Hermione

In Greek mythology, Hermione (Greek: Ἑρμιόνη) was the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen. She had three younger brothers. Hermione was nine when her mother left with Paris, Prince of Troy. While her father was fighting the war at Troy, Hermione lived with her Aunt Clytemnestra in Mycenae. It seems likely that her brothers were with her, though some stories say her youngest brother, Pleisthenes, went with Helen to Troy. While at Mycenae, Hermione presumably would have met her cousins Iphigenia and Electra and their younger brother Orestes.

Prior to the Trojan War, she was betrothed by Tyndareus, her grandfather^[1], to Orestes, her first cousin twice over through Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon and Helen's sister, Clytemnestra. However, on the battlefield during the Trojan War, her father also promised her to Neoptolemus, also known as Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. There is a historical dispute over whether or not such a discrepancy actually occurred, however. Some authors, such as Euripides, have Orestes say: ^[2] describe the dual promise, while others, such as Ovid,^[3] do not mention it at all.

Regardless, ten years after the end of the Trojan War, Neoptolemus claimed Hermione as his wife and took her to Epirus, his homeland. Their marriage is mentioned in Book 4 of the Odyssey, when Telemachus, son of Odysseus, visits Sparta and meets Helen and Menelaus.

Shortly after settling into the domestic life, however, conflict arose between Hermione and Andromache (widow of Hector, prince of Troy and elder brother of Paris), the concubine Neoptolemus had obtained as a prize after the sack of Troy. Hermione blamed Andromache for her inability to become pregnant, claiming that the concubine was casting spells on her to keep her barren. She asked her father to kill Andromache while Neoptolemus was away at war, but when he chose not to go through with the murder, Hermione fled from Epirus with her cousin Orestes.

Hermione and Orestes were married, and she gave birth to his heir Tisamenus. The myths do not mention her after that, though it is said the Orestes later married Erigone, daughter of his mother Clytemnestra and Aigisthus, his second cousin.

Hermione in Art and Literature

• Ermione by Gioachino Rossini
• Andromaque by Jean Racine

Fictional characters of the same name

• Queen Hermione of Sicily, a character in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale
• A character in the play Cadmus et Hermione by Jean-Baptiste Lully
• Hermione Bostock, a character in the fiction of P. G. Wodehouse
• Hermione, a character in D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love
• Hermione Lodge, a character in the Archie Comics
• Hermione Granger, a main character in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, named after William Shakespeare's character in The Winter's Tale^[4]
• Hermione Trumpington-Bonnet, a character in the British TV series, Monarch of the Glen
• Hermione from the House of Borromeo, a character in the Japanese animated TV series, Romeo x Juliet

References