Hypsipyle (Euripide)

Date

Between 412 and 405 (Antiope (412) being the terminus handle quem , and the Frogs of Aristophane, the terminus post quem ).

The decoration

With Némée, in front of the Palate of Lycurgue.

Characters

Hypsipyle - Thoas - Eunée - Amphiaros - Eurydice - Opheltès (Archémoros) dumb character - Lycurgue? - Dionysos - Chorus made up of Néméennes young people

Summary

The women of Lemnos, to be avenged for their husband, who forsook them for their prisoners, decided to put at dead all the men of the island. Not to only take part in this collective Murder, Hypsipyle saves his/her father, the king Thoas, by hiding it in a trunk. Ignorant of that, the Lemnian ones make of Hypsipyle their queen and this one generates, with Jason, of passage with the forwarding of the Argonaute S, two children: Eunée and Thoas the young person. The Lemnian ones, discovering the Stratagem, are avenged, and sold Hypsipyle, as a Esclave, with king de Némée, Lycurgue.

At the beginning of the part, Hypsipyle, become the Nourrice of Opheltès, the child of Lycurgue and Eurydice (nothing to see with the wife of Orphée) sweeps the Parvis Palais of Lycurgue while explaining what precedes. Two foreigners arrive (Eunée and Thoas young person envoys in the search of their mother on the councils of Thoas). Hypsipyle while being unaware of that those are its sons, the press, and, although the host is absent, proposes the Hospitalité to them.

The two visitors settle and on the scene a song of the chorus succeeds, which is astonished by the sadness of Hypsipyle. The Devin Amphiaraos intervenes, mandé that it is by the forwarding of the seven against Thèbes, and asks Hypsipyle to lead it to a source where it must make some sacrifice. This one is carried out, and brought Opheltès.

It is there that the latter, following an unspecified accident (drowning?), dies. Hypsipyle plans to flee, but, alerted by the cries, the mother, Eurydice, arrives and shows Hypsipyle to plot against its Masters. Hypsipyle is denied any charge while proposing the maternal love that it carried in small Opheltès. Amphiaros takes its defense and proposes in Eurydice to organize plays funeral in the honor of Opheltès which takes the funeral name of Archémoros, which it accepts.

The " follows; trou" of 500 worms what poses problem because one does not know too much if the intervention of Amphiaros were enough to clear Hypsipyle or if it is necessary to await the appearance of Dyonisos. At all events, Amphiaros bids its farewell and leaves for Thèbes, while the recognition between Hypsipyle and its sons takes place.

Lastly, Dyonisios Deus ex machina comes as a definitively to regulate the fate of Hypsipyle, which recouve its freedom and leaves with Thoas the young person in Lemnos, while Eunée is sent to Athens where it founds the family of Eunéides.

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