Danaides

Also Da·na·i·dae

[duh-ney-i-deez]

plural noun

Classical Mythology.

1. the 50 daughters of Danaus, 49 of whom were condemned to pour water forever into a leaky vessel for having murdered their husbands.

Danaides

/ ˌdænɪˈɪdɪən, dəˈneɪɪˌdiːz, ˌdænɪəˈdiːən /

plural noun

1. the fifty daughters of Danaüs. All but Hypermnestra murdered their bridegrooms and were punished in Hades by having to pour water perpetually into a jar with a hole in the bottom

Other Word Forms

• Danaidean adjective

Example Sentences

“Les Danaïdes” caused a sensation at its première, in 1784: its stark harmonies and solemn ensembles paid homage to Gluck, while its Italianate strains brought a new flavor to French tragic opera.

Read more on The New Yorker

The rigorous fury of his orchestral writing anticipates Beethoven, Cherubini, and even Berlioz, who was swayed toward a life in music by an electrifying encounter with “Les Danaïdes,” in the early eighteen-twenties.

Read more on The New Yorker

The Paris Opéra had commissioned Gluck to write a work based on the bloodcurdling mythological tale of the Danaides, the fifty daughters of Danaus, all but one of whom murder their husbands on their wedding night.

Read more on The New Yorker

Then she trudged off to the railway station; and went home, like Sisyphus or the Danaides, to take up her apparently impossible task.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

These fair maidens were the Danaides, daughters of Danaus, who had pledged his fifty daughters to the fifty sons of his brother Ægyptus.

Read more on Project Gutenberg