Procne, Philomela and Tereus

Two sisters pay a terrible price for revenge.

Ares was not a god who mated with mortal women very often, but when he did, he liked to settle the sons born from those unions in the wild lands to the north, where people worshipped him at least as much as they worshipped Zeus.  

One of these sons was Tereus, who ruled over a tribe in Thrace.  Tereus  was an excellent warrior, cut from his father’s cloth.  When King Pandion of Athens was engaged in a border skirmish with the Thebans, he called upon Tereus for help.  When the battle was won, Pandion gave his daughter Procne to Tereus in marriage.  Hymen, the god who blessed weddings, refused to accompany the new husband and wife to their bridal chamber, however; the Erinyes, dread goddesses of vengeance, waited for them there instead.

The day after the wedding, the couple sailed for Thrace.  Procne wept as she bid farewell to her younger sister, Philomela, from whom she had never before been parted.  

Soon, Procne had a baby to distract her: Itys, a lovely son who had been conceived on the voyage home. Nonetheless, as the years went by, Procne found herself yearning for Philomela and eventually she prevailed upon Tereus to sail to Athens and ask Pandion to allow Philomela to visit.  Philomela, who missed Procne as much as Procne missed her, rejoiced at the idea as soon as Tereus presented it.  She wrapped her arms around her father’s neck, begging him to agree, which he did.

What Philomela did not know was that as soon as Tereus had seen her—a woman now, rather than the girl he had glimpsed at the wedding years before—he was inflamed with lust.  He kept himself in check while they were aboard ship, where the eyes of the sailors saw everything, but as soon as they had landed in Thrace, he led Philomela to a hut in the woods, shut the door, and prepared to rape her.   

She wept, she pleaded, she begged him to respect the bonds of family, but desire deafened him to everything she said.  He ripped the combs from her hair and the robes from her body; he pushed her onto the floor.  

When he was done, Philomela began to scream, imploring the gods to avenge her.  Enraged by her audacity, Tereus seized her by the throat with one enormous hand.  Philomela choked and gagged and turned purple; her tongue protruded and he seized it between his fingers.  Releasing her throat but retaining her tongue in his vice-like grip, he yanked his knife from its sheath.   He severed the tongue and threw it to the floor, where it wriggled, for a moment, like a mangled snake. 

He left then, locking the door behind him.  He went home and, weeping crocodile tears, told Procne that Philomela had died at sea.  Over the months that followed, he sent a trusted serving woman to feed Philomela each day, never revealing who the poor, mute woman really was.  He visited her himself sometimes, too, to slake his cravings. 

Eventually, Philomela prevailed upon him, through gestures and imploring eyes, to bring her a loom, so that she could fill her lonely hours by weaving. 

His mercy in that matter was his undoing, for Philomela wove a tapestry depicting all that had happened to her.  When it was finished, she bundled it up and asked the serving woman to deliver it to the Thracian queen.  Let her enjoy it, Philomela indicated with gestures and smiles, lest it languish in the woods unappreciated forever.

When Procne unfolded the tapestry, she immediately understood its message.  Emotions flooded her heart: relief, that her sister was alive, horror at what had been done to her, hatred of Tereus and a burning desire for revenge.

It happened to be the time of year when Thracian women celebrated Dionysus in nocturnal rituals.  Procne dressed herself in the deerskin tunic that Dionysus found pleasing, twined the god’s favorite vines into her hair, and took up a thyrsus—the god’s sacred staff.  

Feigning the ecstasy that Dionysus bestows on his worshippers, Procne wandered away from her friends, into the forest.   She dashed to the hut and beat her thyrsus against its door until the rotting wood gave way.  Quickly draping her sister in deerskin and vines like her own, Procne led her back to the other women, who by now were fully in the god’s grasp, dancing and shrieking ‘Euhoe! euhoe!,’ the victory cry of Dionysus.  As dawn broke, Philomela slipped into the palace unnoticed among the exhausted celebrants.

Once the sisters were alone, Philomela wept and used her hands to express her shame at having transgressed Procne’s marriage bed.  But Procne, seething with rage, declared,

‘You have no need for shame and this is no time for tears—it is the sword that we need, or something stronger, if we can find it.  Shall I sever Tereus’ tongue when next he comes to my bed?  Or shall we kill and dismember him then?

As Procne was speaking, Itys wandered into his mother’s chamber.  Crawling onto her lap, he tried to kiss away her tears as she had so often kissed away his own.  Procne’s heart began to soften—what sort of life would Itys have, if she killed his father and they were exiled from Thrace?  But then she thought of her own father and what had been done to his children. Her resolve grew stronger and a better plan entered her mind.    

 Taking Itys in her arms and warning him not to make any noise, she set out for the palace’s wine cellar.  Philomela scurried behind.  

Itys, who was an obedient child, was quiet until they entered the cellar itself, where the light of the torches, leaping here and there on the rough-hewn walls, created monstrous shadows.  In terror, he clung to Procne, crying ‘Mama, Mama!’ but Philomela pried him away and held him fast.   Procne drew from her belt a knife she had used the night before to cut vines in honor of the god.  It served equally well for a deed that the god would deplore; Procne stabbed Itys and his blood ran out upon the floor, mixing with the puddles of wine that had been spilled when the casks were breached the previous evening

The sisters butchered the small body and boiled and roasted its flesh.  They arranged the choicest cuts on a tray, which Procne carried to her husband.

‘That was delicious, wife,’ said Tereus, after finishing his meal. ‘Now where is my son?  Bring him to me.’

‘He is already with you,’ she replied, signaling to Philomela, who emerged from the shadows carrying a smaller tray, on which were arranged the hands, feet and head of the child whom Tereus had consumed.  The father bellowed and lunged for the women, invoking the same Erinyes who had watched over his wedding night.

The gods grant what they call pity, sometimes, even to those who do not merit it.  Before Tereus could catch the sisters, Procne became a nightingale, singing mournfully for the child she killed, and Philomela a swallow, who scarcely sings at all.  Tereus became a hoopoe, wearing a helmet of blood-red feathers.  Forevermore he chased the sisters through the skies, and forevermore they fled, eternally circling in hatred and fear..