In Greek mythology Hypsipyle was queen of Lemnos, daughter of King Thoas (himself son of Dionysus and Ariadne). When the Lemnian women slaughtered the island's men, she alone saved her father; she later ruled when the Argonauts landed and bore Jason two sons. Discovered and sold into slavery at Nemea, she became nurse to the infant Opheltes, whose death by a serpent — while she guided the Seven against Thebes to water — founded the Nemean Games; her sons eventually freed her.
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I.Family
Hypsipyle's father Thoas was son of Dionysus and Ariadne. Homer's Iliad already knows her as mother, by Jason, of Euneus. Later sources give her a second son as well: Euripides and Statius name twins Euneus and Thoas; Apollodorus calls the second Nebrophonus; Hyginus, Deipylus; Ovid simply says she bore Jason twins without naming them.
II.The Lemnian crime
The women of Lemnos killed every male on the island except Thoas, whom Hypsipyle saved. Homer calls Lemnos the city of godlike Thoas; by Aeschylus's day "Lemnian troubles" were proverbial for atrocity, and Herodotus records the phrase "Lemnian crime." Pindar mentions the race of Lemnian women who killed their husbands.
Apollonius of Rhodes explains that the women had neglected Aphrodite, so the goddess made their husbands prefer Thracian captives; in revenge the women massacred the men. Hypsipyle set aged Thoas adrift in a hollow chest; fishermen brought him to Sicinus. Valerius Flaccus has her disguise him as Dionysus's cult statue and spirit him to the sea; Apollodorus says Aphrodite afflicted the women with a foul odor, and that when Thoas's escape was later discovered the women killed him and sold Hypsipyle into slavery.
III.Affair with Jason
The Argonauts' stop at Lemnos is among their earliest adventures. In Apollonius, the armed women first fear a Thracian raid, then — persuaded by the nurse Polyxo — welcome the heroes as mates and protectors. Hypsipyle conceals the massacre from Jason, saying the men were merely shut out and resettled in Thrace. Jason stays in her palace until Heracles urges the crew onward; she offers him her father's scepter should he return, and gives him a sacred purple robe once made for Dionysus.
Ovid's Heroides 6 is her angry letter rebuking Jason for abandoning her for Medea after two years on Lemnos and false vows. Valerius Flaccus has her weep as the Argo leaves and press gifts and a plea to sail back from Colchis. Statius's Hypsipyle calls the union unwilling and Jason an uncaring guest who forgot children and pledged word.
IV.Nurse of Opheltes
After her deception was found out, Hypsipyle fled or was sold — by pirates or by the Lemnian women — to Lycurgus of Nemea, priest or king, and became nurse to his and Eurydice's son Opheltes. Euripides' fragmentary Hypsipyle may have invented her role in this tale. On their way to Thebes the Seven need water; she leads them to a spring, and in her absence or neglect a serpent kills the child. Amphiaraus renames him Archemorus, "Beginning of Doom," reading the death as an omen for the Seven.
Funeral games for Opheltes become the origin of the Nemean Games. Hyginus adds an oracle that the child must not touch the ground until he can walk, so she laid him on wild celery — whence the celery crowns of Nemean victors. The Seven save her from execution; her sons, searching for their mother, compete in the games, are recognized, and free her from servitude. Dante places Jason among seducers for abandoning her, and notes Hypsipyle among the virtuous pagans in Limbo.