Hermione

Also known as: HER. / HERM. / HERMIONE · Family: Spartan · Role: daughter of Helen · First appears: Euripides, Orestes — Scene 1

Hermione is the daughter of Helen and Menelaus. Menelaus brought her from Sparta and left her at the palace in the care of Clytemnestra, who raised her; she was present when her mother was killed. In Argos, Orestes was engaged to her by Apollo’s command, while Pylades was considered as another possible suitor.

When the Argive council gathered to decide whether Orestes and Hermione would live or die, Menelaus refused to protect them. Orestes and Electra later seized her and held a sword to her neck, but Apollo ordered her released, and Menelaus betrothed her to Orestes. During the crisis, Orestes also proposed holding her as a pledge against Menelaus, while Pylades was asked whether he would marry her. Hermione hoped that Orestes and Electra, whom she called her relations and cousins, would not be condemned.

While mourning Helen’s disgrace, Hermione remained unmarried and childless. She later married Neoptolemus, who had taken Andromache as an unwilling partner, and became hostile toward Andromache and her son Molossus, resolving to drive them from the temple and confessing, “I would have killed Her and her spurious son.” After recognizing her guilt, she attempted suicide, but her attendants stopped her; when Menelaus was defeated by Peleus and abandoned her, she sought Orestes’ protection, invoking Zeus as their grandsire. She left Neoptolemus’s house with Orestes, who conveyed her away from the realm.