Amymone

In Greek mythology, Amymone (Ancient Greek: Αμυμωνη means the "blameless" one) was a daughter of Danaus, king of Libya and Europe, a queen. As the "blameless" Danaid, her name identifies her as, perhaps, identical to Hypermnestra ("great wooing" or "high marriage"), also the one Danaid who did not assassinate her Egyptian husband on their wedding night, as her 49 sisters did. (See the myth at the entry for Danaus.) The author of the Bibliotheca, in his list of names for the Danaids, does mention both Hypermnestra and Amymone, however (Library 2.1.5).

For the butterfly with this name, see Mestra amymone.
Poseidon approaches Amymone, whose identity is symbolized by the water jug, with the Cupid above representing the erotic motive of the scene (Roman-era mosaic, House of Dionysos at Paphos)

Mythology

Poseidon, in archaic times the consort of the two goddesses Demeter and Persephone in Argos, had dried up all the region's springs after the Argolid was awarded to the protection of Hera. It would appear from the myth that Poseidon preceded Hera in the heartland of her cult. But he rescued Amymone from a chthonic satyr that was about to rape her. To possess her himself, the god revealed the springs of Lerna, a cult site of great antiquity near the shores of the Argolid. To Poseidon she bore Nauplius, "the navigator", who gave his name to the port city of Argos.

Amymone, the blameless, was eventually reconciled with her father, and given in marriage to Lynceus, with whom she founded a race of kings that led to Danae, the mother of Perseus, founder of Mycenae. Thus this founding myth of Argos also asserts that Argos was the metropolis ("mother city") of Mycenae.

Amymone/Hypermnestra is represented with a water pitcher, a reminder of the sacred springs and lake of Lerna and of the copious wells that made Argos the "well-watered" and, by contrast, a reminder that her sisters were forever punished in Tartarus for their murderous crimes by fruitlessly drawing water in pitchers with open bases.

Aeschylus wrote a now lost satyr play called Amymone about the seduction of Amymone by Poseidon, which followed the trilogy that included The Suppliants.

See also


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