danaids

The Danaids are the fifty daughters of Danaus, a legendary king of Argos (though some traditions place him in Libya). Their mothers vary by account, and the Danaids are most famous as a group in Greek mythology. Their story centers on a marriage arrangement with the fifty sons of Danaus’s twin brother, Aegyptus.

According to the myth, the fifty Danaids were betrothed to Aegyptus’s sons. On their wedding night, all but one daughter killed their husbands. The sole exception was Hypermestra, who spared her husband, Lynceus. This act of mercy is a focal point of the legend and is treated differently in various tellings.

As punishment for the treachery, the Danaids were condemned in the underworld to an endless, futile task: they were to carry water in vessels that would inevitably leak or fail to hold the liquid. The myth also served to explain certain ritual or symbolic motifs in Greek literature and art, where the Danaids appear as a cautionary tale about oaths, betrayal, and the consequences of treachery.

In antiquity, the Danaids appear in a range of sources, including Apollodorus, Hyginus, and Ovid, and they feature in tragedy, vase painting, and later literary adaptations. The term Danaid or Danaid daughter is used to denote one of Danaus’s daughters, and the name survives in cultural and scholarly references as a symbol of futile labor and inherited guilt.