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Book 6: Tereus, Procne and Philomela, cont.Reading time: 4 minutes. Word count: 700 words. |
The king's anger was stirred by these words, and his fear also. Goaded by both, he freed the sword from its sheath by his side, and seizing her hair gathered it together, to use as a tie, to tether her arms behind her back. Philomela, seeing the sword, and hoping only for death, offered up her throat. But he severed her tongue with his savage blade, holding it with pincers, as she struggled to speak in her indignation, calling out her father's name repeatedly.
Her tongue's root was left quivering, while the rest of it lay on the dark soil, vibrating and trembling, and, as though it were the tail of a mutilated snake moving, it writhed, as if, in dying, it was searching for some sign of her. They say (though I scarcely dare credit it) that even after this crime, he still assailed her wounded body, repeatedly, in his lust.
He controlled himself sufficiently to return to Procne, who,
seeing him returned, asked where her sister was. He, with false mourning, told
of a fictitious funeral, and tears gave it credence. Procne tore her glistening
clothes, with their gold hems, from her shoulders, and put on black robes, and
built an empty tomb, and mistakenly brought offerings, and lamented the fate
of a sister, not yet due to be lamented in that way.
The sun-god has circled the twelve signs, and a year is past. What can Philomela
do? A guard prevents her escape; the thick walls of the building are made of
solid stone; her mute mouth can yield no token of the facts. Great trouble is
inventive, and ingenuity arises in difficult times. Cleverly, she fastens her
thread to a barbarian's loom, and weaves purple designs on a white background,
revealing the crime. She entrusts it, when complete, to a servant, and asks
her, by means of gestures, to take it to her mistress. She, as she is asked,
takes it to Procne, not knowing what it carries inside. The wife of the savage
king unrolls the cloth, and reads her sister's terrible fate, and by a miracle
keeps silent. Grief restrains her lips, her tongue seeking to form words adequate
to her indignation, fails. She has no time for tears, but rushes off, in a confusion
of right and wrong, her mind filled with thoughts of vengeance.
It was the time when the young Thracian women used to celebrate the triennial festival of Bacchus. (Night knew their holy rites: by night, Mount Rhodope rang with the high-pitched clashing of bronze). By night the queen left her palace, prepared herself for the rites of the god, and took up the weapons of that frenzied religion. Tendrils of vine wreathed her head; a deerskin was draped over her left side; a light javelin rested on her shoulder. Hurtling through the woods with a crowd of her companions, terrifying, driven by maddening grief, Procne embodies you, Bacchus. She comes at last to the building in the wilderness, and howls out loud, giving the ecstatic cry of Euhoe, breaks the door down, seizes her sister, disguises her with the tokens of a wild Bacchante, hides her face with ivy leaves, and dragging her along with her, frightened out of her wits, leads her inside the palace walls.
When Philomela realised that she had reached that accursed house, the wretched girl shuddered in horror, and her whole face grew deathly pale. Procne, once there, took off the religious trappings; uncovered the downcast face of her unhappy sister, and clutched her in her arms. But Philomela could not bear to lift her eyes, seeing herself as her sister's betrayer. With her face turned towards the ground, wanting to swear by the gods, and call them to witness, that her shame had been visited on her by force, she made signs with her hands in place of speech.
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Source: Ovid's Metamorphoses. English translation by A.S.Kline. 2000. "This work MAY be FREELY reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any NON-COMMERCIAL purpose." Website: Ovid and Others. |
Modern Languages
MLLL-2003. World Literature: Frametales. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D.
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