Hypsipyle

 Hypsipyle

Oinoie at the 1964 Pelopponesian Jazz Festival

August 1365, 2014

Another random entry from “a work in progress,” Gaspar Stephens’ Neo Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology (long in progress but still listed as forthcoming from Balthazar & Melchior Stephens Press).  For previous entries the Neo Encyc. featured in The Ambiguities, see 08.33.14; 08.59.14; 08.1023.14; 08.1031.14; and 08.1137.14. 

Hypsipyle [Gk. ‘Ypsipu&lh). Stinky queen of Lemnos. The unfortunate smell came about this way. Ever on the alert for an occasion to take offense, Aphrodite (’Afrodi&th) decided that the women of Lemnos were neglecting her shrines and cursed them with smelling like goats, and not the goats the men of Lemnos were used to but alien goats, meat-eating goats. So the men of Lemnos left their wives and mistresses and took up with women imported from Thrace. Ever alert to take offense themselves (and not without reason), the women of the island declared revenge and, in one night, killed all the men. Except for Hypsipyle’s father, Thoas (Qo&av), whom she secretly tied to an oarless boat and set adrift in the Aegean Sea. (He would come to the island of Oinoie and there consort with a sea-nymph (also Oinoie, Gk. ’Oino&h), who smelled of gardenias. (According to Spiff & Randall’s Dictionary of Greek and Babylonian Amorous Biography, 1957, gardenia flava, which, they note was Sigmund Freud’s favorite flower (according to a remark he made to the Imagist poet, H.D.)) Long enough after the androcide that the carnivorous goat smell had pretty much worn off the women of Lemnos, Jason and his Argonauts arrived at that island on their way to Colchis. There may have been a little (of the smell left) but that didn’t matter to the sailors who were as horny as puffins. The women were at least as eager (according to Apollonius), and both sexes had staying power. The Argonauts remained on Lemnos for two summers and two winters, during which time “they had extensive relations with the island’s women.” And, Jason “consorted often with Hypsipyle and swore eternal fidelity to her.” (Ian & Nai Bullfinch, A Short History of Lemnos, 1936).  Then, the twins came (Euneus and Nebrophonius). Jason sailed. The Lemnian women, not only alert to take offense but sturdy to nurture it, drove the father-saving Hypsipyle off the island. She and the twins were taken by pirates and sold to Lycurgus, King of Nemea after which all but Nebrophonius, “the father of Peloponnesian Jazz,” drifted into the mists of Oblivion (Lh&qh)).

04.24.17

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  Gaspar Stephens teaches “Western Thought” at St. James - English University in Santo Domingo.