Danaïdes

In the Greek Mythology, the Danaïdes are the fifty girls of Danaos (wire of Bélos), king of Libya, born different mothers.

Myth

After the death of Bélos, Égyptos, brother of Danaos and king of Arabia, seizes Egypt, to which it gives his name; it presses his brother then to link his daughters with its sons (also fifty), in order to avoid wars of succession. But a oracle having revealed in Danaos that the intention of wire of his/her brother was to kill his daughters after the weddings, it flees with them and arrives until Argos, where he becomes king with the support of Athéna. (According to Eschyle, this escape was caused only by the aversion of Danaïdes for a marriage against nature with their cousins.)

The wire of Égyptos go nevertheless until him, on the order of their father, and finish, under the threat of a seat, by making it reconsider its decision to give them his/her daughters in marriage. The evening of the weddings, always fearing that the prediction of oracle is carried out, Danaos orders with his/her daughters to hide in their hair a large pin of which they would be used for to bore the heart of their husbands as soon as they would sleep. All obey except one, Hypermnestre, which saves her husband Lyncée and the assistance to be fled.

Thereafter, this one returns and is avenged by killing the culprits like Danaos. Lyncée and Hypermnestre reign then on Argos.

In the late tradition, arrived at the Hells, Danaïdes judged and are precipitated in the Tartar , condemned to eternally fill a bored earthenware jar. This punishment remained famous via the form of the “barrel of Danaïdes”, which indicates a task absurdity or without end (see Liste of the French expressions).

Sources

(II, 1,4-5).
(passim).
(CLXVIII and CLXX).
(III, 296 and suiv.).
(XIV).
(VIII, 6,7).

See too

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