Ovid
indicated
briefly the evening banquet, the night, and the wake-
ful lust of Tereus.
ful lust of Tereus.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
The story was recorded by Pherecydes and was
repeated by Euripides in his drama I no.
Other birds have attracted the attention of primitive men by red
markings on the plumage of their breasts, and these markings have been
thought to be stains of blood. In the Yukon valley this idea was associ-
ated with the martin, in Rumania with the bullfinch and with one variety
of swallow, and in Greece it was associated with a kind of swallow which
nested under roofs, twittering plaintively, and which was welcomed as
the harbinger of spring. Often the swallow's ruddy breast and the night-
ingale's mournful song were attributed to the same tragic events.
This version of the tale differed much from the first. Aedon now
had a sister named Chelidona (Swallow). Aedon married an artist named
Polytechnus, and their son had the briefer name of Itys. Husband and
wife lived together in harmony until they impiously declared themselves
happier than Jupiter and Juno. The divinities were displeased and in-
volved them in a quarrel. Polytechnus, impelled chiefly by spite, rav-
ished Chelidona. Then Aedon and Chelidona obtained a terrible revenge.
They secretly killed Itys and served him as food to his father. Jupiter,
anxious to prevent further atrocity, transformed all three into birds:
Aedon became a nightingale, Chelidona a swallow, and Polytechnus a
woodpecker. This account circulated orally until Alexandrian times and
then was recorded with some further details by Boeus.
A third version of the tale agreed on the whole with the second but
added a number of circumstances. It mentioned localities. Aedon and
Chelidona were natives of Ephesus. Polytechnus, after marrying Aedon,
departed with her across the bay to live in Colophon. After husband and
wife had quarreled, the third version added a number of circumstances
about the crime of Polytechnus. Aedon bade him fetch her a slave girl.
Proceeding to Ephesus, he pretended that his wife was anxious to have
her sister visit her and so persuaded Chelidona's father to let him take
her away. After ravishing Chelidona, he warned her on pain of death to
be silent. Then he required her to put on the dress of a slave girl and
presented her in mockery to his wife. Later Aedon, overhearing Cheli-
dona's lament, learned of the crime. The new version added further cir-
cumstances to the account of the transformations. After serving the
gruesome meal, the sisters fled to Ephesus and were metamorphosed
there. Polytechnus, following them, was transformed into a pelican.
This form of the tale attracted little notice, but it may have influenced
another version which became the most famous of all.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
The fourth version introduced many further changes. The two sis-
ters now were called Procne and Philomela and were daughters of the
Athenian king, Pandion. Procne married a Tracian king, Tereus, son
of Mars. Their child was Itys. In the new story the idea of impious
boasting disappeared, and nothing was said about a quarrel between
husband and wife. The tragedy was due wholly to violent lust of Tereus
for Philomela. For this cause he ravished her and the sisters planned
their terrible revenge. Procne became the nightingale. Philomela be-
came the swallow, which according to some authorities continues to re-
peat the name Tereu, Tereu in a voice of plaintive reproach.
Hesiod, alluding to the tale, observed that late in February Pan-
dion's daughter, the swallow, appears with her plaint at dawn. Sappho
spoke of the swallow as Philomela, Pandion's daughter. Aeschylus in his
Agamemnon likened Cassandra to the tawny nightingale lamenting Itys.
In the Suppliants he noted that Tereus became a hawk, which continu-
ally pursues the nightingale, -- an idea repeated much later by Hyginus.
In the Electra of Sophocles the heroine compared her grief to the sor-
row both of Niobe and of the bird always wailing for Itys. The same
twofold comparison was borrowed afterwards by Propertius.
Sophocles told the whole story in his Tereus, a tragedy which now
is lost. He recorded the tale as follows. Tereus married Procne and de-
parted with her to Thrace. At some time after the birth of Itys, Procne
asked her husband to bring Philomela there for a visit. Sailing to
Athens, he obtained Pandion's consent and brought Philomela to the
Thracian shores. But, yielding to sudden and violent lust, he conveyed
her to a residence in the country and ravished her. To prevent her
divulging the crime, he cut out her tongue. Then, arranging to have
Philomela's presence kept secret, he departed to his home and told
Procne that, when he arrived in Athens, Philomela was dead. Procne
supposed this to be true. But Philomela recorded her story by weaving
letters in a cloak, and sent it covertly to Procne. The news arrived at
the time of a biennial festival in honor of Bacchus, a period when Thra-
cian women were expected to leave their husbands and perform secret
rites in the forest (cf. Pentheus, Bk. 3). Taking advantage of the occa-
sion, Procne brought Philomela secretly to the palace. They served
Tereus the horrible feast and fled to Daulia, a Tracian colony at the
foot of Mt. Parnassus. Too late Tereus discovered the crime. He pur-
sued and overtook the sisters, and they prayed for escape in the form
of the well known birds. Tradition had made Tereus a hawk. Sophocles
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
declared that he was a hawk only in the earlier months of the year. In
the autumn, he said, Tereus became a fierce-looking, crested bird called
the hoopoe.
This drama of Sophocles won great success and influenced nearly
all later treatments of the theme. Accius adapted it for the Roman
stage and also borrowed for his Philoctetes a passage in which Tereus
plotted against the unsuspecting Philomela.
Subsequent authors rejected the idea that Tereus became a hawk.
They spoke of him as changing permanently to hoopoe. At first they
were content with more or less lengthy allusion to the myth. Euripides
mentioned it both in his Rhesus and in his Hercules Furens and Aristotle
alluded to the version of Sophocles in his treatise called Rhetoric. Aris-
tophanes too alluded in the Birds to the play of Sophocles and invented
a sequel. Going in quest of the hoopoe, two Athenian adventurers found
this bird arrayed as a caricature of the one described in the tragedy.
The hoopoe spoke of himself as reconciled with his wife, the nightingale,
and as living harmoniously with her, while both mourned for their lost
Itys. He summoned his wife in a beautiful song, which Euripides after-
wards echoed in a chorus of his tragedy Helen. * The nightingale replied
and later appeared and played an overture to the chorus of birds.
The Manual recounted the story briefly, agreeing in the main with
Sophocles, but it added that Tereus won the hand of Procne because he
helped Athens in a war against Thebes. The Manual said nothing of
Procne's asking that Tereus bring Philomela to Thrace and nothing of
her taking advantage of a Bacchic festival. f
Earlier Roman poets often alluded to the story. In general they
followed Sophocles and the Manual. Catullus, mourning the death of
his brother, compared himself to the Daulian bird mourning Itylus.
Vergil told in his Culex how the gnat found in Hades the ghosts of
Pandion's daughters lamenting Itys. In his Ciris Scylla claimed kinship
with the birds, because her aunt was Procne. In the Aeneid Dido thought
of punishing the desertion of Aeneas by serving to him the flesh of his
son. Horace observed in his Art of Poetry that a metamorphosis of
Procne was an event unsuitable for representation on the stage.
Vergil thought it incongruous, for the swallow to be Philomela
* This was the only recorded instance, where a Greek tragic poet imitated an
author of comedy.
t The tale of Philomela as recorded by Sophocles and the Manual may have af-
fected a similar myth of Harpalyce, which was told in Alexandrian times by Eupho-
Tion and was repeated by Parthenius.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
(Lover of Song). It was true, as Greek mythographers pointed out,
that Philomela lost her tongue and so might be able to utter nothing but
unmusical twitterings. Nevertheless Vergil felt that she ought to be-
come the nightingale, and frequently he indicated that she did. Procne,
mother of Itys, then became the swallow. In the Aetna Vergil noted that
Philomela sings in the wood, her sister lives under roofs, and Tereus fre-
quents lonely fields. In the Sixth Eclogue he spoke of Philomela as pre-
paring the feast for Tereus and then speeding on wings to the wilderness.
And in the Georgics he compared Orpheus to Philomela weeping on a
poplar branch by night and filling the region with her melancholy song.
Horace, following Vergil's example, described the swallow as lamenting
Itys, because she had taken a disastrous vengeance on the king.
Ovid shared the general interest in the tale of Philomela. At first
he used the Greek version. In his Amores and his Epistle of Sappho,
Procne still became the nightingale. But later Ovid usually followed
Vergil. In the Art of Love, the Fasti, and the Tristia he indicated
clearly that Procne, wife of Tereus, became the swallow.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid took suggestions both from Sophocles
and from the Manual but added much of his own invention.
With the Manual Ovid agreed that Tereus relieved Athens from the
dangers of war. But he thought it unlikely that her enemy should be the
Thebans, who were now mourning the loss of their royal family, and he
imagined instead a barbarian host from across the sea. He agreed with
the Manual that aid afforded by Tereus occasioned Pandion's giving him
his daughter in marriage, but he added that Tereus had the further ad-
vantages of prominence, wealth, and descent from Mars.
The marriage was to end in disaster. Ovid imagined that it was at-
tended by portents of evil. At the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice
(Bk. 10), he was to note the ominous circumstance that Hymen ap-
peared with no hallowed words and with a smoky torch. The marriage
of Tereus and Procne was to be even more unhappy and would require
still worse omens. In the Culex, Vergil, referring to the ill-starred wed-
ding of the Danaids, had observed that the Fury, Erinys, presided in-
stead of Hymen. In the Heroides Ovid carried the idea still further. He
spoke of weddings at which all the deities who usually attended a mar-
riage were absent and hostile deities appeared instead. This, he declared,
was true at the wedding of Tereus and Procne. Juno, Hymen, and the
Graces were absent; Furies attended with funeral torches. Before the
suicide of Dido, Vergil had observed that a screech owl sat on her roof
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
and uttered long, wailing cries. Ovid imagined a similar portent of ill,
both at the wedding and at the birth of the child Itys. The ominous cry
of the screech owl, Ovid mentioned again in the tale of Julius Caesar
(Bk. 15).
These many supernatural warnings Ovid introduced with good
effect. But he might well have strengthened them with other warnings of
a more natural sort. The tragedy was to be caused by violent lust of
Tereus, and in Ovid's opinion this fatal passion did not appear unac-
countably or only on one occasion, but was characteristic of Tereus and
even of Thracians in general. Ovid mentioned these ideas later. But he
might well have done so at the time of the wedding. This would have
heightened the sense of future ill. And it would have had another desir-
able result. To the unprejudiced reader Ovid at first gave a favorable
impression of Tereus. The Thracian had saved Athens from barbarians.
He rejoiced as a good husband should, in his marriage and the birth of
his child. After these events he lived quietly with Procne for five years,
and then at her wish he promptly undertook a voyage in quest of her
sister. But to give a favorable impression was contrary to Ovid's usual
practice in the case of his villains, and it does not appear to have been
his intention in that of Tereus. Later he suggested by many details that
Tereus was detestable and, if possible, worthy of his fate. If at the time
of the wedding Ovid had suggested his real character, that would have
given the whole story a stronger and more consistent effect.
The many ill omens were overlooked, Ovid continued, and all went
well until the boy Itys had reached the age of five. Sophocles had shown
Procne persuading Tereus to revisit Athens and bring Philomela for a
sojourn in Thrace. Ovid repeated the incident, and he implied that
Tereus undertook the journey at once. In an age of uncharted seas and
of much lawlessness and war, such a voyage was attended with difficulty
and peril, as Ovid was soon to imply. The conduct of Tereus might seem
remarkably obliging.
Ovid appears to have invented the circumstances under which
Tereus became infatuated with Philomela. Arriving in Athens, he said,
the Thracian was on the point of telling Pandion the cause of his visit,
when Philomela appeared -- rich in attire, still richer in beauty. Ovid
added, not very helpfully, that she resembled a naiad or a dryad--if such
beings could be given civilized refinement and dress. Philomela's coming
interrupted the parley and gave Tereus leisure to observe her. Ovid im-
plied that he never had seen her, which would seem improbable. Ovid
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
appears to have imagined that six years earlier she was only a child and
attracted no attention.
At once, Ovid tells us, Tereus was seized with a violent passion.
Ovid likened it to fire in a field of ripe grain, a comparison which he had
used in his Epistle of Sappho. He likened it also to fire in dry leaves, or
fire in a stack of hay. Sophocles appears to have dwelt on the idea of
lust. Ovid followed his example. Philomela's beauty, he said, might have
occasioned this. But such passion was characteristic of Tereus and of
Thracians in general. Tereus thought of seducing Philomela by gifts to
her attendants and to herself or of abducting her forcibly and incurring
the risk of war. He found it prudent, however, to begin by telling Pan-
dion the request of Procne. All this, Ovid supposed to have passed
through the mind of Tereus before he resumed the conversation with
Pandion. But he allowed the reader to become confused regarding both
time and place.
Evidently Ovid imagined Tereus as an artful pleader, who could
summon both eloquence and tears, when the occasion demanded them.
And on this occasion his zeal gained him credit for being an affectionate
husband. Pandion was reluctant. Such a journey was perilous, espe-
cially so in the case of a young and beautiful princess; and Philomela
was his favorite child, the solace of his old age. But Philomela herself
pleaded with him to consent -- for the sake of her happiness. Indicating
the sad irony of this, Ovid observed that her affectionate pleas in-
creased the lawless fury of Tereus. Pandion yielded, and Philomela re-
joiced at what she regarded as good fortune for her sister and herself.
Ovid indicated briefly the evening banquet, the night, and the wake-
ful lust of Tereus. The next morning had been appointed for the voyage.
Ovid showed Pandion reminding Tereus that he yielded only to the re-
quest of both daughters and a loved son-in-law, charging him solemnly
to watch over Philomela with a father's care, and urging him to return
with her as soon as possible. Pandion then required Tereus and Philo-
mela to promise that they would heed his wishes. And he sent greetings
to Procne and the little Itys. Ovid added that Pandion felt a presenti-
ment of evil, as the ship departed. The barbarous Tereus rejoiced to see
Philomela cut off from all escape and kept her always in view, gloating
as an eagle might gloat over the hare which he has dropped into his eyrie.
Ovid then returned to the story as told by Sophocles and the
Manual. Both authorities indicated that Tereus conveyed Philomela
secretly to a residence in the country. Ovid said that, after landing at
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
the Thracian port, Tereus proceeded at once to a lonely habitation in
the forest; and, to suggest the brutal eagerness of the Thracian, he added
that Tereus dragged Philomela thither. The building, Ovid tells us later,
had walls of stone. It seems to have been a place well known to Tereus
and perhaps even to Procne. And it was situated within a few miles of
their palace, for the distance could be traversed easily on foot. Evi-
dently there were quarters near by for guards and at least one attendant;
but ordinarily the habitation itself was vacant and gave an ominous im-
pression of solitude. Ovid may have thought of it as a hunting lodge for
the Thracian king. Hither Tereus brought Philomela, terrified and in-
quiring anxiously for her sister.
Sophocles and the Manual had indicated a few of . . the incidents
which followed, and Sophocles may have recorded them in some detail.
Ovid gave vividness to the repulsive event. Barring the door, he said,
Tereus announced his purpose and ravished the unprotected Philomela,
while she called for help to her absent father and sister and to the all-
seeing gods. For a time she remained panic-stricken, as a lamb torn by
the teeth of a wolf or a dove bloody from claws of some bird of prey.
Then, grown desperate, she denounced his treachery and crime. She
would proclaim his guilt, either to men or to the forest and the gods.
Both angered and frightened, Tereus bound her arms and drew his
sword. Believing that she was to die, Philomela rejoiced and offered her-
self for the thrust. But Tereus forcibly drew out her tongue and cut it
off with the sword.
In the case of Emathion (Bk. 5) Ovid had observed that, after his
head was cut off, the tongue still uttered curses. In the case of Philo-
mela, even the tongue by itself gave evidence of conscious life. Vergil
had told in the Aeneid how the severed right hand of Garides sought its
master and the dying fingers twitched and clung to the sword. Similar,
but even more pathetic, was the behavior of Philomela's severed tongue.
It trembled on the dark earth, murmured, twitched convulsively, and
with a dying effort sought the feet of its mistress. Ovid added also the
unfortunate suggestion that in moving it writhed like the severed tail of
a snake.
Even after this atrocity, Ovid continued, Tereus did not spare
Philomela; but, if we may credit report, he violated her again and again.
Ovid implied that he did so on the same occasion, and he may have been
willing by this means to heighten the reader's detestation of Tereus.
But later he implied the following sequence of events. Believing that
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Philomela was unable to reveal the crime, Tereus arranged to have her
kept a prisoner in the lodge and then departed to his palace. After-
wards, however, he returned from time to time and repeatedly outraged
his helpless victim.
Following Sophocles and the Manual, Ovid declared that Philo-
mela wove her story in a cloak. But he recorded the facts ambiguously,
so that a reader unacquainted with the Greek versions would be uncer-
tain whether she told the tale in woven letters or in pictures. Without
letting her attendant know about the message, she persuaded her by
signs to bear the cloak as a gift to Procne. Presumably the attendant
could not read. After learning her sister's fate, the Thracian queen was
speechless with; grief and rage. Ovid noted that she forgot all scruples
in her eagerness for revenge.
According to Sophocles, the news arrived at the time of a Bacchic
festival, and Procne took advantage of the occasion in order to recover
her sister. Ovid gladly followed his example. Such festivals occurred at
intervals of two years. But Vergil, counting inclusively, had spoken of
Dido as raging like a Maenad in the triennial festival of Bacchus (tri-
aterica Baccho), and Ovid echoed the striking phrase. He described the
festival briefly and showed that on such an occasion Procne could wander
abroad unchallenged and indulge her frenzy.
For Procne's return with Philomela and the events which followed,
Ovid may have profited by many hints in the account of Sophocles.
Philomela, he said, was terrified at finding herself in the palace of Tereus
and ashamed to meet her sister's gaze. Mutely pleading innocence, she
hung her head and wept. Procne bade her prepare for merciless revenge.
But even Procne was in doubt what course to pursue. She thought of
burning Tereus in his palace, or of mangling him with the sword and
leaving him to drag out a wretched existence, or of killing him by re-
peated thrusts. Vergil had mentioned the soul of young Pallas departing
through his mortal wound. Procne wished to drive out the guilty soul
of Tereus through a thousand wounds.
While she remained in doubt, Itys entered seeking his mother.
Procne noted his likeness to his father and immediately planned her re-
venge. The child, suspecting no evil, embraced her and spoke with his
usual innocent charm. Procne hesitated and wept. But she reminded
herself that Philomela did not speak because she could not, and that
the boy's father was the cruel, faithless Tereus. Towards him loyalty
seemed a crime. Euripides had shown how cruelty not only causes suf-
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
fering but also debases the character of the victim. Ovid seems to have
remembered this teaching while he pictured the conduct of Procne and
Philomela. Procne seized the boy, as a tigress on the bank of the Ganges
might seize a fawn. Dragging him to a remote part of the house, she
turned on him, while he pleaded in terror, and struck him down with a
knife. Philomela joined her in the crime. Ovid recorded the traditional
circumstances, added further revolting touches and reveled in horror.
Ovid seems to have given new details and greater vividness to the
hideous feast. Procne, he said, persuaded Tereus that she was preparing
a celebration at which, according to the Athenian custom, attendants
were to be absent and the king was to eat alone. Tereus, sitting in state,
devoured with relish the flesh of his son. Sophocles and the Manual had
imagined that meanwhile Procne and Philomela fled. But Ovid introduced
a new climax of horror. Instead of departing, he said, they waited im-
patiently for the moment when Tereus should discover the real nature
of the feast. At last the king called for Itys to come. Procne did not
conceal her fiendish joy. "You have him already," she answered, "in-
side! " Perplexed, he called again. Then Philomela, her hair streaming
and stained with blood, sprang in and cast the gory head in the father's
face, longing to express her satisfaction in words.
Ovid indicated the violent horror and grief of Tereus. According
to the Manual, Tereus had caught up an axe and pursued the sisters.
Ovid imagined that he drew his sword. But the guilty sisters escaped.
Their transformation, said Ovid, took place, not in Daulia, but in the
Thracian palace. Ovid did not say which one became the nightingale.
One sister flew to the woods, the other to the roof. Vergil in the Georgics
had spoken of the swallow, Procne, as having on her breast the mark of
bloody hands. Ovid declared mistakenly that both sisters retain the
signs of murder, for their breasts are marked with blood. Tereus be-
came a hoopoe, his sword changing to the formidable beak.
Greek authors had implied that Procne acted while overcome by a
temporary frenzy but afterwards repented and mourned the death of
her son. Ovid had given an impression of more calculating cruelty. Per-
haps for this reason he mentioned no subsequent mourning. But he added
appropriately that old Pandion died of grief.
In later centuries Ovid's lurid tale enjoyed great popularity. For
the identity of the birds authors used Vergil or other works of Ovid, and
almost always they showed Procne as the swallow and Philomela as the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
nightingale. But for particulars they referred continually to the Meta-
morphoses.
During later Roman times allusions appear to have been few and
brief. The Pervigilium Veneris described the nightingale as a sister com-
plaining of a barbarous lord. Lucan remembered Ovid's account of
Philomela's severed tongue. The tongue of a certain Roman leader, he
declared, was cut out and gave similar evidence of life.
In medieval times Ovid's tale began to arouse widespread interest
and to attract many of the chief authors of the period. During the
latter half of the twelfth century, a French poet retold it as a famous
romance called Philomena. The poet has often been spoken of as
Chretien de Troyes, but he seems to have been a less known contem-
porary who wrote in a similar manner. Giving the story an atmosphere
of his own time, he even showed Philomela declining to plead with her
father, on the ground that such conduct was not regarded as proper
among the French. He valued the story chiefly as an opportunity for
the display of subtle and diverting rhetoric, and for this purpose he
borrowed often from Ovid's Amores.
The French poet introduced many changes. To explain the alliance
of Procne with a husband so unworthy as Tereus, he imagined that
Pandion himself was evil and fierce. He expanded Ovid's account of the
wedding and greatly expanded Ovid's account of Tereus in quest of
Philomela. Ovid's sixty-five lines of Latin became more than six hun-
dred lines of French, and Ovid's brief description of Philomela became
a lengthy dissertation on her beauty and accomplishments. For the lat-
ter, the French poet drew chiefly on the Art of Love, but he added the
further accomplishments of skill in embroidery, in hunting, and even in
fishing. After Tereus had gone back to Procne, his deceitful account of
Philomela's death provided another opportunity for elaborate rhetoric,
and the metamorphosis became an occasion for moralizing on the pun-
ishment of Tereus. The tragic events to which Ovid gave prominence,
the French poet dismissed in a relatively brief and colorless manner.
Ovid had not mentioned the song of the nightingale, but the French poet
declared that she keeps repeating as sweetly as possible the word "kill"
( oci).
The Philomena, extending to six times the length of Ovid's tale,
entirely suited the spirit of the time. A century later Chretien Legouais
included it in his Ovide Moralise and also explained it as an allegory.
Three centuries later Gawyn Douglas in a prologue to his Aeneid still
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
called the nightingale Philomena, although he spoke of her notes as
merry.
Dante twice recalled Ovid's tale of Philomela in his Purgatorio, and
in both passages he remembered also Ovid's earlier works according to
which Philomela became the swallow. He spoke of dawn as a time when
the swallow begins her sad lay, perhaps in memory of her first woes.
And among the warning examples of wrath he saw the image of her who
became the nightingale. Petrarch followed Ovid's later opinion. In a
sonnet about the spring he declared that now Procne chatters and Philo-
mela weeps.
Chaucer in the Troilus told how the swallow Procne wakened
Pandarus by lamenting the abduction of her sister. In the Legend of
Good Women Chaucer gave a new version of the story, using Ovid but
adding details from the Philomena and from his own invention. Ovid had
been impressed with the terror of the tale and had wished to show provo-
cation so great that it resulted in murder and cannibalism. Chaucer
thought rather of the pathos of the tale and presented it as an example
of trusting women abused by a faithless man.
He began with a short account of the wedding and the omens of
future ill. He then passed to Procne's desire that Tereus should bring
Philomela to visit her and added appropriately that Tereus yielded only
to repeated requests. The events at Athens he presented more briefly
and clearly than Ovid had presented them, and he supposed more plaus-
ibly that Tereus first coveted Philomela when he saw her pleading with
her father. But Chaucer gave less attention to the father's solicitude
for his daughter. He passed immediately to the arrival in Thrace and
showed Tereus leading Philomela to a cave. Lessening the abruptness of
the attack, he narrated the incidents in clearer sequence and with empha-
sis on the pathos of Philomela's misfortune. For this reason he omitted
her threatening to reveal the crime. He showed Tereus cutting out her
tongue with no provocation but the fears of a guilty conscience. Chaucer
omitted one admirable touch, Philomela's offering herself hopefully to
the sword of Tereus. He made clear at once the arrangement for confin-
ing her in a "castle", and stated definitely that Tereus told of her being
dead when he arrived in Athens.
Ovid had left uncertain the nature of Philomela's woven message.
Chaucer declared that she used both letters and pictures. He added with
advantage that her messenger told Procne the circumstances of her im-
prisonment. Feigning a pilgrimage to the temple of Bacchus, Chaucer
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
continued, Procne found her sister, and both lamented their hapless fate.
The rest of the tale did not serve Chaucer's purpose, and so he ended
with a warning that all men are more or less to be feared. Though not
attempting to show the nature of the ancient myth, Chaucer created a
little masterpiece of clear, pathetic narrative.
Ovid's tale became even more popular during the Renaissance.
Boiardo in his narrative of Marchino and Stella combined the horrors of
the Latin myth with still others both old and new. Ariosto often recalled
Ovid while narrating Bireno's wicked infatuation with the Princess of
Friesland. In a long ode Pontus de Tyard endeavored to show that his
own misfortunes exceeded those of the nightingale and the swallow. Sid-
ney retold Ovid's myth in his Nightingale. And Spenser's shepherd
Cuddie declared in a sestina
Hence with the nightingale will I complain,
That blessed bird that spends her time of sleep
In songs and plaintive pleas, the more to augment
The memory of his misdeed that bred her woe.
At other times narrative poets of the Renaissance recalled a par-
ticular circumstance of the tale. Camoens described Teresa as a worse
mother to Alonzo than Procne had been to Itys. Ariosto used the same
idea in a more general sense. If we are to consider Rome as the mother
of Alphonso, he declared, she was almost as cruel a mother as Procne
and Medea.
repeated by Euripides in his drama I no.
Other birds have attracted the attention of primitive men by red
markings on the plumage of their breasts, and these markings have been
thought to be stains of blood. In the Yukon valley this idea was associ-
ated with the martin, in Rumania with the bullfinch and with one variety
of swallow, and in Greece it was associated with a kind of swallow which
nested under roofs, twittering plaintively, and which was welcomed as
the harbinger of spring. Often the swallow's ruddy breast and the night-
ingale's mournful song were attributed to the same tragic events.
This version of the tale differed much from the first. Aedon now
had a sister named Chelidona (Swallow). Aedon married an artist named
Polytechnus, and their son had the briefer name of Itys. Husband and
wife lived together in harmony until they impiously declared themselves
happier than Jupiter and Juno. The divinities were displeased and in-
volved them in a quarrel. Polytechnus, impelled chiefly by spite, rav-
ished Chelidona. Then Aedon and Chelidona obtained a terrible revenge.
They secretly killed Itys and served him as food to his father. Jupiter,
anxious to prevent further atrocity, transformed all three into birds:
Aedon became a nightingale, Chelidona a swallow, and Polytechnus a
woodpecker. This account circulated orally until Alexandrian times and
then was recorded with some further details by Boeus.
A third version of the tale agreed on the whole with the second but
added a number of circumstances. It mentioned localities. Aedon and
Chelidona were natives of Ephesus. Polytechnus, after marrying Aedon,
departed with her across the bay to live in Colophon. After husband and
wife had quarreled, the third version added a number of circumstances
about the crime of Polytechnus. Aedon bade him fetch her a slave girl.
Proceeding to Ephesus, he pretended that his wife was anxious to have
her sister visit her and so persuaded Chelidona's father to let him take
her away. After ravishing Chelidona, he warned her on pain of death to
be silent. Then he required her to put on the dress of a slave girl and
presented her in mockery to his wife. Later Aedon, overhearing Cheli-
dona's lament, learned of the crime. The new version added further cir-
cumstances to the account of the transformations. After serving the
gruesome meal, the sisters fled to Ephesus and were metamorphosed
there. Polytechnus, following them, was transformed into a pelican.
This form of the tale attracted little notice, but it may have influenced
another version which became the most famous of all.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
The fourth version introduced many further changes. The two sis-
ters now were called Procne and Philomela and were daughters of the
Athenian king, Pandion. Procne married a Tracian king, Tereus, son
of Mars. Their child was Itys. In the new story the idea of impious
boasting disappeared, and nothing was said about a quarrel between
husband and wife. The tragedy was due wholly to violent lust of Tereus
for Philomela. For this cause he ravished her and the sisters planned
their terrible revenge. Procne became the nightingale. Philomela be-
came the swallow, which according to some authorities continues to re-
peat the name Tereu, Tereu in a voice of plaintive reproach.
Hesiod, alluding to the tale, observed that late in February Pan-
dion's daughter, the swallow, appears with her plaint at dawn. Sappho
spoke of the swallow as Philomela, Pandion's daughter. Aeschylus in his
Agamemnon likened Cassandra to the tawny nightingale lamenting Itys.
In the Suppliants he noted that Tereus became a hawk, which continu-
ally pursues the nightingale, -- an idea repeated much later by Hyginus.
In the Electra of Sophocles the heroine compared her grief to the sor-
row both of Niobe and of the bird always wailing for Itys. The same
twofold comparison was borrowed afterwards by Propertius.
Sophocles told the whole story in his Tereus, a tragedy which now
is lost. He recorded the tale as follows. Tereus married Procne and de-
parted with her to Thrace. At some time after the birth of Itys, Procne
asked her husband to bring Philomela there for a visit. Sailing to
Athens, he obtained Pandion's consent and brought Philomela to the
Thracian shores. But, yielding to sudden and violent lust, he conveyed
her to a residence in the country and ravished her. To prevent her
divulging the crime, he cut out her tongue. Then, arranging to have
Philomela's presence kept secret, he departed to his home and told
Procne that, when he arrived in Athens, Philomela was dead. Procne
supposed this to be true. But Philomela recorded her story by weaving
letters in a cloak, and sent it covertly to Procne. The news arrived at
the time of a biennial festival in honor of Bacchus, a period when Thra-
cian women were expected to leave their husbands and perform secret
rites in the forest (cf. Pentheus, Bk. 3). Taking advantage of the occa-
sion, Procne brought Philomela secretly to the palace. They served
Tereus the horrible feast and fled to Daulia, a Tracian colony at the
foot of Mt. Parnassus. Too late Tereus discovered the crime. He pur-
sued and overtook the sisters, and they prayed for escape in the form
of the well known birds. Tradition had made Tereus a hawk. Sophocles
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
declared that he was a hawk only in the earlier months of the year. In
the autumn, he said, Tereus became a fierce-looking, crested bird called
the hoopoe.
This drama of Sophocles won great success and influenced nearly
all later treatments of the theme. Accius adapted it for the Roman
stage and also borrowed for his Philoctetes a passage in which Tereus
plotted against the unsuspecting Philomela.
Subsequent authors rejected the idea that Tereus became a hawk.
They spoke of him as changing permanently to hoopoe. At first they
were content with more or less lengthy allusion to the myth. Euripides
mentioned it both in his Rhesus and in his Hercules Furens and Aristotle
alluded to the version of Sophocles in his treatise called Rhetoric. Aris-
tophanes too alluded in the Birds to the play of Sophocles and invented
a sequel. Going in quest of the hoopoe, two Athenian adventurers found
this bird arrayed as a caricature of the one described in the tragedy.
The hoopoe spoke of himself as reconciled with his wife, the nightingale,
and as living harmoniously with her, while both mourned for their lost
Itys. He summoned his wife in a beautiful song, which Euripides after-
wards echoed in a chorus of his tragedy Helen. * The nightingale replied
and later appeared and played an overture to the chorus of birds.
The Manual recounted the story briefly, agreeing in the main with
Sophocles, but it added that Tereus won the hand of Procne because he
helped Athens in a war against Thebes. The Manual said nothing of
Procne's asking that Tereus bring Philomela to Thrace and nothing of
her taking advantage of a Bacchic festival. f
Earlier Roman poets often alluded to the story. In general they
followed Sophocles and the Manual. Catullus, mourning the death of
his brother, compared himself to the Daulian bird mourning Itylus.
Vergil told in his Culex how the gnat found in Hades the ghosts of
Pandion's daughters lamenting Itys. In his Ciris Scylla claimed kinship
with the birds, because her aunt was Procne. In the Aeneid Dido thought
of punishing the desertion of Aeneas by serving to him the flesh of his
son. Horace observed in his Art of Poetry that a metamorphosis of
Procne was an event unsuitable for representation on the stage.
Vergil thought it incongruous, for the swallow to be Philomela
* This was the only recorded instance, where a Greek tragic poet imitated an
author of comedy.
t The tale of Philomela as recorded by Sophocles and the Manual may have af-
fected a similar myth of Harpalyce, which was told in Alexandrian times by Eupho-
Tion and was repeated by Parthenius.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
(Lover of Song). It was true, as Greek mythographers pointed out,
that Philomela lost her tongue and so might be able to utter nothing but
unmusical twitterings. Nevertheless Vergil felt that she ought to be-
come the nightingale, and frequently he indicated that she did. Procne,
mother of Itys, then became the swallow. In the Aetna Vergil noted that
Philomela sings in the wood, her sister lives under roofs, and Tereus fre-
quents lonely fields. In the Sixth Eclogue he spoke of Philomela as pre-
paring the feast for Tereus and then speeding on wings to the wilderness.
And in the Georgics he compared Orpheus to Philomela weeping on a
poplar branch by night and filling the region with her melancholy song.
Horace, following Vergil's example, described the swallow as lamenting
Itys, because she had taken a disastrous vengeance on the king.
Ovid shared the general interest in the tale of Philomela. At first
he used the Greek version. In his Amores and his Epistle of Sappho,
Procne still became the nightingale. But later Ovid usually followed
Vergil. In the Art of Love, the Fasti, and the Tristia he indicated
clearly that Procne, wife of Tereus, became the swallow.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid took suggestions both from Sophocles
and from the Manual but added much of his own invention.
With the Manual Ovid agreed that Tereus relieved Athens from the
dangers of war. But he thought it unlikely that her enemy should be the
Thebans, who were now mourning the loss of their royal family, and he
imagined instead a barbarian host from across the sea. He agreed with
the Manual that aid afforded by Tereus occasioned Pandion's giving him
his daughter in marriage, but he added that Tereus had the further ad-
vantages of prominence, wealth, and descent from Mars.
The marriage was to end in disaster. Ovid imagined that it was at-
tended by portents of evil. At the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice
(Bk. 10), he was to note the ominous circumstance that Hymen ap-
peared with no hallowed words and with a smoky torch. The marriage
of Tereus and Procne was to be even more unhappy and would require
still worse omens. In the Culex, Vergil, referring to the ill-starred wed-
ding of the Danaids, had observed that the Fury, Erinys, presided in-
stead of Hymen. In the Heroides Ovid carried the idea still further. He
spoke of weddings at which all the deities who usually attended a mar-
riage were absent and hostile deities appeared instead. This, he declared,
was true at the wedding of Tereus and Procne. Juno, Hymen, and the
Graces were absent; Furies attended with funeral torches. Before the
suicide of Dido, Vergil had observed that a screech owl sat on her roof
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
and uttered long, wailing cries. Ovid imagined a similar portent of ill,
both at the wedding and at the birth of the child Itys. The ominous cry
of the screech owl, Ovid mentioned again in the tale of Julius Caesar
(Bk. 15).
These many supernatural warnings Ovid introduced with good
effect. But he might well have strengthened them with other warnings of
a more natural sort. The tragedy was to be caused by violent lust of
Tereus, and in Ovid's opinion this fatal passion did not appear unac-
countably or only on one occasion, but was characteristic of Tereus and
even of Thracians in general. Ovid mentioned these ideas later. But he
might well have done so at the time of the wedding. This would have
heightened the sense of future ill. And it would have had another desir-
able result. To the unprejudiced reader Ovid at first gave a favorable
impression of Tereus. The Thracian had saved Athens from barbarians.
He rejoiced as a good husband should, in his marriage and the birth of
his child. After these events he lived quietly with Procne for five years,
and then at her wish he promptly undertook a voyage in quest of her
sister. But to give a favorable impression was contrary to Ovid's usual
practice in the case of his villains, and it does not appear to have been
his intention in that of Tereus. Later he suggested by many details that
Tereus was detestable and, if possible, worthy of his fate. If at the time
of the wedding Ovid had suggested his real character, that would have
given the whole story a stronger and more consistent effect.
The many ill omens were overlooked, Ovid continued, and all went
well until the boy Itys had reached the age of five. Sophocles had shown
Procne persuading Tereus to revisit Athens and bring Philomela for a
sojourn in Thrace. Ovid repeated the incident, and he implied that
Tereus undertook the journey at once. In an age of uncharted seas and
of much lawlessness and war, such a voyage was attended with difficulty
and peril, as Ovid was soon to imply. The conduct of Tereus might seem
remarkably obliging.
Ovid appears to have invented the circumstances under which
Tereus became infatuated with Philomela. Arriving in Athens, he said,
the Thracian was on the point of telling Pandion the cause of his visit,
when Philomela appeared -- rich in attire, still richer in beauty. Ovid
added, not very helpfully, that she resembled a naiad or a dryad--if such
beings could be given civilized refinement and dress. Philomela's coming
interrupted the parley and gave Tereus leisure to observe her. Ovid im-
plied that he never had seen her, which would seem improbable. Ovid
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
appears to have imagined that six years earlier she was only a child and
attracted no attention.
At once, Ovid tells us, Tereus was seized with a violent passion.
Ovid likened it to fire in a field of ripe grain, a comparison which he had
used in his Epistle of Sappho. He likened it also to fire in dry leaves, or
fire in a stack of hay. Sophocles appears to have dwelt on the idea of
lust. Ovid followed his example. Philomela's beauty, he said, might have
occasioned this. But such passion was characteristic of Tereus and of
Thracians in general. Tereus thought of seducing Philomela by gifts to
her attendants and to herself or of abducting her forcibly and incurring
the risk of war. He found it prudent, however, to begin by telling Pan-
dion the request of Procne. All this, Ovid supposed to have passed
through the mind of Tereus before he resumed the conversation with
Pandion. But he allowed the reader to become confused regarding both
time and place.
Evidently Ovid imagined Tereus as an artful pleader, who could
summon both eloquence and tears, when the occasion demanded them.
And on this occasion his zeal gained him credit for being an affectionate
husband. Pandion was reluctant. Such a journey was perilous, espe-
cially so in the case of a young and beautiful princess; and Philomela
was his favorite child, the solace of his old age. But Philomela herself
pleaded with him to consent -- for the sake of her happiness. Indicating
the sad irony of this, Ovid observed that her affectionate pleas in-
creased the lawless fury of Tereus. Pandion yielded, and Philomela re-
joiced at what she regarded as good fortune for her sister and herself.
Ovid indicated briefly the evening banquet, the night, and the wake-
ful lust of Tereus. The next morning had been appointed for the voyage.
Ovid showed Pandion reminding Tereus that he yielded only to the re-
quest of both daughters and a loved son-in-law, charging him solemnly
to watch over Philomela with a father's care, and urging him to return
with her as soon as possible. Pandion then required Tereus and Philo-
mela to promise that they would heed his wishes. And he sent greetings
to Procne and the little Itys. Ovid added that Pandion felt a presenti-
ment of evil, as the ship departed. The barbarous Tereus rejoiced to see
Philomela cut off from all escape and kept her always in view, gloating
as an eagle might gloat over the hare which he has dropped into his eyrie.
Ovid then returned to the story as told by Sophocles and the
Manual. Both authorities indicated that Tereus conveyed Philomela
secretly to a residence in the country. Ovid said that, after landing at
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
the Thracian port, Tereus proceeded at once to a lonely habitation in
the forest; and, to suggest the brutal eagerness of the Thracian, he added
that Tereus dragged Philomela thither. The building, Ovid tells us later,
had walls of stone. It seems to have been a place well known to Tereus
and perhaps even to Procne. And it was situated within a few miles of
their palace, for the distance could be traversed easily on foot. Evi-
dently there were quarters near by for guards and at least one attendant;
but ordinarily the habitation itself was vacant and gave an ominous im-
pression of solitude. Ovid may have thought of it as a hunting lodge for
the Thracian king. Hither Tereus brought Philomela, terrified and in-
quiring anxiously for her sister.
Sophocles and the Manual had indicated a few of . . the incidents
which followed, and Sophocles may have recorded them in some detail.
Ovid gave vividness to the repulsive event. Barring the door, he said,
Tereus announced his purpose and ravished the unprotected Philomela,
while she called for help to her absent father and sister and to the all-
seeing gods. For a time she remained panic-stricken, as a lamb torn by
the teeth of a wolf or a dove bloody from claws of some bird of prey.
Then, grown desperate, she denounced his treachery and crime. She
would proclaim his guilt, either to men or to the forest and the gods.
Both angered and frightened, Tereus bound her arms and drew his
sword. Believing that she was to die, Philomela rejoiced and offered her-
self for the thrust. But Tereus forcibly drew out her tongue and cut it
off with the sword.
In the case of Emathion (Bk. 5) Ovid had observed that, after his
head was cut off, the tongue still uttered curses. In the case of Philo-
mela, even the tongue by itself gave evidence of conscious life. Vergil
had told in the Aeneid how the severed right hand of Garides sought its
master and the dying fingers twitched and clung to the sword. Similar,
but even more pathetic, was the behavior of Philomela's severed tongue.
It trembled on the dark earth, murmured, twitched convulsively, and
with a dying effort sought the feet of its mistress. Ovid added also the
unfortunate suggestion that in moving it writhed like the severed tail of
a snake.
Even after this atrocity, Ovid continued, Tereus did not spare
Philomela; but, if we may credit report, he violated her again and again.
Ovid implied that he did so on the same occasion, and he may have been
willing by this means to heighten the reader's detestation of Tereus.
But later he implied the following sequence of events. Believing that
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
Philomela was unable to reveal the crime, Tereus arranged to have her
kept a prisoner in the lodge and then departed to his palace. After-
wards, however, he returned from time to time and repeatedly outraged
his helpless victim.
Following Sophocles and the Manual, Ovid declared that Philo-
mela wove her story in a cloak. But he recorded the facts ambiguously,
so that a reader unacquainted with the Greek versions would be uncer-
tain whether she told the tale in woven letters or in pictures. Without
letting her attendant know about the message, she persuaded her by
signs to bear the cloak as a gift to Procne. Presumably the attendant
could not read. After learning her sister's fate, the Thracian queen was
speechless with; grief and rage. Ovid noted that she forgot all scruples
in her eagerness for revenge.
According to Sophocles, the news arrived at the time of a Bacchic
festival, and Procne took advantage of the occasion in order to recover
her sister. Ovid gladly followed his example. Such festivals occurred at
intervals of two years. But Vergil, counting inclusively, had spoken of
Dido as raging like a Maenad in the triennial festival of Bacchus (tri-
aterica Baccho), and Ovid echoed the striking phrase. He described the
festival briefly and showed that on such an occasion Procne could wander
abroad unchallenged and indulge her frenzy.
For Procne's return with Philomela and the events which followed,
Ovid may have profited by many hints in the account of Sophocles.
Philomela, he said, was terrified at finding herself in the palace of Tereus
and ashamed to meet her sister's gaze. Mutely pleading innocence, she
hung her head and wept. Procne bade her prepare for merciless revenge.
But even Procne was in doubt what course to pursue. She thought of
burning Tereus in his palace, or of mangling him with the sword and
leaving him to drag out a wretched existence, or of killing him by re-
peated thrusts. Vergil had mentioned the soul of young Pallas departing
through his mortal wound. Procne wished to drive out the guilty soul
of Tereus through a thousand wounds.
While she remained in doubt, Itys entered seeking his mother.
Procne noted his likeness to his father and immediately planned her re-
venge. The child, suspecting no evil, embraced her and spoke with his
usual innocent charm. Procne hesitated and wept. But she reminded
herself that Philomela did not speak because she could not, and that
the boy's father was the cruel, faithless Tereus. Towards him loyalty
seemed a crime. Euripides had shown how cruelty not only causes suf-
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
fering but also debases the character of the victim. Ovid seems to have
remembered this teaching while he pictured the conduct of Procne and
Philomela. Procne seized the boy, as a tigress on the bank of the Ganges
might seize a fawn. Dragging him to a remote part of the house, she
turned on him, while he pleaded in terror, and struck him down with a
knife. Philomela joined her in the crime. Ovid recorded the traditional
circumstances, added further revolting touches and reveled in horror.
Ovid seems to have given new details and greater vividness to the
hideous feast. Procne, he said, persuaded Tereus that she was preparing
a celebration at which, according to the Athenian custom, attendants
were to be absent and the king was to eat alone. Tereus, sitting in state,
devoured with relish the flesh of his son. Sophocles and the Manual had
imagined that meanwhile Procne and Philomela fled. But Ovid introduced
a new climax of horror. Instead of departing, he said, they waited im-
patiently for the moment when Tereus should discover the real nature
of the feast. At last the king called for Itys to come. Procne did not
conceal her fiendish joy. "You have him already," she answered, "in-
side! " Perplexed, he called again. Then Philomela, her hair streaming
and stained with blood, sprang in and cast the gory head in the father's
face, longing to express her satisfaction in words.
Ovid indicated the violent horror and grief of Tereus. According
to the Manual, Tereus had caught up an axe and pursued the sisters.
Ovid imagined that he drew his sword. But the guilty sisters escaped.
Their transformation, said Ovid, took place, not in Daulia, but in the
Thracian palace. Ovid did not say which one became the nightingale.
One sister flew to the woods, the other to the roof. Vergil in the Georgics
had spoken of the swallow, Procne, as having on her breast the mark of
bloody hands. Ovid declared mistakenly that both sisters retain the
signs of murder, for their breasts are marked with blood. Tereus be-
came a hoopoe, his sword changing to the formidable beak.
Greek authors had implied that Procne acted while overcome by a
temporary frenzy but afterwards repented and mourned the death of
her son. Ovid had given an impression of more calculating cruelty. Per-
haps for this reason he mentioned no subsequent mourning. But he added
appropriately that old Pandion died of grief.
In later centuries Ovid's lurid tale enjoyed great popularity. For
the identity of the birds authors used Vergil or other works of Ovid, and
almost always they showed Procne as the swallow and Philomela as the
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
nightingale. But for particulars they referred continually to the Meta-
morphoses.
During later Roman times allusions appear to have been few and
brief. The Pervigilium Veneris described the nightingale as a sister com-
plaining of a barbarous lord. Lucan remembered Ovid's account of
Philomela's severed tongue. The tongue of a certain Roman leader, he
declared, was cut out and gave similar evidence of life.
In medieval times Ovid's tale began to arouse widespread interest
and to attract many of the chief authors of the period. During the
latter half of the twelfth century, a French poet retold it as a famous
romance called Philomena. The poet has often been spoken of as
Chretien de Troyes, but he seems to have been a less known contem-
porary who wrote in a similar manner. Giving the story an atmosphere
of his own time, he even showed Philomela declining to plead with her
father, on the ground that such conduct was not regarded as proper
among the French. He valued the story chiefly as an opportunity for
the display of subtle and diverting rhetoric, and for this purpose he
borrowed often from Ovid's Amores.
The French poet introduced many changes. To explain the alliance
of Procne with a husband so unworthy as Tereus, he imagined that
Pandion himself was evil and fierce. He expanded Ovid's account of the
wedding and greatly expanded Ovid's account of Tereus in quest of
Philomela. Ovid's sixty-five lines of Latin became more than six hun-
dred lines of French, and Ovid's brief description of Philomela became
a lengthy dissertation on her beauty and accomplishments. For the lat-
ter, the French poet drew chiefly on the Art of Love, but he added the
further accomplishments of skill in embroidery, in hunting, and even in
fishing. After Tereus had gone back to Procne, his deceitful account of
Philomela's death provided another opportunity for elaborate rhetoric,
and the metamorphosis became an occasion for moralizing on the pun-
ishment of Tereus. The tragic events to which Ovid gave prominence,
the French poet dismissed in a relatively brief and colorless manner.
Ovid had not mentioned the song of the nightingale, but the French poet
declared that she keeps repeating as sweetly as possible the word "kill"
( oci).
The Philomena, extending to six times the length of Ovid's tale,
entirely suited the spirit of the time. A century later Chretien Legouais
included it in his Ovide Moralise and also explained it as an allegory.
Three centuries later Gawyn Douglas in a prologue to his Aeneid still
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? TEREUS AND PHILOMELA
called the nightingale Philomena, although he spoke of her notes as
merry.
Dante twice recalled Ovid's tale of Philomela in his Purgatorio, and
in both passages he remembered also Ovid's earlier works according to
which Philomela became the swallow. He spoke of dawn as a time when
the swallow begins her sad lay, perhaps in memory of her first woes.
And among the warning examples of wrath he saw the image of her who
became the nightingale. Petrarch followed Ovid's later opinion. In a
sonnet about the spring he declared that now Procne chatters and Philo-
mela weeps.
Chaucer in the Troilus told how the swallow Procne wakened
Pandarus by lamenting the abduction of her sister. In the Legend of
Good Women Chaucer gave a new version of the story, using Ovid but
adding details from the Philomena and from his own invention. Ovid had
been impressed with the terror of the tale and had wished to show provo-
cation so great that it resulted in murder and cannibalism. Chaucer
thought rather of the pathos of the tale and presented it as an example
of trusting women abused by a faithless man.
He began with a short account of the wedding and the omens of
future ill. He then passed to Procne's desire that Tereus should bring
Philomela to visit her and added appropriately that Tereus yielded only
to repeated requests. The events at Athens he presented more briefly
and clearly than Ovid had presented them, and he supposed more plaus-
ibly that Tereus first coveted Philomela when he saw her pleading with
her father. But Chaucer gave less attention to the father's solicitude
for his daughter. He passed immediately to the arrival in Thrace and
showed Tereus leading Philomela to a cave. Lessening the abruptness of
the attack, he narrated the incidents in clearer sequence and with empha-
sis on the pathos of Philomela's misfortune. For this reason he omitted
her threatening to reveal the crime. He showed Tereus cutting out her
tongue with no provocation but the fears of a guilty conscience. Chaucer
omitted one admirable touch, Philomela's offering herself hopefully to
the sword of Tereus. He made clear at once the arrangement for confin-
ing her in a "castle", and stated definitely that Tereus told of her being
dead when he arrived in Athens.
Ovid had left uncertain the nature of Philomela's woven message.
Chaucer declared that she used both letters and pictures. He added with
advantage that her messenger told Procne the circumstances of her im-
prisonment. Feigning a pilgrimage to the temple of Bacchus, Chaucer
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK SIX
continued, Procne found her sister, and both lamented their hapless fate.
The rest of the tale did not serve Chaucer's purpose, and so he ended
with a warning that all men are more or less to be feared. Though not
attempting to show the nature of the ancient myth, Chaucer created a
little masterpiece of clear, pathetic narrative.
Ovid's tale became even more popular during the Renaissance.
Boiardo in his narrative of Marchino and Stella combined the horrors of
the Latin myth with still others both old and new. Ariosto often recalled
Ovid while narrating Bireno's wicked infatuation with the Princess of
Friesland. In a long ode Pontus de Tyard endeavored to show that his
own misfortunes exceeded those of the nightingale and the swallow. Sid-
ney retold Ovid's myth in his Nightingale. And Spenser's shepherd
Cuddie declared in a sestina
Hence with the nightingale will I complain,
That blessed bird that spends her time of sleep
In songs and plaintive pleas, the more to augment
The memory of his misdeed that bred her woe.
At other times narrative poets of the Renaissance recalled a par-
ticular circumstance of the tale. Camoens described Teresa as a worse
mother to Alonzo than Procne had been to Itys. Ariosto used the same
idea in a more general sense. If we are to consider Rome as the mother
of Alphonso, he declared, she was almost as cruel a mother as Procne
and Medea.
