and nearly 500 lines are devoted to the fortunes, past and present, of Hypsipyle. She relates the crime of the Lemnian women in murdering their menfolk, the consequences to herself of having surreptitiously saved her father, and the visit of Jason in the Argo. Statius here trespasses on the subject of Valerius Flaccus’s _Argonautica_; and it may be noted that while in the _Thebaid_ Hypsipyle states that she was forced into a union with Jason, Valerius represents her as attracted into an amour by Jason’s looks.

The child Archemorus has been all this time left unattended, and another digression describes the venomous serpent which attacks him. Cries “like half-completed words in dreams” (_qualia non totas peragunt insomnia uoces_) are heard, and on her return the errant nurse finds the child dead. Against the furious anger of its father she is protected by the grateful Argives.