Danaids
heroThe fifty daughters of Danaus, forty-nine of whom murdered their husbands and were condemned to fill leaky vessels in Tartarus forever.
The Myth
They carry water in jars with holes in the bottom — for eternity, the water drains before they reach the top. The Danaids killed their Egyptian husbands on mass on their wedding night, following Danaus's orders. Their punishment in the Underworld became one of the most famous images of futile labor in Western culture: eternally filling vessels that can never hold water. Lucian and later writers made it a symbol of pointless effort. Only Hypermnestra was spared the punishment. Aeschylus wrote a trilogy about them (the Danaid tetralogy), of which only The Suppliants survives. The myth explores forced marriage, obedience to fathers, and whether murder can ever be justified self-defense.
Parents
Symbols
Fun Fact
The image of the Danaids' leaky jars became the Western symbol for futile, endless labor.
Explore Further
Danaus
heroEgyptian-born king of Argos whose fifty daughters murdered their fifty husbands on their wedding...
Hypermnestra
heroThe only one of the fifty Danaids who refused to murder her husband Lynceus on their wedding night.
Tartarus
placeThe deepest abyss beneath the earth, as far below Hades as heaven is above earth. Tartarus was the...
Underworld
placeThe Underworld was the vast subterranean realm where all mortal souls went after death — a...
Tartarus (Primordial)
primordialTartarus was both a primordial deity and the deepest pit of the cosmos — as far below Hades as...
Lerna
placeLerna was a marshy region near Argos, famed as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra and believed to...
Wanderings of Io
conceptThe myth of Io, priestess of Hera transformed into a cow by Zeus to hide their affair, who wandered...
Absyrtus
heroSon of King Aeetes of Colchis, murdered and dismembered by his sister Medea to slow their father's...
Acastus
heroKing of Iolcus and Argonaut who later tried to murder Peleus by stranding him unarmed on Mount...
Achilles
heroThe greatest warrior in the Greek army at Troy, nearly invulnerable thanks to being dipped in the...
Acrisius
heroKing of Argos who imprisoned his daughter Danae and was killed by his grandson Perseus with a...
Actaeon
heroActaeon was a master hunter who accidentally saw Artemis bathing naked — she transformed him into a...