Omission and Allusion: When Statius’ Hypsipyle Reads Ovid’s Heroides 6

By comparing Ovid’s Hypsipyle (Heroides 6) to the Hypsipyle episode in the Thebaid, this article argues that, despite the lack of apparent intertextual parallels between the two narratives, Statius’ Hypsipyle draws on her Ovidian Doppelgängerin by means of lexical allusions as well as narratological techniques, thereby casting herself as an artful constructor of her own history. Similarly, the omission of certain details concerning her Lemnian background, and particularly the lack of any specific mention of Medea (who, by contrast, dominates the Ovidian epistle), creates a narratological vacuum and frustrates the expectations of knowledgeable readers. The vagueness of Statius’ Hypsipyle concerning the connections between Medea and her own narrative in Ovid’s Her. 6 contributes to her representation as an anti-Medea. Hypsipyle’s self-construction as an anti-Medea serves to portray her as a dutiful nurse, to stress her innocence, as well as depict Opheltes’ death as accidental. Her final reunion with her grown sons confirms this rejection of the ‘Medea-model’.