May 12: Family Month

After king Athamas’ first wife Nephele left him and his second wife Ino died, king Athamas’ remarried princess Themisto. Now Ino had hated the children Athamas had with Nephele, and Themisto hated the children he had with Ino. Nephele’s children had – literally – flown the nest long ago, but Ino’s still lived in the palace. So Themisto – whose name means “law abiding” by the way – planned to unalive them. She would do it at night and ordered a servant to dress her own children in white and Ino’s in black, so she would notice the difference, even in the dark. What she didn’t know, was that the servant was in fact second wife Ino herself. She hadn’t been dead, but in hiding. Ino dressed the children as ordered, but switched the colours. When Themisto sneaked in and committed her atrocity, she unwittingly unalived her own children. She discovered her mistake in the morning and could only take her own life too. This is the plot of one of Euripides’ tragedies. The full theatre text isn’t preserved, which in my view, is not a tragedy.

Nurse holding a child, terracotta statuette,

Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, USA

Euripides, marble statue, Vatican Museum, Rome, Italy