a good two years for Jason's sons to be born and reach the age to be weaned. Since Hypsipyle relives for her sons’ benefit her memories of the night of the Lemnian massacre when she spared her father's grey head, and the sons indicate no knowledge of it (fr. 759a.1591–600), the Lemnian massacre would have occurred after the Argonauts departed Lemnos. Whether there were any Lemnian men on the island during Jason's visit is not stated, but one presumes a version of the myth whereby the Lemnian men were all absent, returned after the Argonauts’ departure, and were then killed en masse.

Hypsipyle also recalls her abduction by pirates on the Lemnian shore and sale into slavery at Nauplion (fr. 759a.1601–8), the harbour of the Argolid, close to both Argos and Nemea. It is impossible to know precisely which aspects (if any) of her past life she might have omitted in her prologue but revealed only in the recognition scene, and vice versa. But if it is a fair supposition about the prologue that she catalogued her past exploits, one must ask, how does Hypsipyle know about the Symplegades? They were traditionally located at the Bosphorus, the strait between Europe and Asia, leading into the Black Sea. The Symplegades were between Lemnos and Colchis. Euneus reveals at the end of the play that Jason took Hypsipyle's sons with him to Colchis, and Hypsipyle never saw them again, so it is unlikely that Jason visited Lemnos on his way back to Greece.

Euripides’ well-known practice of revising myths, or at least highlighting that he has chosen one mythical tradition over another, displays itself in something as simple as a fragmentary [Συμ]πληγάδων. In the version of the myth adopted by Pindar in Olympian 4.19–27 and Pythian 4.252–58 (both composed about fifty years before Hypsipyle), the Argonauts come to Lemnos on their return voyage. Pythian 4 (dated confidently to 462 BCE) is explicit that Jason steals Medea, and then the Argonauts come to Lemnos (where the menfolk have already been murdered) and repopulate the island. In both Olympian 4 and Pythian 4, the Argonauts hold athletic games. In Pythian 4 Hypsipyle herself grants the prize to the winner of these games, which are apparently funeral games for her father Thoas (who at the end of Euripides’ version will be revealed to be still alive). But Jason in Euripides’ play surely did not first meet Hypsipyle on his return voyage with Medea, since the recognition scene indicates that Hypsipyle's children were weaned from her breast and went to Colchis, but Hypsipyle herself was abducted by pirates before ever seeing them (or Jason, or her father Thoas) again. So, how can Hypsipyle sing about the Symplegades? She might indeed have been aware that Jason would need to sail through them in order to achieve the Argo’s mission, but in her prologue she very likely has no knowledge of whether he was ever successful. Martin Cropp suggested filling in the blanks as follows: ‘Possibly Hyps. longs for Jason to return through the Symplêgades […] bringing her salvation (or the light of freedom) and relief from the yoke of slavery’ [Cropp's emphases].Footnote ¹² If Cropp is correct, then Hypsipyle is longing for a return that is twenty-or-so years overdue.

2. Prologue (Thoas and Euneus, and Hypsipyle's lullaby, ~132–201)

After her now-vanished prologue, Hypsipyle withdraws into Lycurgus’ house. Then her twin sons Thoas and Euneus arrive in search of their mother. As is confirmed at the play's end, Hypsipyle's father (also named Thoas) is still alive and conveyed her sons to Lemnos in search of her (fr. 759a.1624–26). The fragments do not preserve any details on how they followed her path to Nemea, but they apparently knock on the door of Lycurgus’ house. In P.Oxy. 852, col. 3, it is Hypsipyle herself who rushes to the door to answer the men's knocking.Footnote ¹³ It has apparently upset the baby, and Hypsipyle speaks to it about ‘toys that will soothe your mind from tears’ (fr. 752d.2–3, ~132–33). Hypsipyle's concern for her charge's comfort reminds the audience that she is a nurse and a slave, no longer a princess. Meanwhile she is so impressed by the men's good looks that she offers a conventional greeting that has dramatic irony: ‘O blessed the woman who bore you two, whoever she was!’ (fr. 752d.5, ~135). What follows is an exchange that is the height of Euripidean naturalism, the bargaining between potential guest and the host's servant. Hypsipyle asks the expected question, τί τῶ[ν]δɛ μɛλάθρων δɛ[όμɛ]νοι προσήλθɛτον; (‘In need of what have you two come to these halls?’, fr. 752d.6, ~136).Footnote ¹⁴ Thoas is rather curt and to the point: they need to shelter for only one night, have all they need with them, and will not be a nuisance (fr. 752d.7–10, ~137–40). No mention is made of their quest to find their mother. Thoas’ comment τὸ δὲ σὸν ὡς ἔχɛι μ[ɛν]ɛῖ (fr. 752d.10, ~140) is classic Euripides in its double meaning. Literally ‘your circumstance will remain as it is’, it is both an assurance of the guests’ unobtrusiveness, and a nod to the fact that Hypsipyle's status as a slave who misses her long-lost sons and is nostalgic about her past life will not change immediately, since neither mother nor sons recognise the other. Yet the nod to this fact is itself a foreshadowing of the opposite: that this is indeed the day when Hypsipyle's situation will change completely, both for the worse and for the better.

It is universally agreed that Thoas and Euneus enter the house, with Hypsipyle thus unwittingly sheltering her long-lost sons. Significantly, there is no evidence that Hypsipyle explained who she was or alluded to her identity in a way that would create further dramatic irony. She does not talk about her former life when she is ‘on the job’ in front of young guests.

When the fragmentary text resumes at ~189, Hypsipyle is singing a lullaby to Opheltes, trying to entertain him ɛὐωποῖς … θɛραπɛίαις (‘with kindly-faced tendings’, fr. 752f.7, ~193). The baby is arguably an emotional substitute for the very long-lost sons she unknowingly let into the house. Two major themes permeate Hypsipyle's monody and the subsequent parodos: her wistful memories of Lemnos and the visit of the Argonauts, and an intellectual search for the correct music that can alleviate her sufferings, if indeed any can be found. Hypsipyle's lullaby turns sad, and her words self-reference the content of her song, or more specifically, the content that is missing.

Collard and Cropp suggest that these weaving-songs were what Hypsipyle used to sing as a girl in her mother's household.Footnote ¹⁶ I would add that she could just as easily have sung them as an adult.Footnote ¹⁷ Hypsipyle's memory of a song that is distant in time triggers contrasts. When she was a princess on Lemnos—an island famous at various times for being female-only—all the women would have joined together in songs to encourage one another during the long hours of producing their own textiles, as they were expected to. Now her song has changed from a female community's hymn that inspires and is inspired by their work, to a lullaby for a single little individual, the infant who sleeps.Footnote ¹⁸ It is too soon for an audience to tell from this brief song whether Hypsipyle is unhappy or even resentful that her life has so changed, but her word-choice is significant:

Within a few lines she utters θɛραπɛίαις (above, fr. 752f.7, ~193) and θɛραπɛύματα (fr. 752f.12, ~199), both cognates of the verb θɛραπɛύɛιν, ‘to serve’, which is her function as a slave. Hypsipyle is composing lyrics that emphasise her new social role. θɛραπɛύματα, ‘services’, in this context might be better rendered in English (like θɛραπɛίαις) as ‘care’ or ‘tending to the baby's needs’, since in other contexts θɛράπɛυμα refers to medical treatments.Footnote ¹⁹ Hypsipyle also offers Opheltes χάρις, a word whose semantics will range from ‘joy’ or ‘gladness’ (as here) to ‘a favour’ later in the play.Footnote ²⁰ These significant words—χάρις (‘a favour’) and θɛραπɛύματα (‘care’)—are also exactly what Hypsipyle will offer the Argive army, and what she can be said to have shown the Argonauts when they sojourned on Lemnos, and to her own father when she saved his life. The words of Hypsipyle's own lullaby describe the manner in which she treats every man she meets, including the male infant in her charge.

3. Parodos (192–318)

In the parodos, Hypsipyle is invited to gaze on the Argive army marching through the Nemean plain, but through song she stubbornly insists on remembering her former life with the Argonauts on Lemnos. In this way, as in the prologue, she focuses on an other-world and other-time that is at odds with the life of an elderly slave. But when performing a slave's duties and interacting with male guests of the house, she has the capacity to ‘turn off’ her fixations and do what she does best: come to the aid of men.

When the women of the chorus arrive, their initial questions continue the theme of Hypsipyle's servitude as expressed in her lullaby. Her last words compared what she used to do (sing Lemnian loom-songs) to what she does now (entertain an infant with a lullaby). As if they had overheard her, their first utterance is:

The tasks that form this preamble are presumably ones they have seen Hypsipyle do before, and Euripides’ emphasis is once again on the totality of Hypsipyle's slave status. When the women arrive and notice her outdoors singing, the first thing they expect her to be doing is singing while performing manual tasks, not singing a lullaby. It is as though they assume that Hypsipyle has invented a floor-washing song to accompany her work, like the loom-songs she herself remembers from Lemnos. But then Euripides adds a twist: the women's second expectation is that Hypsipyle might be routinely singing a familiar tale:

Clearly the women of the chorus and Hypsipyle have had this conversation before, and Hypsipyle has a reputation for dwelling on her past. They catalogue the topoi that could indeed be the subject of a nostalgic lament, if Hypsipyle wanted to perform one: the ship Argo which is διὰ σοῦ στόματος αἰɛὶ κλῃζομέναν (‘forever celebrated by your mouth’, fr. 752f.19–20), the Golden Fleece that Jason and his Argonauts sought, the dragon that guarded the fleece, and Lemnos of which she was princess. They even emphasise that Lemnos was an island, encircled by the Aegean (Αἰγαῖος), in contrast to the land-locked groves of Nemea. They thereby offer a window into Hypsipyle's mind, as Martin Hose observed in his study of Euripidean choruses:

The women offer their friend some distraction: ‘Here, to the Nemean meadow! The whole Argive (Ἀργɛῖον) plain is shining with bronze weapons!’ (fr. 752f.29–31, ~216–18). This is major news for Nemea: an Argive army, the Seven Against Thebes themselves, summoned by King Adrastus, are marching through the plain. They are heading for Thebes, ‘against the defence, the work of the lyre of Amphion’ (fr. 752f.32–33, ~219–20), a reference to the legend of Amphion building the walls of Thebes with the aid of his lyre, making the stones move themselves to his music. The women's lyrics are full of sensual imagery, specifically brightness: the shining of bronze weapons, ‘and golden bows’ (fr. 752f.37, ~224), and the ποικίλα σάματα (‘intricate decorations’, fr. 752f.36, ~223) on the shields, which is one of the most traditional elements of the Seven Against Thebes myth. Sight and sound are both suggested by ποικίλα (‘intricate’), an adjective often associated with the visual arts (as here of the shield decorations) and musical arts in Greek poetry.Footnote ²¹ Rapidity of movement is suggested by ὠ[κυ]πόδας Ἄ[δρ]ασ[το]ς (‘swift-footed Adrastus’, fr. 752f.34, ~221), and μονοβάμονɛ[ς (‘single-treading’, fr. 752f.38, ~225), referring to horses or one-horse chariots. This is eye candy that comes from the physical exploits of great men, not from nature. The women of the chorus are not admiring pretty flowers or lovely fabrics; instead, they are stunned by men and their warfare. In the words of Scodel in her study of Euripides’ Phoenissae, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Hypsipyle:

The women of the chorus set the theme, and Hypsipyle responds in kind; for all their excitement and encouragement, Hypsipyle rejects their advice. Her song confirms what the women had claimed about her in their entrance: memories of the ship Argo are always celebrated by her mouth, and today is no exception. Like the women of the chorus, Hypsipyle is an avid spectator of martial men. All women, it would seem, have an appreciation for men at their physical best and enjoy telling other women how exciting or how dashing men look. The contrast here is that the women of the chorus are describing a land army marching here and now (albeit off-stage), with the implication that the men will pass by at any moment, on their way to a war that has not yet begun. But Hypsipyle's response is a competing description of a naval expedition that happened long ago, when the Argonauts passed by Lemnos:

The elements of Hypsipyle's own tale are parallel, yet not identical, to those in the chorus’ song. The chorus sees objects in the present—bronze weapons, golden bows, stunningly designed shields. Hypsipyle in her mind's eye sees not objects, but friends whom she mentions by name, and whose genealogies she can recite. The women of the chorus, for their part, do mention ‘swift-footed’ Adrastus by name, but he stands out because he is the king of Argos, and they have never met him. Hypsipyle counters this with an image of Peleus (grandson of the goddess Aegina, and father of ‘swift-footed’ Achilles) leaping to fasten the ship's cables, over water that is described as οἶδμα γαλανɛίας (‘the swell of the calm sea’, fr. 752g.4, ~253). Since the only reason a sailor would fasten a cable would be because the ship was landing at the shore, Hypsipyle's memory must be of the Argonauts’ arrival at Lemnos (crossing the ‘Thracian Sea’ from Thessaly).

Hypsipyle also remembers the sounds that accompanied the Argonauts’ arrival. The women of the chorus sing of the famous lyre that Amphion used to build a city; Hypsipyle counters with her own legend of a lyre, namely that of Orpheus (himself from Thrace). The oars of the ship had a musical tempo, too, a kind of accelerando: first long sweeps from afar, then swifter strokes as the Argo drew closer, and then finally a rest as the ship landed. From Hypsipyle's perspective, the music providing the rhythm for the rowers sounded strange and exotic, ‘Asian’ and ‘a lament’ (Ἀσιάδ᾿ ἔλɛγον ἰήιον, ‘Asian lament of ἰή’, fr. 752g.9, ~257).Footnote ²²Pace Kannicht who understood ἔλɛγον ἰήϊον to be a paean-song (ἰὴ παιάν) of thanks offered by the Argonauts for their safe landing,Footnote ²³ the association that the word ἔλɛγος (‘lament,’ ‘plaint,’ or ‘elegy’) had with grave inscriptions renders the mood of Hypsipyle's memory as much sorrowful as exciting. It is as though the Argonauts’ arrival itself presaged the sadness of their eventual departure, or indeed the melancholy of Hypsipyle in remembering them so vividly, sailor by sailor, as if she had seen them yesterday. In her own words, τάδɛ μοι τάδɛ θυμὸς ἰδɛῖν ἵɛται, ‘These, these my spirit longs to see’ (fr. 752g.15, ~264). She echoes her own words from her monody, οὐ τάδɛ πήνας, οὐ τάδɛ κɛρκίδος, ‘These are not the weft-thread's, these are not the shuttle's (consolations)’ (fr. 752f.9, ~196), and by this verbal echo emphasises what is continually absent. There is nothing in the present that could tempt her away from her private reverie. The chorus can never see these legendary Argonauts, so Hypsipyle delights in sharing her visions of them; but Adrastus and his Argive soldiers, whom the Nemean women delight in watching, are here right now, and Hypsipyle herself could gaze at them if she wished. Yet she refuses. Not only does she not want to see the Danaans (i.e., the Argives), she does not even want to sing of them. Repeating the sense of ἐβόα in fr. 752g.10, ~258 in the context of a lyre ‘shouting forth’ or ‘crying out’ a song for the rowers, Hypsipyle says someone else can ‘cry out’ the narrative of the Argive's (Δαναῶν) labours. The women of the chorus have, in fact, already done this, but Hypsipyle will have none of it herself, since the Argonauts’ labours alone will suffice for her.

The chorus’ response to Hypsipyle's reverie is worth examining because they take up a theme that Hypsipyle herself had raised in her lullaby, even though the chorus did not witness it. Hypsipyle had described the Lemnian loom-songs as παραμύθια (‘consolations’ or ‘encouragements’, fr. 752f.10, ~197). Now the women of the chorus bring back this theme by acting out consolation itself in their antistrophe and narrating the myths of two princesses who were abducted similarly to Hypsipyle (or so they think). First is Phoenix's daughter Europa, who was stolen from Tyre by Zeus and taken to Crete, where she bore him three children who ruled the land prosperously (fr. 752g.19–27, ~268–76). Second is Io, the Argive, who was turned into a cow (fr. 752g.28–31, ~277–80). The text of the latter exemplum is fragmentary, but a surviving element is that Io lost her κɛρ]ασφόρον ἄταν (‘horn-bearing affliction’, fr. 752g.31, ~280) once she reached Egypt and bore Zeus’ son, Epaphus. The women try to assure Hypsipyle of something; what survives is the protasis of a future more vivid condition, ταῦ]τ᾿ ἢν θɛὸς ɛἰς φροντίδα θῇ σοι (‘If god puts these things into your mind’ fr. 752g.32, ~281). The apodosis is lost, but they address Hypsipyle as a friend and perhaps suggest moderation: ]ς δή, φίλα, τὸ μέσον (‘then indeed, friend, moderation…’ fr. 752g.33, ~282). The rhetorical crux is that Hypsipyle should hope for good fortune, since even Europa and Io found happiness in the end by bearing sons to Zeus. Hypsipyle's situation, however, is quite different,Footnote ²⁴ and her own choice of exemplum is ‘the huntress Procris, whom her husband killed’ (fr. 752h.3, ~311), whom someone apparently ‘lamented with songs’ (fr. 752h.4, ~312). Her question to the chorus is, although a song could be found to mourn poor Procris, what song or lyre's music, even with the help of the Muse Calliope, could approach Hypsipyle's pains? (fr. 752h.6–9, ~315–18).

My own study of the theme of consolation in this passage revealed how Euripides prefigured many of the ‘consolatory gestures’ that would become canonical in later Graeco-Roman philosophical writings, especially the consolatio letters of Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch.Footnote ²⁵ In my reading, Euripides thematised consolation itself by dramatising both a failure of the chorus to console Hypsipyle in the parodos, and Amphiaraus’ successful consolation of Eurydice in mid-play after the accidental death of Opheltes. I also focused on Hypsipyle's clever strategies for rejecting consolation, and the possibility that the exemplum of Procris, who was accidentally killed by her husband Cephalus, foreshadows Hypsipyle's own role in the drama as someone responsible for an accidental death.Footnote ²⁶ Here I wish to add that both the chorus’ strategy for consoling Hypsipyle, and her counter-strategy for resisting—namely, all of them appealing to female exempla of similar suffering—establish Hypsipyle's character as a woman who is not only fixated on her past, but equally insistent that her memories are accepted by others as real, and not as fabricated tales. The Nemean women evoke Europa and Io with the important disclaimer, ‘From learned men I have heard the stories’ (fr. 752g.18, ~267). This implies that the women interpret Hypsipyle's own memories in the same vein, as the tales of a storyteller. Furthermore, in keeping with the play's penchant so far for focusing on other-places, the women of the chorus associate a specific geography with their exempla, Io with Argos, Europa with Tyre and Crete, the latter of which they further describe in fr. 752g.24, ~273 as ‘the nurse of the Curetes’, who were Zeus’ young male devotees. Might this imply that whenever Hypsipyle sings of Lemnos, Orpheus from Thrace, and the Golden Fleece in Colchis, the women think that she is fabricating a tale with equally romantic geography? Stories have a tendency to become legendary with the retelling. Europa and Io might or might not have been abducted by Zeus in reality, as far as the chorus knows; but their stories are celebrated enough to serve as models, in their estimation at least, for Hypsipyle's own situation. The very mention of such exempla requires Hypsipyle to convince the chorus that her own memories are indeed true, that they belong to a life that really was lived. Hypsipyle's own past has the danger of becoming legendary through its constant retelling; the burden is on her to insist, to remind herself and others, that it actually happened. That she rejects the chorus’ consolation with a mythical exemplum of her own, that of Procris whom she could hardly have known, is extremely clever in that it does the chorus one better. Because Europa's and Io's stories of abduction end rather placidly with the bearing of children, they sound like simple stories. But Procris’ tale ends in an accidental death and a song of mourning that demand an emotional empathy that only a woman with real pain, like Hypsipyle, can feel.

4. First Episode (319–392)

As soon as Hypsipyle's musical exchange with the chorus ends, the drama changes abruptly with the entrance of an older man and his mute companions, each wearing a knee-length sleeveless chiton that the women of the chorus describe as ‘Dorian dress’:

Up to this point, the Argive army was merely passing by; now soldiers are entering their space. This would explain why the women of the chorus are so specific about their location, as if the lyric journey through the legends of the Argo and the Thracian sea, Europa and Crete, Io and Egypt, and Procris had made everyone forget where they really were. Their first words are an invocation of Zeus: ὦ Ζɛῦ Νɛμέας τῆσδ᾿ ἄλσος ἔχων (literally, ‘possessor/keeper of the grove of this Nemea’, fr. 752h.10, ~319). In fact, the place-name Νɛμέας is closest after Zeus’ name, with the demonstrative τῆσδɛ, agreeing with ‘Nemea’ rather than the ‘grove’, providing the sensation that the chorus is asserting that, despite their musical reverie, they and Hypsipyle are still ‘in Nemea—here’.Footnote ²⁸ Then by referring to the grove, they remind the audience of the presumed geography, that although the skēnē is the house of the priest Lycurgus, it is adjacent to a grove sacred to Zeus, just beyond the eisodos, beyond the audience's view. Only then do the women of the chorus ask the important question about why the strangers in Dorian dress are coming towards the house. They end their enquiry with another descriptor of place, for the strangers are walking ἐρῆμον ἀν᾿ ἄλσος, (‘through the lonely grove’, fr. 752h.14, ~323). Although it might be conventional for tragic choruses to describe things more than once, Euripides seems determined to have this chorus remind themselves (and the audience) again about this grove, which they mentioned not four lines earlier.

The audience has no way of knowing the identity of these Dorian-dressed strangers, other than that they must belong to the Argive army mentioned in the parodos. The opening monologue of the chief among them reveals an older man who is not exactly the grand Argive hero one might expect. Instead, he is a complainer:

The man sounds fussy, making the kinds of complaints a person would make if he really has been travelling for a long time. The erotic dreaminess of the Argive army in the parodos, with its bronze weapons and glittering shields, is scaled down to practicalities. Soldiers need to be fed and watered. The march across a plain might be a spectacle for a woman who watches from afar, but it is no joy for the dusty soldiers who march it. The man describes what he has marched through (countryside that is deserted) and where he has arrived (a house in Zeus’ meadow), as though Lycurgus’ house were a shining oasis in the midst of a no-man's land. The man, the women of the chorus, and indeed Hypsipyle herself will all speak of a place that is ἐρῆμος (‘lonely,’ ‘deserted,’ or even ‘untended’), a word that implies areas devoid of human contact or care. In addition to the (ἐρῆμον) grove of Zeus and the ἐρήμους fields of the countryside, Hypsipyle will remember at the very end of the play (line 1603) the beach of Lemnos where she took refuge after she spared her father's life during the Lemnian massacre, a beach that was the ἐρῆμον refuge of birds. ‘Loneliness’ and ‘emptiness’ characterise all times and exterior places—Hypsipyle's past on Lemnos, the omnipresent Nemean grove just beyond the acting space, and the Argive army's present and future march to Thebes—as if Hypsipyle's space in front of Lycurgus’ house is indeed an oasis, surrounded by a void. Hypsipyle has found herself on another island, another Lemnos, but this time she is encircled not by the beating waves of the Aegean, but by emptiness.

Having got his complaints off his chest, the man ignores the women of the chorus and addresses Hypsipyle:

There is bold word play with the semantics of σῶμα as both ‘body’ and ‘social status’.Footnote ²⁹ The man takes a second look at Hypsipyle, uncertain whether some non-slave status lies behind her appearance, whether—as the audience now knows—the nurse has a tale of her own. He has still not introduced himself, so an audience might not yet know who he is; but of course he will be revealed to be the seer Amphiaraus, brother-in-law of King Adrastus of Argos, and this is the first indication of Amphiaraus’ own status as a μάντις (‘prophet’ or ‘seer’) who will later describe himself as σώφρων (‘discreet’, ‘moderate’, ‘self-controlled’). His care in assessing Hypsipyle's body (and her status) contrasts with the preceding scene, when Hypsipyle's own son failed to recognise her and was rather curt with her. It is also a prefiguring of his later self-description to Eurydice (Opheltes’ mother and Hypsipyle's owner) at fr. 757.877, that it is in his nature τὰ διαφέρονθ᾿ ὁρᾶν (‘to see the things that make a difference’).Footnote ³⁰

Amphiaraus’ next question is about the present location:

Although it is perfectly normal for characters in any play to indicate their location, it is nonetheless thematic that Amphiaraus belabours the geography—Phlius—when speaking to Hypsipyle, given her backward-looking attitude in the drama so far. His arrival forces her to engage with the reality of the here-and-now. She is no longer on Lemnos, entertaining the Argonauts; she is no longer imagining Mt. Parnassus, where her divine grandfather dances with maidens, nor the Symplegades, which she could never possibly have seen for herself; she is in Nemea, near Zeus’ grove and Zeus’ meadow, in the neighbourhood of Phlius, and nowhere else.

Amphiaraus’ question also compels Hypsipyle to defend the here-and-now. She retorts, ὄ]λβια Λυκούργου μέλαθρα κλῄζɛται τά[δɛ (‘These are called Lycurgus’ wealthy halls’, fr. 752h.26, ~335). By reusing μέλαθρα (‘halls’), the same descriptor from line 137 when she welcomed Thoas, Hypsipyle signals that she is essentially reperforming the same actions as before, greeting male guests in front of the priest's house, with the variation that now she presents the house with praise.

Amphiaraus explains what he wants, which is not to stay the night, as Thoas and Euneus did, but a different sort of hospitality, clean water:

Importantly, the water is not for drinking, or for the army's horses, even though one would expect these to be the first concerns of any soldier whose first words were a complaint about marching through a deserted countryside. Instead, the water is for pouring a libation to the gods. At fr. 752h.30, P.Oxy. 852 preserves only ὅ[ ], and two reconstructions have been proposed: ὅδιον, ‘(a libation) for the journey’, was proposed by Murray in the editio princeps and supported by Bond, Cockle, and Diggle;Footnote ³¹ ὅσιον, ‘a pure (libation)’, was proposed by Stengel and supported by Kannicht and Cropp.Footnote ³² Those who support ὅσιον (as do I) point out that Amphiaraus’ next two lines explain that the purity of water is essential, since every other water they can find has been muddied. Cropp clarified the situation vividly:

Thus, yet another layer of naturalism is added to this Argive army. The women of the chorus may have been excited by its beauty as a spectacle, but Amphiaraus reveals its drudgery, churning up mud as soldiers plow through the plains. The ultimate insult must be that the army itself destroys the very water it needs to make a libation for its own prosperity. After giving precise information about his people's ethnicity, ἐκ τῶν Μυκηνῶν [ἐσ]μɛν Ἀργɛῖοι γέν[ος (‘We are from Mycenae, Argives in race’, fr. 752h.34, ~343), Amphiaraus explains that the libation is necessary because they are crossing the border into a new land and need to make a pre-sacrifice for the army (fr. 752h.35–36, ~344–45), to test whether there are good omens to continue the march. Such διαβατήρια (‘crossing-over’) sacrifices are important elements in the army narratives of Thucydides and Xenophon.Footnote ³³ These sacrifices are crucial to the play's plot, since if one could pinpoint a moment when the disastrous fate of the child Opheltes begins, it is here. It is Amphiaraus’ request for water to make the sacrifice that sets all the events in motion; and the fact that the child dies in order that the sacrifice can take place, is itself the omen that such sacrifices are designed to test. The dramatic irony is that the baby Opheltes himself is on stage at the moment when Amphiaraus asks for the water. Opheltes is a silent witness to the request that will cause his death. Hypsipyle was singing to the infant before the chorus arrived, and there is no break in the parodos for Hypsipyle to take the child indoors, and no mention is made of anyone coming outside the house to take the infant away from her nurse. Given the lack of stage directions, Hypsipyle could even be holding the infant whose death will happen this day, in front of the very man whose request for water will kill it.

In the fragments that remain, it appears that Hypsipyle herself asks for confirmation that the Argive army is headed for Thebes (alias Κάδμου πύλας, ‘Cadmus’ gates’, fr. 752h.37, ~346), which is the rumour she heard from the Nemean women. Amphiaraus appears to confirm this. It is Hypsipyle who enquires as to their motive, and she does so with politeness: λɛ[γ᾿, ɛἴ τί] σου θέμι[ς μ]αθɛῖν (‘say whether it is right to learn it from you’, fr. 752h.39, ~348).Footnote ³⁴ Amphiaraus recounts the traditional grounds for the Argive expedition—the restoration of the Theban prince, Polynices, who had been exiled from his homeland. The line is fragmentary, so it is uncertain how much detail Amphiaraus is omitting; and he has not yet even introduced himself. He does so two lines later at fr. 752h.42, ~351, an entire twenty-seven lines after his entrance, with the poorly preserved words: ‘the son of Oicles …. Amphiaraus’. Hypsipyle's response ὦ μɛγάλ[α (‘O great…’, fr. 752h.43, ~352) could be an indication that she has heard of his reputation, and Amphiaraus’ even more fragmentary reply πῶς δ᾿ (‘And how…’, fr. 752h.44, ~353) could be the start of a simple question, ‘But how do you know me?’ The next twenty lines are virtually lost, so we do not know her answer.

Two significant fragmentary words survive among the line-beginnings preserved in column 4 of P.Oxy. 852. The first, ὀνομα[ (‘name’, or the first half of ‘to name’, fr. 752i.3) is attributed to Amphiaraus, and the second, ἡ Λημ[ν (‘the Lemnian (woman)’ or ‘the Lemnian (land)’, fr. 752i.4) is attributed to Hypsipyle. The most obvious interpretation is that Amphiaraus asks Hypsipyle her name (since he has already introduced himself), and she identifies herself as coming from Lemnos. If this is indeed the case, Hypsipyle tells Amphiaraus more about herself than she did a moment ago to the strangers (her own sons, it will turn out) whom she welcomed into her master's house.

There are several missing lines in which Amphiaraus appears to have explained the origin of the Argive expedition, beginning with a genealogical narrative not unlike the one with which Hypsipyle began the play. Polydorus (Πολύδωρος, fr. 752k.9, ~380) was the descendant of a goddess (θɛᾶς φὺ[ς, 10, ~381), that is, Aphrodite was his grandmother. Polydorus’ descendants (τούτου δὲ παι[, 11, ~382) include Polynices. By the end, Hypsipyle is inspired to help Amphiaraus, an act which she explains in fr. 753, δɛίξω μὲν ᾿Αργɛίοισιν ᾿Αχɛλῴου ῥόον (‘I will show the Argives a stream of Achelous’), which Cropp argued ‘probably belong(s) within the next thirty lines’ after the Δ marking for the play's 400th line.Footnote ³⁵ In fact Hypsipyle leads Amphiaraus into the sacred grove of Zeus towards a spring (κρήνη, fr. 754a.1); but in keeping with the characters’ focus on genealogies (Hypsipyle's own, that of Argonauts like Peleus, Polydorus and the royal house of Thebes), what survives in fr. 753 is a reference to Achelous, the ultimate source of the spring. Euripides uses ‘Achelous’ (Greece's largest river) as metonymy for ‘water’ elsewhere (Bacch. 519 and 625, Andr. 167), but in this play that has referenced faraway places so regularly, it is not insignificant that the Achelous is in northwestern Greece, not in the Peloponnese, and certainly not a river that the Argives would have passed on their journey from Argos to Nemea.Footnote ³⁶

5. Parallel Worlds

By stopping here and reflecting on what has survived of the first 400-or-so lines of Hypsipyle, one can observe how much Euripides has achieved by putting in the same place two stories whose mythologies otherwise have nothing to do with each other—Hypsipyle and the Argonauts, and Amphiaraus and the Seven Against Thebes. Euripides’ trademark habit of constructing connections between the myths of his characters continues to excite. In this case, when Amphiaraus and his mute companions arrive at line 319, he brings Hypsipyle out of her daydream and into a new situation that is presented as familiar, at least typologically. Euripides achieves this with the repetition of carefully chosen vocabulary and similar-sounding words.

One connection between Hypsipyle and Amphiaraus is perhaps the most obvious: the name ‘Hypsipyle’ itself. The word ὑψίπυλος (‘with high gates’) is used in the Iliad as an epithet of both Troy and Thebes, the latter of which is Amphiaraus’ destination.Footnote ³⁷ Hypsipyle's question to him at line ~346, about the gates of Cadmus (Κάδμου πύλας), is a subtle pun on the ‘gate’ half (the -pyle half) of her own name, but applied to Thebes. The pun is a natural one to make, but its impact is evidenced by the fact that the physical involvement of Hypsipyle (‘Miss High-gated-woman’) with the myth of the Seven Against Thebes (‘the high-gated city’) begins not in the parodos, but with the arrival of Amphiaraus—innocently, but disastrously for her.

In addition, it is surely no accident that Jason's sailors manned a ship called Ἀργώ, and the women of the chorus admire soldiers marching from similar-sounding Ἄργος. It is also surely deliberate that the women of the chorus describe the island of Lemnos as encircled by Αἰγαῖος (‘the Aegean’), whilst in the here-and-now the Ἀργɛῖον plain is flashing with men whom Amphiaraus claims are Ἀργɛῖοι in race. Argō, Argos, Aigaios, and Argeion/Argeioi all pun with each other, so that an evocation of one invites the recollection of another. Even Aegina (Αἴγινα), the grandmother of the Argonaut Peleus, can be added to this list of homoeophones. All these names are neatly assigned to opposing temporal and spatial frames; the sea-voyaging Argo, the Aegean, and Aegina belong to Hypsipyle's former life, Argos and the land-locked Argive plain to her immediate future.Footnote ³⁸

As if the Argos/Argo pun were not enough, there is also a pun between Danaoi/Danaides. At fr. 752g.16, ~264, Hypsipyle herself was the first to describe the Argive army as Δαναῶν (‘Danaans’) whose labours she suggested be celebrated by someone other than her. Argives are ‘Danaans’ in reference to their ancestor Danaus. But Danaus was also the father of the Danaides, who (like the Lemnian Women) murdered all their husbands on a single night, except for one woman, Hypermnestra, who (like Hypsipyle) spared one man. And lo and behold, Hypermnestra also happens to be, according to the mythographer Hyginus, the name of Amphiaraus’ mother.Footnote ³⁹ And when at fr. 752h.36, ~ 345 Amphiaraus describes the Argive army, he uses the words στρατοῦ … Δαναϊδῶν (‘the army of the Danaides’). The word Danaides here is specific to the Argives, and Christopher Collard argued that the word (which appears also in Euripides’ Suppliant Women and Hecuba) is a Euripidean invention.Footnote ⁴⁰ But certainly any audience encountering Danaides to refer to Amphiaraus’ people, must also reflect on the Danaides as a metonymy for the Lemnian women, Hypsipyle's people. Hypsipyle herself, and the Argives’ ancestors, have endured the same horror—wives killing husbands en masse—in their past.Footnote ⁴¹

Euripides thus constructs a parallelism between the histories of Amphiaraus (brother-in-law of the king of Argos, and leader of the Argive army) and Hypsipyle (ex-lover of the captain of the ship Argo, queen of Lemnos in the Aegean). This parallelism even has a certain circularity; Hypsipyle the nurse is a slave in exile, yet her current home and current events are eerily familiar to her. The names have changed only slightly. Hypsipyle's memories of the past and the realities of the present are connected with subtle verbal word play. Orpheus’ lyre has been replaced by Amphion's lyre, the Lemnian women are evoked by the Danaides/descendants of Danaus, the erēmos seashore of Lemnos has become an erēmos grove, and the infant Opheltes has substituted for the twins who were weaned from Hypsipyle's breasts. What is more, Argo has become Argos, and Hypsipyle transfers her affections from the great male expedition of the past (the Argonauts) to the great male expedition of the present (the Argives).