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LegendUndated

The Women of Lemnos

Also called: Hypsipyle, Hylas

A legend handed down over the centuries.

A Greek myth told in Book 1 of the Argonautica. Lemnos, the Argo’s first landfall, was an island of women who had killed all their men. The heroes stayed nearly a year as guests of Queen Hypsipyle until Heracles shamed them into sailing on.

This Greek myth is told in Book 1 of Apollonius’ Argonautica. Punished for neglecting Aphrodite, the women of Lemnos were afflicted with a foul smell; their husbands took up with captive Thracian women, and the enraged Lemnian women killed every man on the island. Only Queen Hypsipyle secretly spared her father Thoas, setting him adrift at sea.

When the Argo reached the island without men, the women welcomed the heroes, and Jason fell in love with Hypsipyle. They lingered until the quest seemed forgotten, and Heracles, left guarding the ship, rebuked them into leaving. The crew went on past Cyzicus and Mysia, where Heracles fell behind searching for his companion Hylas, dragged into a spring by a nymph.

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Themes that include this event

  • Heroes of Greek Myth1400 BC – 1900

    Perseus and Medusa, the labours of Heracles, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Theseus and the Minotaur, the wings of Icarus, Oedipus and Antigone — the heroes of Greek myth, alongside the real sites of Tiryns, Knossos and Thebes, the first performance of a tragedy, and the sculptures and paintings their stories inspired