In the sequel to the “Suppliants” Æschylus gave his interpretation of the story of the Danaides and their trial for the forty-nine murders of that Saint Bartholomew wedding night. Only fragments of this play remain, and the romance of Hypermnestra is familiar to the modern world chiefly from Horace’s incomparable ode. In the “Prometheus,” however, Æschylus both tells the Io story at length and briefly sketches the story of Hypermnestra, which, with the “lovely tale” of Danaë and the infant Perseus, sheds around the Perseid dynasty of Argos a fragrant aroma of romance in striking contrast to the gruesome annals of the Pelopid family, which waft now and again to our nostrils the scent of human blood and the breath of the charnel vault. Prometheus prophesies to Io that, in the fifth generation from her Egyptian-born son, fifty maidens, daughters of Danaus,—
“Shall come, not willing it, to Argos back again.
Wedlock with kinsmen cousins they are fain to shun,
But these with hearts a-flutter, falcons after doves,
Not distanced far, shall come to hunt their quarry down,
Seeking a wedlock that should not be sought. But God
Shall grudge their mating. In her soil Pelasgia
Shall give them lodging, slain, laid low by women’s hands,
Ares-emboldened, waking sentinels of night.
For wife each husband of his life shall rob, and dye