Chapter XI: Danaus and Aegyptus

There were once two kings, called Danaus and Aegyptus, who were brothers, and whose dominions lay side by side. They lived in Africa, and were descended from Io, who had now been dead a long time. Aegyptus had fifty sons, and Danaus had fifty daughters. But the sons of Aegyptus were wicked men, and they tried to kill their uncle; so Danaus built a great ship with fifty oars, and when it was ready, he and his fifty daughters got into it and sailed away; each daughter took an oar, and Danaus steered. They sailed far away over the sea till they came to the country of Argos in Greece, where the father of Io had been king. The Argives (as the people of Argos were called) wondered when they saw the ship with the old man and the fifty maidens in it, but they received them kindly and gave them a large piece of land to live upon, and also a herd of fine cattle. Danaus tilled the ground, and his daughters took care of the cattle. Danaus was very wise, and he gave the Argives much good counsel, till at last they wished he could be their king. But they had a king already, who though he was not nearly so wise as Danaus, had a great many soldiers to fight {35} for him, and he was by no means willing to give up the kingdom. This led to many disputes among the people, and a civil war had nearly broken out, when it happened that the king, and Danaus, and many of the Argives, were assembled one day in a field where there were a number of sheep and cattle feeding, and all at once a great wolf rushed out of the forest, who, passing by the sheep and cows, ran straight at the great bull that belonged to the flock and tore him to pieces. The Argives felt sure that this must be a sign from heaven, for never before had a wolf been able to kill a strong bull. And there was a soothsayer among them who declared that as the bull had been overcome by the wolf, so would the king be overcome by Danaus and deprived of his kingdom. When the king heard that, he was afraid that he might lose his life as well as his dominions, and he fled hastily out of the country.

So Danaus became king, and lived in the beautiful palace with his daughters. His brother's sons heard that he was king of Argos, and that his daughters were beautiful maidens, and they thought they would like to be reconciled to their uncle and to have their cousins for their wives. So they built a ship like the one that Danaus had sailed away in, and came to Argos, and when they arrived there, they said to their uncle that they desired to be at peace with him, and begged him to give them his daughters in marriage. Danaus agreed to do so, and he called his daughters together and allotted one of them to each brother. A few days afterwards the wedding was celebrated with the greatest magnificence, and many sacrifices were offered to the gods. But Danaus took his daughters aside and gave to each {36} one a shining dagger, telling her to hide it in her dress and kill her husband with it when he was asleep. That night the fifty princes slept in fifty chambers and their wives with them, and about midnight each wife took out her dagger and stabbed her husband with it. The only one who did not do so was Hypermnestra, the most beautiful of all, who was married to one of the brothers named Lynceus. He was not wicked like the rest, but noble and brave, and Hypermnestra awoke him and said, 'Thy brothers have been killed by their wives, prepare to flee for thy life.' She gave him an unlighted torch, and told him, when he reached the mountain near the city, to light it and hold it up in the air, so that she might know that he had not been seized by the king's soldiers, but had been able to make his escape. She led him out of the palace and pointed out to him the direction in which he was to go; then she ascended to the roof, which, like all the roofs of the Greek houses, was not sloping like ours, but flat, so that people could walk upon it. Hypermnestra remained there for a long time with her eyes fixed on the mountain before any light appeared, but at last she saw a little flame which came from the torch, and then she knew that Lynceus was safe. Then she went down again with a brave heart, though she had good reason to fear that her father would be very angry.

The next morning, Hypermnestra's sisters came to Danaus, each holding in her hand the bloody head of her husband which she had seized by the hair, and Danaus praised them for what they had done; but when he asked Hypermnestra why she had not also brought him a bloody head, she said, 'I have helped {37} Lynceus to escape.' Now Hypermnestra was the king's favourite daughter, but he was so angry with her for having disobeyed him, that he struck her and pushed her away from him, and said that she should be tried publicly, and shut up meanwhile in a dark underground dungeon, as if she had been guilty of some crime. He called together all the old wise men in the land to be her judges, and they came and sat in the market-place to pass sentence. Danaus declared that whatever they decided on should be certainly carried out, and when the judges asked him if he would indeed abide by what they said, he swore that even if they condemned Hypermnestra to death, the sentence should be executed. The beautiful Hypermnestra was led into the market-place by the king's spearmen, and the judges questioned her. Then they consulted together and found that they were all agreed, and they said, 'What Hypermnestra deserves is that she be the king's best-beloved daughter, and that Lynceus come back and be the king's son-in-law.' That did not please Danaus, for he wished to have Hypermnestra punished, but because of his oath, he was obliged to let her go free and live in the palace as before. He also made a sacred treaty with Lynceus, and he came back to be the husband of Hypermnestra. As long as Danaus lived, he was next to him in power and wealth, and after the death of his father-in-law, he succeeded him as king of Argos.

The other daughters of Danaus, who had killed their husbands, were held in greater esteem by their father, but the gods caused them to die early, and when they came into the Lower World, they inflicted on them a {38} never-ending punishment. There was a stream of rushing water, close to which a great vessel had been placed, and each of the Danaïdes, or daughters of Danaus, was given a bucket and commanded to fill the vessel with water from the stream, and was told that she was never to stop pouring in the water till the vessel was quite full. The Danaïdes did as they were required, but the vessel was full of holes, so that as fast as they tried to fill it, the water ran back again into the stream, and though they did their utmost by pouring it in as fast as possible, it was of no use,--they were never able to accomplish their task, and were obliged to go toiling on at it in vain for ever.

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