Hypsipyle: The Importance of Not Being Medea

The mythological framework of Hypsipyle’s story is characterized by three macro-narratives, which are marked by different patterns but are also consistently linked: the massacre by the Lemnian women, the Argonauts’ arrival and stay on Lemnos, and Hypsipyle’s life after Jason’s departure.¹ The most important source for the first two narratives is certainly Apollonius’s Argonautica, whereas for the third narrative, we mainly rely on Euripides’s fragmentary drama Hypsipyle.² Ovid’s Heroides 6, which is staged as a letter written by Hypsipyle some time after Jason’s departure, is not particularly indebted to Euripides’s tragedy, since the plot of that drama must have begun with Hypsipyle having already left Lemnos and arrived at Nemea.³ The epistle, by contrast, has rightly been said to draw primarily from Apollonius (Argon. 1.609–921), insofar as Hypsipyle’s account in Heroides 6 is characterized by frequent flashbacks concerning her relationship with Jason.⁴ Moreover, for the most part, the letter refers either to events that have to be situated before the heroine is writing, or to Medea’s “parallel” and concomitant love story with Jason.⁵ Finally, Heroides 6 ends with some predictions, mainly concerning Medea’s future (see lines 149–164), which hint at the development of the story that takes place in both the Argonautica and Euripides’s Medea.⁶

Concerning the contents of the letter, it has long been acknowledged that Hypsipyle’s references to Medea pervade the text.⁷ At some points, the heroine seems to be more disturbed by her rival than concerned about Jason’s abandonment (see lines 127–end). Hypsipyle depicts herself as antithetical to Medea, but simultaneously attempts to imitate her behavior and even appropriate her identity (at line 151, she exclaims: “I would have been a Medea for Medea”). This attitude contributes to the heroine’s construction and expression of her multifarious and complex subjectivity. Hypsipyle’s twin sons, who are still together with her on Lemnos, play an essential role in this construction, as Hypsipyle’s motherhood represents an alternative not only to Medea’s relationship with Jason but also, and more specifically, to Medea’s fatal motherhood.⁸

Extant fragments suggest that Hypsipyle’s motherhood was also a central theme in Euripides’s drama.⁹ The Euripidean drama appears to have focused on Hypsipyle’s stay in Nemea, where she became a servant of King Lycurgus and Queen Eurydice after fleeing from Lemnos (see Hypsipyle’s narrative in Statius’s Thebaid 5).¹⁰ More particularly, Hypsipyle is assigned the care of Lycurgus and Eurydice’s son, Opheltes. According to this version, Jason had brought with him Hypsipyle’s and his sons, Euneos and Thoas, after departing from Lemnos. However, after his death, which in this account occurred during the Argonauts’ journey, they were entrusted to Orpheus, who brought them up. From the extant fragments of the drama, it seems that Hypsipyle accidentally causes the death of Opheltes, Eurydice’s son, for which she is held responsible by his mother. Hypsipyle manages to defend herself from this accusation with the help of Amphiaraus (one of the Seven against Thebes) and, at the end of the play, she reunites with her sons and somehow reconciles with Eurydice.¹¹

In light of the Euripidean narrative, certain scholars have interpreted Hypsipyle as a symbol of maternal love, which is directed both toward her sons (whom she longs for throughout the entire tragedy) and towards the unfortunate Opheltes, the child she nurses.¹² This maternal element appears to be also taken into account by Ovid in Heroides 6, where Hypsipyle’s maternal love is what most clearly distinguishes her from Medea (who will go on to kill her children). Although Medea’s murder of her children will take place after Hypsipyle is writing her letter, the heroine as an (educated) author seems to be aware of this literary tradition and intertext. In chapter 6, I demonstrated how Medea starts the process of becoming and redefining her self-identity by temporarily departing from her motherhood; in the case of Hypsipyle, the process of “becoming a subject” happens precisely because of her motherhood. Drawing on Ettinger’s theorization on the maternal experience, I argue that, through her childbirth and motherhood, Hypsipyle creates a liminal border-space. By producing a suspension between the subject (represented by the mother) and the object (represented by the newborn, who has just become a subject on their own), this border-space enables Hypsipyle to cultivate and acknowledge her multilayered subjectivity.¹³

The connection between Heroides 6 (Hypsipyle) and 12 (Medea) is important in many respects. However, since it has already been analyzed in depth,¹⁴ I will make only a few remarks that are strictly relevant to the focus of this chapter. In her study of the Heroides, Laurel Fulkerson states that Heroides 6 and 12 appear to have been “composed in tandem,” as the two heroines mention, and are aware of, details of Jason’s story that they could not infer as intradiegetic characters of their respective myths, but only as omniscient authors of their letters.¹⁵ Accordingly, the two heroines draw from each other’s letters, as well as their respective mythological backgrounds. More specifically, Heroides 6 is explicitly centered around Medea, as Hypsipyle “seems to suspect that not only Jason, but her larger reading public, may be more interested in reading about Medea than about Hypsipyle.”¹⁶ In Hypsipyle’s letter, Medea thus occupies the central position that, within the Heroides, is usually devoted to the unfaithful and disloyal beloved. Medea’s centrality within the epistle creates, therefore, peculiar intertextual links between Heroides 6 and 12, as well as emphasizing the ambiguous relationship between the two heroines as being both authors of their letter and fictional personas.¹⁷ Moreover, Medea’s prominence in Hypsipyle’s letter conveys the idea that the focus of Jason’s story is, in fact, Medea’s story, as is pointedly argued by Fulkerson.¹⁸ Building on Fulkerson, I believe that Hypsipyle’s emphasis on Medea’s active role in Jason’s story primarily aims to reduce Jason’s status, with a strategy that resembles that of Medea in Heroides 12.¹⁹

According to Sara Lindheim, furthermore, Hypsipyle’s self-depiction as another Medea is meant to construct an image of herself that corresponds to what the hero (Jason) desires.²⁰Heroides 6, therefore, represents a product of the Lacanian Symbolic order, as it is mainly concerned with building a simulacrum of the woman (Hypsipyle), which can reflect the expectations of the patriarchal system (represented by Jason).²¹ While I agree with Lindheim’s theoretical framework as a basis for reading Hypsipyle’s letter as manipulation of her self-image, I find that this self-portrait serves a completely opposite purpose. Hypsipyle does not shape a new image of herself to annihilate her subjectivity and adjust her persona to Jason’s desires; on the contrary, her self-representation is the first step toward gaining a self-standing subjectivity. However, to get to that point of self-awareness and independence, Hypsipyle needs to go through a process of self-recognition, which is propelled by her motherhood. The significance that the heroine gives to her sons does not (simply) represent a(nother) compelling reason for Jason to come back to her; it also symbolizes an encounter with a part of herself (i.e., the newborn) that exists outside her corporeal borders.²²

Motherhood thus plays an important role in Hypsipyle’s self-definition, just as it did for Medea in Heroides 12.²³ Maternity, however, is a crucial element of similarity and, at the same time, difference between the two heroines. Hypsipyle, like Medea in Euripides (who sends her children to Creusa; see Eur. Med. 780–789; Her. 12.188), considers sending her sons to Jason in order to convince him to return. However, she hesitates and ultimately refrains from doing this, as she imagines they would be received by Medea (125–128).²⁴ Medea, who is at this point in the story already responsible for the death of her brother and Pelias, has not yet killed her children. Nonetheless, Hypsipyle’s concerns about her children seem to hint quite clearly at this mythological frame: as an Ovidian writer, Hypsipyle is knowledgeable of Medea’s myth in its entirety. For both Hypsipyle and Medea motherhood represents a means to free themselves from the discursive and ontological constraints of phallogocentric society, but the two heroines interpret their maternal “self” in two different (almost opposite) ways. Medea gains her independence by suspending her motherhood, portraying it as an unfixed and malleable category, and enacting a process of autopoiesis, which starts from and at the same time finishes with her intention to kill her children.²⁵ Portraying herself as a “second” Medea, Hypsipyle is tempted by that model, which would lead her to plot against Jason’s and her own children. Yet Hypsipyle seems genuinely concerned about her children’s safety, and wants them to stay alive (121–128).

From this embracing of her motherhood, and “encounter” with her children (to put it in Ettinger’s terms), Hypsipyle creates a marginal space where she can establish her own identity (although it remains fluid and variable). In this liminal space, the feminine dimension conflates with the Symbolic order, which is represented by the newborn’s assimilation in the androcentric society: “the known” and familiar coexists with “the not-rejected” and at the same time “not-assimilated unknown” (i.e., the newborn as it is perceived by their mother); the “I” (the mother) and the “non-I” (the objectified child/ren) emerge “in co-existence.”²⁶ It is through this “co-existence” (rather than a rejection) that Hypsipyle can express her-self, place herself in a subject-position, and eventually fully grasp her subjectivity.

Ovid’s Hypsipyle, Jason, and Medea: A Love Triangle?

In Heroides 6, motherhood is a part of a process of self-identification and self-definition, which starts with the heroine’s reaffirmation of her (literary) persona. The letter opens with a markedly ironic overtone, which is conveyed by the emphatic position of the verb diceris (“you are said,” with reference to Jason) at the beginning of the pentameter and by the hyperbolic description of Jason’s achievements.

With a sarcastic comment (“gratulor incolumi”; 3), Hypsipyle congratulates Jason on his safe return, but also adds that she would have expected to be notified of that by Jason himself (3–4).²⁷ The putative message from Jason (scripto … tuo, 4), which never actually existed, would have functioned from Hypsipyle’s perspective as a sort of amendment to the hero’s physical absence. The lack of such a message stands in patent antithesis to Hypsipyle’s text, the epistle the heroine has just started writing. When compared to Hypsipyle’s writing and presence as a character within her text, the heroine’s reference to the absence of Jason, as well as a note written by him, places herself in an active position, which contrasts with Jason’s passivity and lack of initiative. By writing her letter, Hypsipyle implies that she is at least trying to reach Jason, whereas he has not even made the effort to justify his actions and behavior.²⁸

As argued by Efi Spentzou,²⁹ the hypothetical letter from Jason may represent a pharmakon, which would aid Hypsipyle’s discomfort. At the same time, according to the etymological meaning of the Greek word pharmakon (both “remedy” and “poison”), the lack of this letter is what also enhances the heroine’s sense of loss and discomfort. We can see how such a direct reference to a missive from Jason at the very beginning of the epistle, as well as the emphasis on the fact that the hero could have written and sent this letter in spite of adverse circumstances (7), recalls the passage from Amores 2.18 where Ovid imagines that some heroines get replies from their beloved. In particular, line 33 refers to the hypothetical letter sent by Jason (who was said to be male gratus, “ungrateful,” at line 23) to Hypsipyle: “tristis ad Hypsipylen ab Iasone littera venit” (A gloomy letter comes to Hypsipyle from Jason).³⁰ Moreover, this reference invites the reader to appreciate from the very beginning Hypsipyle’s imaginative ability, as well as her irony, in constructing and reshaping reality, since one cannot comprehend how this potential letter from Jason could have ever practically reached the heroine on Lemnos. This imaginative ability likens Hypsipyle to Ovid, thereby confirming her status as a writer and narrator. The missing letter is therefore highly significant precisely because it is missing, that is, because of its absence. This absence (of Jason’s letter) contrasts with Hypsipyle’s writing and her active role as both author of and character within her narrative.

By stating that she deserved to receive Jason’s greeting (8), the heroine makes clear that she is now entitled to decide what she is worth, thereby presenting herself as the person who can reestablish the rules of the game through her subjective writing.³¹ In this line, moreover, Hypsipyle calls herself by name for the first time. This mention of her name, however, occurs with a certain delay (see Dido in Her. 7, as discussed above), which raises the reader’s expectations.³² Such a rhetorical strategy, which gives significant emphasis to the heroine’s name (emphatically placed at the beginning of the line), points out that Hypsipyle herself is now empowered to redefine her identity and shape it throughout the epistle. The heroine is not simply saying, “I deserved the sending of a greeting,” but “Hypsipyle deserved the sending of a greeting”: Hypsipyle, then, is an entity that does not yet exist, but is being formed in the hic et nunc of the writing; Hypsipyle, as a name and a female subject, marks this process of transition and opposes the idea of a depersonalized, objectified ego (“I”)—the one that is a mere product of phallogocentrism.³³

Insisting on the epistle motif, the heroine asks herself why she has heard about Jason’s deeds through fama, “rumor,” instead of receiving a letter from him (“cur mihi fama prior de te quam littera venit,” Why was it rumor that brought me news about you, rather than a letter from your hand? 9). The fama, which is a recurring motif within the Heroides and links Hypsipyle to Dido, can be manipulated, modified, and ultimately transformed into a (slightly) new story.³⁴ This is precisely how Hypsipyle operates in the following lines, that is, in the description of Jason’s deeds in Colchis (10–14). By listing Jason’s deeds, the heroine not only points out how many things Jason failed to tell her (either in person or indirectly, by means of an epistle) but also implies that there is something else that Jason is not keen on confessing, namely, that these actions were not accomplished by himself alone. The men who grew from the seeds were not killed by Jason’s dextra (“right hand,” 12); although the pervigil (“ever watchful”) dragon was guarding the fleece (13), nevertheless it was stolen (14): the hyperbolic adjective pervigil, which may be an Ovidian hapax (see Met. 7.149), enhances the irony of this passage, as well as Jason’s lack of heroism.³⁵

Without mentioning it openly, in these lines Hypsipyle hints at the help Jason received from Medea, thus confirming the version of Medea herself in Heroides 12. Medea provided him with magic filters, which made the men arising from the seeds Jason had sowed kill each other, and the “ever watchful” dragon fall asleep. Therefore, Medea is (as we have seen) the actual mind behind the hero’s deeds and the reason for his successes. While reproaching Jason for his absence and not having sent her a message, Hypsipyle also cunningly points to his marginal role in the accomplishment of the trials, thereby reducing his heroic stature.³⁶ The lack of an account of the tasks in Jason’s words (that is, the lack of an epistle by him) allows Hypsipyle to question his heroism. To (re)construct Jason’s story, Hypsipyle relies on a quite undetermined fama and, accordingly, on her interpretation of the events. By subtly implying a difference between a potential account from Jason and her own account, Hypsipyle again stresses her independence as a female narrator—and subject. This independence is also achieved through the heroine’s initial insistence on her distinctiveness from Jason’s new paramour, Medea.

Hypsipyle states that she would not complain about Jason’s slowness (see Ulysses as lentus in Her. 1.1), if she knew that he was faithful to her (18).³⁷ However, this is not the case, as the heroine knows that she has been replaced by a barbara … venefica (19), who has taken her place in Jason’s (promised) marital bed (20).³⁸ Being described as a barbara venefica, Medea is portrayed in a negative light from Hypsipyle’s very first reference, where she is not even explicitly named.³⁹ This periphrastic reference, which contrasts with Hypsipyle’s self-naming at line 8, emphasizes Medea’s sinister and demonic nature, as well as foreshadowing her future crimes. Moreover, it also provides a belated explanation for the accomplishment of Jason’s deeds, which were recounted as happening without Jason’s active intervention (10–14). Finally, by referring to Medea’s magical power, Hypsipyle reinterprets the literary tradition, as she is arguing (and will argue) that Jason was captured by Medea’s magic ars, instead of falling in love with her accidentally or because of divine will, as is attested in most of the previous sources.⁴⁰

The introduction of Medea in the letter would—one might think—harm Hypsipyle’s construction of herself as a powerful character; on the contrary, it helps Hypsipyle to free herself from her dependence on Jason, as well as contributing to the reduction of Jason’s heroic status. By opposing, and simultaneously linking, herself to Medea, Hypsipyle manages to construct her subjectivity. Having been told again of Jason’s deeds (31–38) by a hospes … Thessalus (“a Thessalian guest,” 23), the heroine suddenly realizes that Jason has forgotten about her and his promises. As opposed to what is reported by other sources, Ovid’s Hypsipyle claims that her relationship with Jason was an official and legitimate union (41–44).⁴¹ As certain scholars have noted, this element represents a significant difference from the narrative of the Argonautica, where there are no hints at any legal or regulated union.⁴² Hypsipyle is therefore again rewriting and recasting the previous events according to her point of view. Alongside uncovering Hypsipyle’s manipulation of her narrative, the emphasis on her union with Jason as legitimate also nods to her potential Roman female readership. As mentioned, Roman women gained a status within society only if they were married or, alternatively, widowed. While ironic and rhetorically constructed, the Ovidian heroines’ insistence on their liaisons as legitimate mirrors Roman women’s (and family’s) preoccupation with the legitimation of their status.

Pushing the interplay with her mythological background (as well as Ovid’s historical context) even further, Hypsipyle repeatedly underscores the lawfulness of her union with Jason, which is far from an illicit affair: “non ego sum furto tibi cognita” (I was not made acquainted with you in an adulterous way; 43).⁴³ The substantive furtum recalls a frequent motif within the Heroides and in elegy more broadly, where it usually indicates illicit sexual intercourse.⁴⁴ By maintaining that pronuba Iuno (“Juno, who presides marriage rituals”) as well as Hymen (the god of marriage, 43–44) sanctioned her union, the heroine establishes a clear intertextual link with Dido, who also claims that her marriage was characterized by an official wedding ceremony (see Aen. 4.166, pronuba Iuno; Her. 7.93–96) and accordingly takes it as an official union.⁴⁵ However, distinct from Dido, Ovid has Hypsipyle build the circumstances of her marriage with Jason ex novo, thus seemingly innovating the previous literary tradition. At the same time, the marriage motif is intended to create an antithesis between Hypsipyle’s presumably lawful relationship with Jason, and Medea’s unacknowledged liaison with him.⁴⁶

This marriage, however, is strongly connoted by sinister and ominous patterns, which establish a coexistence of the funerary and the nuptial frame: neither Iuno nor Hymen carried the wedding faces (“torches”), but rather the Erinys … sanguinolenta (“bloody Erinys,” 45–46).⁴⁷ The essence of Hypsipyle’s (presumed) union with Jason thus seems to have changed radically, insofar as the heroine not only tells what might well be a false story or her subjective reinterpretation of the events (i.e., the fact that she and Jason officially married), but she also distorts the memory of this story. The motif of the marriage is recalled by the heroine only to disregard and dismiss it. This negation of marriage eventually marks Hypsipyle’s passage from an object in Jason’s hands to a subject who tells her own story, as well as symbolizing the heroine’s break with and reinterpretation of a patriarchal institution.⁴⁸ This subversive potential of Hypsipyle’s narrative also emerges in lines 51–54.

The Ovidian Hypsipyle is not as concerned as her Apollonian counterpart about concealing the actual events that occurred on Lemnos (cf. Argon. 1.793–833). By contrast, she rather emphasizes the strength and potential violence of the Lemnian women by choosing words that patently recall a military frame, such as pellere, castra, manu, vincere, milite (52–54). By suggesting that she and her female companions would have been able to expel the foreigners if they had wanted, Hypsipyle equates the Lemnian women to a band of soldiers (manus, 52), as well as placing them at the same level as male warriors, as the Argonauts are.⁴⁹ While stating that killing or ejecting the Argonauts (instead of welcoming them) would have been a better decision, in these lines, the heroine also demonstrates that a community of women can exist and survive by itself. If an all-female community can thus stand alone and prosper without any man (although to a limited extent, within the Lemnian narrative), the implied deduction is that Hypsipyle can also live, and express herself, much better after having obliterated and silenced Jason.⁵⁰ Hypsipyle’s legitimation of her existence on her own is developed throughout the epistle: culminating in her maternal experience, the establishment of Hypsipyle’s identity is initially pursued by diminishing Jason’s status and differentiating herself from Medea (who is also building her own “unaligned” subjectivity, as we have seen in chapter 6).

First, Hypsipyle mentions her motherhood at 61–62, where she reports Jason’s words. Jason refers to the potential child(ren) who may be hidden inside Hypsipyle’s womb and wishes for it/them to live, and for himself and Hypsipyle to share their parenthood: “quod tamen e nobis gravida celatur in alvo, / vivat, et eiusdem simus uterque parens” (However, what lies heavy in your womb from me may come to live, and may we both be its parents! 61–62).⁵¹ Beyond revealing a somewhat paternal concern,⁵² Jason’s words also hint quite openly at the corporeality of Hypsipyle’s maternal experience (see gravida … alvo, 61). Accordingly, Jason’s reference to his own and Hypsipyle’s parenthood appears to be aimed at controlling this parenthood and Hypsipyle’s procreative power. Concurrently, the passage can also be interpreted as (Jason’s) expression of more general concerns with, and interest in, motherhood that are intrinsic to patriarchal societies. On the one hand, motherhood should give women the potential to contribute to the formation of their children’s subjectivity in the pre-Oedipal phase; on the other, the androcentric system annihilates this sort of power and reclaims control over children by stressing their belonging to the Symbolic order and to the “law of the Fathers.”⁵³ Jason’s preoccupation with his children thus represents the more general concern of “the Fathers” that their children may be raised outside of their control, their “laws,” and therefore outside the Symbolic order.⁵⁴ Despite Jason’s words, in the following lines of her epistle, Hypsipyle reappropriates her maternal experience, thus reshaping her subjectivity. The formation of this subjectivity can be said to take place in a liminal area, which corresponds to Ettinger’s “matrixial borderspace”: this liminal territory is the location for the encounter between two subjects, who recognize and acknowledge each other. During pregnancy and childbirth, the “non-I is not an intruder, but a partner in difference,” as it helps the subject (i.e., the mother) to acknowledge her subjectivity through a distinction from the “other” (i.e., the child).⁵⁵

The achievement of an autonomous identity is reached through a shift in the letter’s focus, which, from line 81 onward, appears to be centered on Medea (see barbara paelex, “a barbarian concubine”).⁵⁶ This shift allows Hypsipyle to stress the difference between Medea’s and her own maternal experience, which ultimately leads to the construction of an independent identity. At lines 81–82, Hypsipyle claims that she was concerned about other rivals in Argo (Argolidas timui, 81) and did not expect that Medea would have defeated her in the love battle for Jason (“non expectata vulnus ab hoste tuli,” The wound I received is not from the enemy whence I thought to see it come; 82). The well-known military metaphor (vulnus ab hoste)⁵⁷ anticipates the following reference to Medea’s magic powers and arts, which, according to Hypsipyle, are the very reason for Jason falling in love with her (83–84).⁵⁸ As previously noted, in Apollonius’s Argonautica, Medea’s falling in love with Jason is caused by the joint intervention of Athena, Juno, Aphrodite, and Cupid (see 3.6–166), whereas Jason’s interest in Medea seems mainly due to the purpose of his mission, that is, gaining the golden fleece (see 3.167–195). The fact that Hypsipyle attributes Jason’s falling in love to Medea’s magical powers is functional to her depiction of Medea as an “evil” Medea.⁵⁹ At the same time, this depiction emphasizes Jason’s passivity,⁶⁰ as one notices particularly at lines 99–100, where Hypsipyle openly claims that Jason’s deeds should in fact be credited to Medea, and that, accordingly, her fame obscures the achievements of Jason.⁶¹

This couplet makes the reversal of gender roles very obvious, while simultaneously supporting what Medea also points out in her letter, namely, that Jason’s deeds are in fact her deeds.⁶² Moreover, as Medea’s glory obscures Jason’s name and fame, in the same way, Medea as a character also annihilates Jason’s presence within Hypsipyle’s epistle.⁶³ Further downplaying Jason’s status and drawing from Medea’s rhetoric in Heroides 12, Hypsipyle imagines that some among the followers of Pelias may suggest that “the deeds” should be attributed “to the poisons,” Medea’s poisons (“acta venenis / inputat,” 101–102).⁶⁴ Some people may have acknowledged that the aurea … terga (“golden back”) of the ram of Phrixus (Phrixeae … ovis, 104) were conquered (revellit, 104; literally, “to seize out”) by Medea, “the daughter of Aeëtes,” not Jason, “the son of Aeson”: non haec Aesonides, sed Phasias Aeetine (103).⁶⁵ The use of patronymics and/or epithets (Aesonides, Phasias, Aeetine) may be due to the attempt to give the description an epic atmosphere.⁶⁶ This epic nuance, which applies to acts that were performed by Medea, creates an ironic effect and undermines Jason’s supposed heroism. According to Hypsipyle’s account, it thus appears that Medea has completely replaced Jason in his role as an epic hero. In her letter, Hypsipyle seems even clearer in, and keener on, attributing Jason’s actions to Medea than Medea herself was in Heroides 12.

The lines examined so far not only show quite clearly Hypsipyle’s attempt to diminish Jason’s status, but also her obliteration of his memory and presence within the epistle. Her recasting of Jason and Medea will lead Hypsipyle to establish herself as a self-standing character. By overcoming Jason, Hypsipyle accomplishes the first step(s) in the process of her self-definition; she then directs her attention to Medea, emphasizing her role as well as her power. Hypsipyle’s depiction of Medea serves both to further sideline Jason and to stress how different Hypsipyle is from the barbara venefica. Toward the end of her epistle, however, Hypsipyle constructs her self-image as a sort of second Medea and shows that she is planning to commit violent acts (see line 151). Having incorporated some of Medea’s attitudes, this “new” Hypsipyle remains different from the Colchian sorceress and eventually manages to stress her peculiarity, thus building an independent personality and presenting herself as a subject on her own. As we shall see in more detail in the next section, the differentiation and separation from Medea, which lead to Hypsipyle’s self-realization, are propelled by the heroine’s relationship with her maternal body and children.

The Self and the (M)Other: The Formation of a New Subject

Hypsipyle pursues her self-definition through the reappropriation of her motherhood, which, from line 119 onward, becomes the central focus of the epistle. The heroine rather abruptly discloses that she gave birth: “nunc etiam peperi; gratare ambobus, Iason!” (And now, too, I have even given birth; rejoice for us both, Jason! 119). By apostrophizing Jason directly, Hypsipyle seems to reply to his words at lines 61–62 (What lies heavy in your womb from me may come to live, and may we both be its parents!).⁶⁷ At the same time, the use of the imperative form of the verb grator harks back to the opening words of the epistle, where Hypsipyle congratulated Jason on his being safe (gratulor, 3).⁶⁸ Given the ironic content of line 3, we may suspect that this section of Hypsipyle’s letter is also characterized by a certain ambivalence. This supposition is confirmed in the subsequent lines, where the heroine insistently links her sons to their father, thereby initially suggesting that the existence of these children is legitimated precisely by their belonging to Jason.

At line 120, Hypsipyle states that the auctor (namely, Jason, the “father” of her sons) made the burden of pregnancy (onus, 120) dulce (“sweet”) for her (mihi gravidae, 120).⁶⁹ As noted, the word auctor embeds multiple connotations, as it can mean both “author” and “ancestor/father.”⁷⁰ With this line, the heroine implies that her pregnancy and motherhood can be considered pleasant for her insofar as they are linked to her relationship with Jason: Jason is the only reason for the existence of her children and herself as a mother.⁷¹ Furthermore, Hypsipyle’s pregnancy is said to be lucky in number, as she gave birth to twin sons.⁷²

We have seen before that the word pignus (here pignora) is highly ambivalent, since it may mean both “child” and “pledge.” As pignora, the two sons would represent a guarantee of Jason’s return to Lemnos—at least, according to this first part of Hypsipyle’s argument.⁷³ This linguistic ambiguity is transformed into conceptual and thematic ambiguity in the following couplet, where the heroine states that her children are very similar to their father.

The similarity of children to their father is quite a common motif (particularly in epithalamia) and was meant to stress the fact that they were legitimate.⁷⁴ Hypsipyle, however, adds an ironic remark to this conventional motif. The children are similar in everything to their father, except for the fact that they are unable to lie (124).⁷⁵ Previously, Hypsipyle has not only stressed the similarities between her children and their father, but also emphasized their belonging to him, thereby implying that her sons are, primarily, Jason’s sons. At line 124, by contrast, the heroine points out a difference between them and their father, which reminds us of Jason’s deceitfulness. Alongside unfolding the ironic meaning of Hypsipyle’s words, this emphasis represents the starting point of the heroine’s reappropriation of her children, which accompanies the redefinition of herself as a mother.

By pointing out this subtle difference, Hypsipyle begins to perceive her sons not just as Jason’s children, but as her own children. This recognition reestablishes a connection between mother and son(s), the “Self” and the “(M)Other.” Eventually, this new perception of her children seems to allow the heroine to make the best decisions for them (see lines 125–128, below). Concurrently, the acknowledgment of her motherhood leads Hypsipyle both to distance herself and to experience herself as a maternal figure, namely, one who carries the “non-I” (the child/ren) within her and contributes to the construction of a multilayered subjectivity. These subjectivities (co-)emerge through an encounter in a liminal space (represented by pregnancy and childbirth), which is characterized by the coexistence of an internal and an external component (respectively, the mother and the child, namely, the “Other,” the “non-I”). The formation of subjectivity through pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood can be illuminated further through Ettinger’s concept of “matrixial borderspace,” wherein “the internal is becoming external and the external, internal.” Connected to pregnancy and childbirth, the “matrixial borderspace” is defined as “a zone of encounter between the intimate and the exterior, where the uncognized Other (as a non-I) and the I co-emerge,” which ultimately leads to the subject’s self-acknowledgment.⁷⁶ Similarly, by acknowledging her children as others and at the same time rebuilding her connection with them, Hypsipyle also establishes and recognizes herself as an independent subject.

The reappropriation of her maternal body and the acknowledgment of her children as an “other-than-I” further evolves at lines 125–128, when the heroine considers sending her sons as messengers to Medea. The presence of Medea catalyzes, rather than inhibits, the formation of Hypsipyle’s complex subjectivity. By first distancing herself from Medea, then subsequently comparing herself to her (while maintaining her own uniqueness), Hypsipyle shows that she is in a process of (re)definition of her own identity.

As opposed to Medea, Hypsipyle appears highly concerned with her children’s safety: she had thought to send them to Jason as ambassadors on her behalf (125), but her concerns about Medea’s cruelty prevented her (126). While the embassy of the children very clearly recalls Medea sending her poisoned gift to Creusa via her sons (see Eur. Med. 969–975, 1136–1146),⁷⁷ the expression pro matre suggests that Hypsipyle’s children are literally meant to act, in this circumstance, on behalf of their mother. Accordingly, one may say that Hypsipyle is both recognizing the children as her own children and simultaneously viewing them as a sort of projection of her subjectivity into two other(-than-I) entities, as she imagines entrusting her voice and words to them. The heroine, therefore, is not merely reappropriating her sons (and her maternal experience), but she is also “othering” and distancing them. The coexistence of “I” and “non-I” in Hypsipyle’s conception of her motherhood contributes to the formation of her identity.⁷⁸

This coexistence also characterizes Hypsipyle’s relationship with Medea, whom she both rejects and admires. Medea is both the heroine’s enemy and an inextricable part of her “I,” the “uncognized,” never fully realized, never captured “non-I” inside her.⁷⁹ After the earlier barbara venefica and barbara paelex, she is defined as saeva noverca (“cruel stepmother”) at 126.⁸⁰ By indicating Medea as a noverca, Hypsipyle exploits the motif of stepmothers as quintessentially cruel and hostile toward their stepchildren, as well as hinting more specifically at Medea’s crimes, which qualify her as a very dangerous woman—and mother.⁸¹ Concurrently, she is also “othering” Medea by distinguishing Medea’s behavior from her own concern for her children. At this point in the story, Medea has not yet killed her sons, but one may suspect that Hypsipyle, as writer as well as omniscient author of her letter, foreshadows Medea’s infanticide, which will occur at a later stage in the myth (and which the reader is supposed to be aware of).⁸² Given this background, Hypsipyle recounts that she chose not to send her sons to Medea, as this would have endangered them: “Medeam timui: plus est Medea noverca” (It was Medea I feared; Medea is more than a stepmother; 127). By repeating Medea’s name three times (with anaphora and polyptoton: 127–128), Hypsipyle materializes her obscure and threatening presence within her letter and crystallizes her feelings toward her (“Medeam timui … Medea noverca”; 127; “Medeae faciunt ad scelus omne manus,” The hands of Medea are fitted for every crime; 128). Hypsipyle further expands on Medea’s dangerous nature by referring to the murder of Absyrtus. The heroine asks herself why on earth a person who dismembered the body of her own brother should spare two children.

Hypsipyle alludes to the sparagmos of Absyrtus through a periphrasis, that is, without mentioning his name:⁸³ the arrangement of words in the lines (spargere … fratris … lacerata … / corpora) conveys the idea of scattered pieces of the body. The substantive corpora, moreover, is a metonymy where the whole is used to indicate the parts, which figuratively expresses the concept of dismemberment. The (fore)knowledge of Medea’s dreadful actions justifies Hypsipyle’s hesitation in sending her sons to Medea and clarifies her rhetorical question at line 130, where the children are indicated again through the term pignus/pignora (130). This word evokes the motif of the “pledge(s)” (of love) that can, however, easily turn into hostages, and accordingly victims, of Medea’s fury. Moreover, the possibility that Medea might well kill innocent children recalls, and forecasts, her subsequent infanticide.

Thus, before presenting herself as a quasi Medea, in these lines Hypsipyle stresses how different their respective attitudes are, particularly toward their children. This difference emerges patently from the hints about Medea’s murderous acts, as well as infanticide, which qualifies Medea as a bad mother, whereas Hypsipyle is apparently concerned about her sons. Motherhood thus becomes a measure of distinction between the two heroines, as well as a means to stress Hypsipyle’s subjective difference. In this respect, it seems that Hypsipyle has experienced the true sense of her motherhood not while giving birth (see line 119), but after realizing that the sons she had with Jason are her sons and not only—or not at all—Jason’s. This process of acknowledgment and reappropriation of her sons takes place throughout the epistle: it starts with the mention of the actual moment of childbirth (nunc etiam peperi, 119), continues with a semi-ironic and provocative attribution of the sons to the father (119–124), and finishes with Hypsipyle’s concerns about their safety (125–130), which also distinguishes her from Medea.

Beyond being a rather evident sign of her maternal love, the heroine’s concerns also imply a departure from her children, who are perceived as a hypostasis of her own “otherness,” or alterity, as a mother figure. The concomitant recognition of and departure from her maternal self compel Hypsipyle to also distance herself from her erotic drive toward Jason, and experience compassion, to put it in Ettinger’s words: a form of nonaggressive love, compassion marks Hypsipyle’s distance from other subjects—in this case, from Medea. At the same time, compassion connects Hypsipyle’s subjectivity to the “non-I” (Medea) through the liminal space of the maternal experience. As with Hypsipyle’s sons (but in reverse sequence), Medea is also both appropriated and distanced. Through compassion, Hypsipyle carries Medea inside her, insofar as she is both her nemesis and an unprocessed and “uncognized” part of her “I.”⁸⁴

At lines 135–136, Hypsipyle repeatedly stresses her difference from Medea, who betrayed her father (“prodidit illa patrem”; 135), whereas she, Hypsipyle, saved her own father (“rapui de clade Thoanta”; 135);⁸⁵ Medea abandoned the Colchians, while Hypsipyle remained on herisland: “deseruit Colchos; me mea Lemnos habet” (136).⁸⁶ Nevertheless, the scelerata (“impious”) Medea defeated the piam (“pious”) Hypsipyle and also gained her dowry, as well as her husband, by means of her crime: “et ipso / crimine dotata est emeruitque virum” (137–138).⁸⁷ Beyond recalling lines 101–104, this remark of Hypsipyle also evokes Heroides 12, where Medea claims to have played the dominant role in Jason’s achievement of the golden fleece (see esp. 199–206). Finally, Hypsipyle acknowledges that she is also guilty (culpo) of the Lemnadium facinus (“the Lemnian massacre,” 139).⁸⁸ By mentioning the Lemnian massacre, the heroine begins to connect her own dreadful actions to Medea’s horrible deeds.

The difference stressed by Hypsipyle between herself and Medea becomes smaller and less recognizable in the last part of Heroides 6, to the point where the heroine tries to incorporate some of Medea’s attitudes. Although Hypsipyle appears to be driven toward a more aggressive and Medea-like version of herself, she nevertheless manages to redirect her instincts, and sublimates her death drives. From line 141 onward, Hypsipyle describes how she would react if Jason, together with his companions, (re)entered the harbor (141–142); that is, she would have come out together with her twin sons to meet him: “obviaque exissem fetu comitante gemello” (143).⁸⁹ This line recalls Heroides 12.135, where Medea describes the departure from her house after Jason’s quasi repudiation (“iussa domo cessi natis comitata duobus,” Urged to leave, I left the house accompanied by my two children), thereby enhancing the link between Hypsipyle and Medea. At the same time, it is also reminiscent of the most remarkable discrepancy between the two heroines: Hypsipyle will not commit infanticide.

Moreover, not only does the presence of Hypsipyle’s children legitimate her claims against Jason and her role as a prominent character, but the heroine’s (partial) reappropriation of her sons also denies Jason’s paternity and his right over his children—to put it in Roman terms, his patria potestas.⁹⁰ In her imaginary narrative, Hypsipyle ironically remarks that, upon meeting her again, Jason “must have prayed earth to yawn” for him (“hiscere nempe tibi terra roganda fuit”), without daring to look at her and their children (144–145). Jason’s shame at Hypsipyle and their sons contributes to further sidelining the hero, thus sanctioning the final development of Hypsipyle’s relationship with her children, who now no longer belong to their father. As for hiscere … terra, while this expression represents a frequent topos, it may also allude to a somewhat reverse process, an involution.⁹¹ Since the earth is a common metaphor for the “maternal,” the idea that the terra may open and swallow Jason evokes a sort of a return to the maternal womb.⁹² Thus Jason is overcome by an overwhelming feminine element; his parenthood is denied, annihilated; he has no power over his children and his own existence; the defeat of Jason stands for the collapse of the Symbolic order.

This weakness, as well as marginality, is also implied at lines 147–148, where the heroine states that Jason is safe (tutus) and alive (sospesque) only because of her intervention (per me, 147)—not because he deserved it, but because Hypsipyle herself was mitis (“benevolent”) with him (non quia tu dignus, sed quia mitis ego; 148).⁹³ Besides once more evoking Medea’s words at Heroides 12.199–206, this couplet is characterized by a complete negation of Jason’s heroic status and control over his relationships. After reappropriating her children and motherhood, the heroine claims the right to make decisions about Jason’s destiny and recalls the power that she had over him. This self-presentation as a powerful and dominant character continues in the following lines, where Hypsipyle quite crudely describes her reaction to an imaginary meeting with Medea: “paelicis ipsa meos inplessem sanguine vultus” (As for your mistress, I, myself, would have dashed my face with her blood; 149).⁹⁴ Eventually, Hypsipyle (re)imagines herself as “a Medea for Medea,” Medeae Medea forem (151): the polyptoton and repetition of Medea’s name at the beginning of the line highlight the abruptness of Hypsipyle’s transformation.⁹⁵ By claiming that she “would have been a Medea for Medea” (151), Hypsipyle depicts herself as similar to Medea or as another Medea, after having distanced herself from her. This oscillation is the hallmark of the heroine’s process of redefining her identity.⁹⁶

In spite of Hypsipyle’s efforts to become a Medea-like character, she fails in her attempt, as the heroine can only imagine what she would do to Medea, but this idea will never be fulfilled. The only thing that Hypsipyle can do at this point is to wish bad luck to Medea, namely, to foretell her ominous and ill-fated future destiny in the final part of the epistle (151–164). The words Medeae Medea forem establish an intertextual link with Medea’s words at Heroides 12.182 (“hostis Medeae nullus inultus erit,” No enemy of Medea shall go unpunished!), and ironically responds to that line. Medea is Hypsipyle’s hostis now; so, if Hypsipyle becomes a “Medea,” then the implication is that her hostis (Medea herself) will not go unpunished.⁹⁷ The threatening sentence at Heroides 12.182 is formulated in an impersonal way, and therefore does not necessarily indicate the active intervention of the person who has pronounced it but simply implies that something bad will occur to their hostis—which is precisely what Hypsipyle suggests at the end of her epistle.

In the last lines of her letter, the heroine addresses a prayer to Jupiter, asking for Medea to suffer the sorrows she has gone through (“quod gemit Hypsipyle”; 153) and to receive the same treatment (to be betrayed) that she has experienced from her (“et leges sentiat ipsa suas”; 154).⁹⁸ As Hypsipyle is abandoned as a wife and mother of two children, in a similar way she begs that Medea may be orba … viro.

The motif of parenthood and/or the generative imaginary is developed in the following two couplets: Hypsipyle wishes that the ill-fated things Medea engendered (male parta, 157: the choice of the verb pario and the adverb male seems to anticipate the tragic destiny of Medea’s children) may be lost and left even worse (157);¹⁰⁰ that Medea may go into exile and seek refuge through the world (“exulet et toto quaerat in orbe fugam”; 158). Finally, Hypsipyle hopes that Medea will be as acerba (“bitter”) to her sons and partner as she was, as a sister to her brother, and as a daughter to her father (“quam fratri germana fuit miseroque parenti / filia, tam natis, tam sit acerba viro”; 159–160).¹⁰¹ In Hypsipyle’s prophetic words,¹⁰² one can (fore)see the future events that will characterize Medea’s myth, namely, Jason’s betrayal and his choosing Creusa (153–156), as well as Medea’s repudium and exile from Corinth (157–158), and finally the murder of her children (159–160). It is in this reference to Medea’s infanticide that we see the distance between Hypsipyle and Medea: although affected by an ill-fated destiny and tempted to spill Medea’s blood (149–151), Hypsipyle will nonetheless never completely become a “Medea,” as we learn from her subsequent narrative.¹⁰³

Hypsipyle, therefore, will not kill her sons, as Medea does. By contrast, the appreciation of her motherhood and the recognition of her children as a “non-I” contribute to stressing her difference from Medea. The recognition of this difference enables Hypsipyle to begin constructing her identity, as well as her independent subjectivity. This subjectivity can model and determine itself through an encounter with an-other (subject), which happens in a liminal space—the “matrixial borderspace” (in Ettinger’s words) characterizing pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.¹⁰⁴ In the case of Hypsipyle, this encounter takes place in a privileged site of expression of her own subjectivity, her écriture féminine. In a sort of circular process, Hypsipyle makes her motherhood a central element in her subjective writing; conversely, her writing propels the process of recognition and acknowledgment of her own and her children’s subjectivities via her maternal experience and childbirth.¹⁰⁵

Hypsipyle’s evolution can be traced throughout the epistle: first, the heroine presents herself as being wounded in her pride and honor (more than in her feelings) by Jason’s abandonment; therefore, she is concerned about drawing a clear distinction between herself and Medea; she then tries to appear similar to Medea and incorporates her attitudes. However, Hypsipyle eventually remains different from Medea, as is clear from how each heroine approaches her motherhood and children: it is precisely this difference that makes Hypsipyle a distinct, separate entity and helps her to determine her own and her children’s subjectivity. This control over her life is linked to the redefinition of her own multifarious identity, which has been achieved through a renewed relationship with her children as well as maternal feelings. As a mother figure, Hypsipyle carries the “non-I” within herself, but also shapes herself as a subject against this “other-than-I.” The mother figure is both herself and an “other(ness),” namely, multiple subjectivities (co-)emerging in a liminal space. The liminal space, the “borderspace” of pregnancy, contributes to the simultaneous negation and affirmation of a distinctive subjectivity, and is also the product of a subjective creative process. Thus this renewed conception of Hypsipyle’s motherhood is propelled by her writing, which functions as a work of art.¹⁰⁶ Hypsipyle, as a writer and artist, is the creator of this work of art: she gives birth to both her children and her text (that is, her creation), but she never fully separates from them.

The artist in the matrixial dimension is wit(h)ness in compassionate hospitality… . By borderlinking, the artist can bear wit(h)ness and articulate sub-knowledge of/from the other… . What is captured and is given form to at the end of such a trajectory is what was waiting to be born and to receive almost-impossible articulation, in a body-psyche-time-space of suspension-anticipation that you can only “view” or glimpse by joining in.¹⁰⁷

Both motherhood and artistic creation represent a “borderspace,” where the encounter between different subjectivities can take place, an encounter that begins a process of continuous self-modeling and self-definition. Motherhood and artistic (and literary) creation are ultimately interwoven and cooperate in a similar way to the acknowledgment of the difference between an “I” and a “non-I,” namely, the “Self” and the “M(O)ther.”

1. See Jacobson 1974, 94–95; also Jessen in RE IX 436–443, s.v. “Hypsipyle.” On the circumstances of Hypsipyle’s writing, see Verducci 1985, 56–57.

2. See TGF 5.752–770, with Jacobson 1974, 94–97. As for other sources, it seems that both Aeschylus and Sophocles wrote a tragedy whose subject was the relationship between Jason and Hypsipyle (TGF 3.247–248; 4.384–389); see also Hom. Il. 7.467–469; Pind. Pyth. 4.251–257; Callim. frr. 226 and 668; Apollod. Bibl. 1.9.17; Hyg. Fab. 15, 254. According to Knox (1995, 171), Ovid may have drawn some details of Hypsipyle’s story from Varro Atax’s lost Argonautica (see Ov. Am. 1.15.21; Ars am. 3.335–336; Tr. 2.439).

3. For a summary of Euripides’s Hypsipyle, see Collard, Cropp, and Gibert 2004, 169–183; for a reconstruction of the fragmentary text, see, e.g., Bond 1963; Cockle 1987 (and Cockle 2002, 133); Battezzato 2005, 169–203.

4. Jacobson 1974, 94–97; Verducci 1985, 59–62; Knox 1995, 170–171.

5. Bloch 2000, 197–209; Mosci Sassi 2002, 116–124; Lindheim 2003, 115–117, 122–131; Huskey 2004, 276.

6. Knox 1995, 199–201.

7. “If, as Hypsipyle claims, Medea rules Jason, she dominates Hypsipyle’s thoughts no less, almost entirely effacing the presence of Jason in the poem” (Verducci 1985, 58).

8. On Hypsipyle’s motherhood as a subversion of epic codes, see Spentzou 2003, 171–173.

9. See TGF 5.757, 759a, with Collard, Cropp, and Gibert 2004, 206–215, 218–223.

10. For a survey of Hypsipyle’s myth across various sources, see Boner 2006, 149–162; for the links between Ovid’s and Statius’s Hypsipyle, see Falcone 2011, 491–498; Econimo 2020, 171–191; Martorana 2022, 437–464.

11. Collard, Cropp, and Gibert 2004, 169–183. Although Euripides’s Hypsipyle takes place in Nemea, it has been noted that the heroine is significantly concerned—almost obsessed—with her past and often refers to the Argonauts: see, e.g., Scodel 1997, 92–93; Chong-Gossard 2003, 218–222; Chong-Gossard 2009, 21.

12. Schiassi (1954, 13) talks about Hypsipyle’s “materno amore” (maternal love); see also Chong-Gossard 2009, 21.

13. Ettinger 1992, 176–208.

14. Fulkerson 2005, 40–55; see also Bloch 2000, 197–209; Mosci Sassi 2002, 116–124; Lindheim 2003, 114–135; Huskey 2004, 274–289.

15. Fulkerson 2005, 48.

16. Fulkerson 2005, 47.

17. See Jacobson 1974, 94–108; Verducci 1985, 56–66; Westerhold 2023, 81–100. Drawing on Barchiesi (1993, 333–365), Bloch (2000, 203–204) speaks of Hypsipyle’s (future reflexive) irony.

18. Fulkerson 2005, 47.

19. See above, chapter 6; see Bloch 2000, 200–201.

20. Lindheim 2003, 114–117.

21. Lindheim 2003, 114–135.

22. In Ettinger’s words (2010, 2), “Feminine-matrixial encounter-eventing means differeciating and differentiating in re-encountering an-other, a non-I, or few other non-I(s), in a duration of pregnance.”

23. “Ovid has an affection for the maternity motif” (Jacobson 1974, 96).

24. For a more detailed analysis of this passage, see below; also Huskey 2004, 276–277.

25. See above, chapter 6.

26. See Ettinger 1992, 176–177, with Pollock 2009, 3–5.

27. The word ovis is a generic way to indicate the famous ram of the Argonauts’ saga (see Her. 12.8; Am. 2.11.4; Prop. 2.26.6); see at line 49 the more specific term aries, with Knox 1995, 171. For the expression certior esse, see Knox 1995, 172; for variant readings of lines 3–4, see Goold 1977, 68–69.

28. See also Hypsipyle’s allegations at lines 5–7, 41–46, 75–84.

29. See Spentzou 2003, 149–150.

30. According to Bloch (2000, 197–198), this mention of Jason may refer to the epistles of both Hypsipyle and Medea; on this passage, see also Hinds 1993, 30–34.

31. This line shows Hypsipyle’s “sense of self-importance” (Jacobson 1974, 98), which is characteristic of the epistle.

32. Knox 1995, 172.

33. For Hypsipyle’s emphasis on her name, see Jacobson 1974, 99. For a broader reflection on the proper name as a means to perpetuate or, conversely, break social roles, see Maclean 1994, 3: “The personal narrative afforded by a patronym seems ‘real’ and free of the taint of fiction, guaranteed as it is by the law of the Father. On the other hand we may opt for reconception, a dangerous birth or rebirth into the way of the mother, always tainted by its excentricity. This fate or this choice will be crystallised in the proper name.”

34. See, e.g., Her. 7.5–6, 92; also 9.143–144; see Jacobson 1974, 99.

35. See Knox 1995, 174; Jacobson 1974, 100; Bloch 2000, 201.

36. Jacobson 1974, 100–101, 105–106; Bloch 2000, 200–201.

37.Obsequium is very marked in elegy and used “for the indulgences freely granted by a lover” (Knox 1995, 175).

38. For promissi (tori) as an allusion to a regular marriage between Hypsipyle and Jason, see Knox 1995, 175.

39. See Am. 3.7.79 (Circe); Met. 7.316: both the substantivate adjective barbara and the proper adjective venefica convey a negative undertone (see Michalopoulos 2004, 97–99).

40. Michalopoulos 2004, 101, with bibliography.

41. Besides aligning her with other heroines, Hypsipyle’s insistence on the lawfulness of her union confirms Verducci’s statement (1985, 63–65) that, in the first part of her epistle, Hypsipyle adopts the posture of a proper Roman matrona.

42. Verducci 1985, 61; Lindheim 2003, 118.

43. The verb cognosco may in this context indicate carnal knowledge (see Adams 1982, 190).

44. Adams 1982, 167–168.

45. See Phyllis in Her. 2.117; also Aen. 4.124–128, 165–172, 307–308, 316, 431.

46. As we have seen, in Her. 12.103–106, Medea herself seems to remark on the contrast between the lawfulness of Jason’s relationship with Creusa and the lack of any official ritual in her own union with him; see also Verducci 1985, 63–65.

47. See the wedding of Procne and Tereus in Met. 6.428–432; also Dido in Her. 7.96: “Eumenides fati signa dedere mei” (The Eumenides gave the signals for my doom). According to Michalopoulos (2004, 100), Hypsipyle’s reference to the Fury may be an allusion to Medea.

48. “And when will they cease to equate woman’s sexuality with her reproductive organs, to claim that her sexuality has value only insofar as it gathers the heritage of her maternity? … With ‘marriage’ turning out to be a more or less subtle dialectization of the nurturing relationship that aims to maintain, at the very least, the mother/child, producer/consumer distinction, and thereby perpetuate this economy?” (Irigaray 1985, 146).

49. See Jacobson 1974, 105, for Hypsipyle’s “sexual role conflict”; on Hypsipyle’s Lemnian past, see also Fulkerson 2005, 51–52.

50. On the connection between the formation of female subjectivity through self-narrative and the motif of “the death of man” (that is, death of the Father), see Kristeva 1982, 159–162.

51. For the construction of e nobis gravida … in alvo, see Am. 2.13.5, 14.17; Plaut. Amph. 111.

52. Knox 1995, 184–185.

53. “In sum, motherhood becomes a site of domination and surveillance whereby women are objectified as mothers (and mothers only from then on) and their children are judged based on their sex (‘the offspring’)” (Leite 2013, 4).

54. See Kristeva 1982 (particularly 1–31, on “abjection” as a way to escape the Symbolic order); Kristeva 1985, 133–152; Ettinger 2010, 17–23. More specifically, for how this anxiety is framed in Roman society, see Tatarkiewicz 2023, 24–25.

55. Ettinger 1993, 12, with Pollock 2009, 5–6: “Ettinger’s radically different representation proposes ‘pregnancy as a state of being alive in giving life’ and she argues, that, in giving life, the maternal subject wants to live beside that given life.”

56. See 19 (barbara … venefica); also Her. 12.173, where Medea (the illegitimate partner) refers to Creusa (the future legitimate bride of Jason) as a paelex; Deianira, too, in Her. 9.121 indicates—more consistently—Iole as a paelex; see OLD, s.v. “paelex.” This reference to Medea as a paelex emphasizes Hypsipyle’s self-representation as a Roman matrona, whose concerns reflect Augustus’s moral policy and legislation (see Verducci 1985, 63).

57. For a similar metaphor, see, e.g., Prop. 1.11.7; Her. 12.182; Am. 1.9.18, 1.9.26, 2.12.3; Ars am. 2.461 (for vulnus within an erotic context, see above, chapter 5).

58. In some sources it appears that, by contrast, Jason bewitched Medea—and not the opposite (see Pind. Pyth. 4.213–219; Tzetzes on Lycoph. Alex. 310; Hyg. Fab. 22, with Jacobson 1974, 99n12).

59. For the elegiac motif of the bewitched beloved, see, e.g., Tib. 1.5.41–44, 1.8.17–29; Prop. 3.6.25–30, 4.7.72.

60. See Verducci 1985, 57; also Bloch 2000, 201–202.

61. For variant readings of line 100, see Goold 1977, 76; Knox 1995, 191–192.

62. See Her. 12.15–24, 73–88 (Jason’s speech), 93–102, 163–166.

63. Verducci 1985, 56–66; Fulkerson 2005, 46–47.

64. Knox 1995, 192; for such figurative use of the verb inputo, see Met. 2.400, 15.470.

65. See Her. 12.8, Phrixeam … ovem; for revello, see Livy 45.28.3; Stat. Theb. 12.699–700; OLD, s.v. “revello.”

66. Ovid may have drawn the rare epithets Phasias and Aeetine from a lost Greek poem (Knox 1995, 192).

67. See Knox 1995, 195.

68. The verb grator is an archaic form of gratulor, which is often used in poetry: see Blatt in TLL online, VI 2, 2243–2246, s.v. “grator.”

69. For onus, see Ov. Her. 4.58; 11.38, 42, 64.

70. See Bögel in TLL online, II 0, 1194–1213, s.v. “auctor”; also Her. 7.105, 136; Her. 11.8 (above, chapter 4): “auctorisque oculis exigeretur opus.”

71. See Irigaray 1993, 10: “If traditionally, and as a mother, woman represents place for man, such a limit means that she becomes a thing, with some possibility of change from one historical period to another. She finds herself delineated as a thing.”

72. Spentzou (2003, 172–173) underlines Hypsipyle’s “unambiguous” motherhood vis-à-vis Dido’s uncertain pregnancy (see Her. 7.133). As for Hypsipyle’s children, Euneus and Thoas (or Nebrophonus), see Hom. Il. 7.468; Apollod. Bibl. 1.9.17; Stat. Theb. 5.465. For multiple pregnancy as a reason for praise of the Roman mother, see Tatarkiewicz 2023, 91–92.

73. Knox 1995, 196.

74. For this theme, see, e.g., Catull. 61.214–218 (see Fordyce 1961, on 217); Hor. Carm. 4.5.23; for moral resemblance to the father, see Ov. Tr. 4.5.31–32; Pont. 2.8.31–32; also Her. 12.189.

75. See Met. 6.713; Chaucer, The Legend of Hypsipyle and Medea 4.1568–1570.

76. See Ettinger 1996, 127–128.

77. “It is quite as if Hypsipyle had read Euripides’ Medea” (Jacobson 1974, 103); see also Knox 1995, 196; Guastella 2005, 261–262.

78. See Ettinger 1996, 125; Ettinger 2010, 2.

79. Ettinger 1996, 127–128.

80. Medea also describes Creusa as a noverca (see Her. 12.188): given the intertextuality between Hypsipyle’s and Medea’s epistles, this reference looks like an allusion to Medea’s own words in Her. 12 (see Bloch 2000, 203).

81. For the proverbial evilness of stepmothers, see above, chapter 2.

82. Bloch 2000, 204.

83. As Knox (1995, 197) points out, the version of the murder of Absyrtus Ovid follows is different from Apollonius’s account (4.452–481), as in Her. 6 Absyrtus is presented as a young boy taken hostage, while in Apollonius he is a grown man. For the (calculated) omission of Absyrtus’s name, see Huskey 2004, 274–289.

84. Ettinger 2005, 707–710.

85. “Hypsipyle’s second reference to the Lemnian massacre is used only to score a rhetorical point” (Knox 1995, 197–198).

86. According to Knox (1995, 198), the expression “me mea Lemnos habet” (see Medea in Her. 12.35; see Bömer 1976, on Met. 7.816; Wills 1996, 241–242) may hint at Hypsipyle’s future banishment from Lemnos.

87. Knox (1995, 198) notes the emphatic juxtaposition of the two words, i.e., scelerata and piam; Jacobson (1974, 106) remarks that Hyginus classified Hypsipyle “among the piissimae”; see also Guastella 2005, 264–268.

88. For a discussion on the authenticity of 139–140, see Knox 1995, 198. On these lines, see Fulkerson 2005, 52: “Significantly, the offense of the men of Lemnos was sexual, and their wives killed them for it. Hypsipyle’s words leave open the possibility that murderous jealousy is simply a defining characteristic of her people.”

89. See above, line 121, prolemque gemellam. According to Knox (1995, 199), the choice of fetus (which usually indicates newborns; see Leonhardi in TLL online, VI 1, 637.5–51, s.v. “fetus”) evokes sympathy for Hypsipyle.

90. See Jason’s loss of his patria potestas in Medea’s epistle (discussed above, in chapter 6).

91. See Hom. Il. 8.150; Verg. Aen. 4.24 (epic); Sen. Oed. 868; Pha. 1238; Tro. 519–520 (tragedy); see also Daphne’s prayer in Ov. Met. 1.543–547 (for the alternative reading, see Tarrant 2004, ad loc.; Bömer 1969, 168–172; Barchiesi 2005, 212–213); Her. 3.63.

92. The metaphor of earth as a mother is very common within Latin literature: see, e.g., Aen. 3.94–98; Livy 1.56.12–13; Stat. Theb. 7.809–817, with McAuley 2016, 97–98, 304–307. For the maternal (earth) imaginary as disturbing for patriarchal societies, see De Beauvoir: “The Woman-Mother has a face of shadows: she is the chaos whence all have come and whither all must one day return; she is Nothingness. In the Night are confused together the multiple aspects of the world which daylight reveals: night of spirit confined in the generality and opacity of matter, night of sleep and of nothingness. In the deeps of the sea it is night: woman is the Mare tenebrarum, dreaded by navigators of old; it is night in the entrails of the earth” (from Huffer 1998, 8).

93. The use of two personal pronouns (tu … ego, 148) emphasizes the opposition between Jason and Hypsipyle.

94. For Medea as a paelex, see line 81.

95. See Knox 1995, 200; see Cic. Cael. 18 (Palatinam Medeam as a description of Clodia). According to Verducci (1985, 65), this line stresses the unconventionality of Ovid’s Hypsipyle and, therefore, overturns the portrait of her as a perfect Roman matrona. Lindheim (2003, 123–124) states that Hypsipyle is constructing an image of herself corresponding to the representation of the woman who is now the object of Jason’s desire, Medea.

96. Jacobson remarks on the argumentative flaws of this claim, maintaining that Hypsipyle fails in her attempt to become an “actual Medea” (Jacobson 1974, 104–105). By contrast, according to Verducci (1985, 66; see also Fulkerson 2005, 51–52), Hypsipyle manages to become the “true Medea of Ovid’s collection.”

97. As Her. 6 and 12 are in an intertextual dialogue, it is not unreasonable to think that Hypsipyle, in certain passages of her letter, may (also) be replying line by line to some of Medea’s claims in Her. 12.

98. See Her. 5.134: “et poteras falli legibus ipse tuis” (And you could be deceived by your own laws).

99. For the variant readings of this line, see Knox 1995, 200.

100. See also the proverbial expression “male partum male disperit” (Plaut. Poen. 844), with Knox 1995, 200. Rosati (1988, 308–309) rightly sees a reference to Medea’s future sons in the expression male parta.

101. The adjective acerba is an apo koinou—as it is constructed with germana and filia; see Knox 1995, 201.

102. Michalopoulos (2004, 112–113) interprets Hypsipyle’s words as a curse (defixio); see also Fulkerson 2005, 52–54.

103. For Hypsipyle’s rejection of the “Medea-model” in Statius’s Thebaid, see Martorana 2022, 459.

104. See Ettinger 2005, 709; also Ettinger 1993; Ettinger 2010, 1–24.

105. This process can be fruitfully exemplified through Pollock’s description of Ettinger’s writing: “Ettinger’s writing is an écriture feminine in Cixous’s sense, even as it elaborates a theoretical intervention. It involves shifts, moves, repetitions, circlings and a poetic language of created terms… . This stratum is delivered to us all, irrespective of later gender alignment and sexual orientation, from the primordial severality of human becoming in the intimacy and sexual specificity of the feminine as a structure of unknown, co-affecting, co-emerging partial transsubjective instances encountering each other across a shared matrixial borderspace. Forget wombs, insides and organs. Think instead of traces, vibrations and resonances, registered sonic and tactile intimations of othernesses, sharing space but never fusing, encountering but never dissolving their boundaries, jointly eventing without ever knowing fully the other’s event” (Pollock 2009, 13–14).

106. For the ancient poet as a creator (see the Greek word poietes), see Lieberg 1982.

107. Ettinger 2005, 710.