Danaïds.

    The fifty daughters of Danaus, known as Danaïds, were given in marriage to the fifty sons of Aegyptus, Danaus’s brother, with whom Danaus had a long-standing quarrel. Danaus ordered his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night, supplying them with knives for the deed. All but one did so; Hypermnestra spared her husband, Lynceus, and they founded a line that produced Perseus and other Argive kings. The remaining forty-nine daughters were purified of their sins by Athena and Hermes, but as punishment for the murders they were condemned in Hades to carry water in sieves or jars (amphorae) with holes in the bottom.
    Aeschylus’s tragedy The Suppliants relates an early episode in the tale, when the Danaïds have fled to Argos to escape marriage to the sons of Aegyptus. In the postclassical period the subject has been particularly manifest in opera. Treatments of the theme in the fine arts most commonly depict the Danaïds carrying their porous water jars.