Everything Shakespeare

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Hecuba’s Revenge

                                   but hope withal The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy With opportunity of sharp revenge Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent, May favor Tamora, the Queen of Goths

                         - Demitrius, Act 1 Scene 1

The Queen of Troy was Hecuba, who took revenge on the Thracian tyrant Polymestor. Her story is told in Euripides’ Hecuba and Shakespeare makes reference to her grief in at least two other writings, Hamlet & the Rape of Lucrece, 

After losing her husband Priam along with several sons in the battle of Troy, Hecuba later loses her virgin daughter Polyxena when she is sacrificed by the Greeks as an offering to the tomb of Achilles. (A very useful parallel for Tamora considering her sons was just sacrificed as offering to the Andronicus tomb). 

Hecuba then finds out that her youngest son, Polydorus, who had sent away to Thrace to be protected by the King of Thrace, Polymestor, has instead been killed by Polymestor. 

Hecuba takes revenge on Polymestor in a tent in the Achaen post-war camp near Thrace. Hecuba & other captive Trojan women lure Polymestor and two of his young sons into their tent. The women blind Polymestor using pins from their dresses and they kill both of his sons. 

[playingshakespeare]

Virginius or The Physicians Tale

My lord the emperor, resolve me this: Was it well done of rash Virginius To slay his daughter with his own right hand, Because she was enforced, stain'd, and deflower'd?

                                                      - Titus Act 5, Scene 3

The story of Virginius comes from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”. (FYI, Chaucer’s tales were inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses.)

Virginius was a knight who had a very beautiful, virtuous and chaste daughter, named Virginia. The town judge (Appius) saw her one day, lusted after her and determined to make her his. His plan was to have one of his servant peasants (Claudius) claim in court that Virginia was his daughter and that Virginius was holding her against his will. The judge ordered that Virginia be taken as a ward of the court. (And thus he would get to do with her as he pleased)

Virginius went home, called his daughter to him and explained that she had two options, either death or shame. Virginius then cuts off her head and takes it to the judge.    

Note that Virginia was not actually “enforced, stained and deflowered”, she was only threatened with it. Instead her father cut her head off to protect her from rape.

More on Chaucer’s The Physician’s Tale here: http://www.gradesaver.com/the-canterbury-tales/study-guide/summary-the-physicians-tale

[playingshakespeare]

The Centaur’s Feast

Come, come, be every one officious To make this banquet; which I wish may prove More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.

                                        - Titus, Act 5 Scene 2

The “Centaur’s feast” is a reference to yet another tale, of rape, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 12). This tale is of the battle that took place between the Centaurs and Lapiths during a wedding feast.

The Centaurs were a tribe of half-man, half-horse savages. A primitive race that made their homes in caves, hunted wild animals for food and armed themselves with rocks and tree branches.

The Lapiths invited the Centaur’s (I am not sure why)  to the wedding feast of Pirithous and Hippodamia and when the bride entered, Eurytus one of the most bestial of the Centaurs, who was also drunk, lusted for the bride and attempted to abduct her. Other Centaurs followed suit grabbing the women closest to them. A bloody and gruesome battle ensued. Here’s some of the gore:

“He fell backwards, drumming his feet on the blood-soaked earth, gouts of blood spurting from mouth and wound equally, along with brain-matter and wine.”

One person wields a chandelier “as one wields a sacrificial axe to break the bull’s snowy neck, he dashed it against the forehead of Celadon, the Lapith, leaving him with the bones of his face crushed past recognition. His eyes leapt from their sockets, and his nose, pushed in, as the bones of his face shattered, was driven into his palate.”

Another “found the equivalent of a spear in a stag’s antlers that hung on a tall pine tree, as a votive offering. Gryneus was pierced in the eyes by the twin branches, and his eyeballs gouged out, one of which stuck to the horn, and the other slipped down onto his beard, and hung there in a clot of blood.”

Another’s hair gets set alight “The hair flared like a dry cornfield, set alight by the quick flames, and the blood seared in the wound gave out a terrible sizzling noise, as a bar of iron is prone to do, when the smith takes it, red-hot, from the fire, with curved tongs, and plunges it into a bath of water: it whistles and hisses immersed in the bubbling liquid.”

And the gore continues…. So Titus is fairly intent on a gruesome banquet when he references the Centaur’s feast.

To read the tale from Ovid: http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph12.htm#486225990

[playingshakespeare]

Dian & Actaeon

BASSIANUS

Who have we here? Rome's royal empress, Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop? Or is it Dian, habited like her, Who hath abandoned her holy groves To see the general hunting in this forest?

TAMORA

Saucy controller of our private steps! Had I the power that some say Dian had, Thy temples should be planted presently With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs, Unmannerly intruder as thou art!

- Titus Andronicus Act 2 Scene 2

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, the moon and childbirth, being associated with animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was known to be the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. 

Like the tale of Philomel, the tale Actaeon also comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 3). Actaeon was a hunter who, in the course of a hunt, came inadvertently upon Diana bathing. Admiring, he stopped to watch. When he was caught at his peeping by Diana’s nymphs, the indignant goddess turned him into a stag so that his own hounds ran him down and killed him. 

See below for an translated account of the tale from Ovid.

FROM A. S. KLINE’S TRANSLATION:

There was a valley there called Gargaphie, dense with pine trees and sharp cypresses, sacred to Diana of the high-girded tunic, where, in the depths, there is a wooded cave, not fashioned by art. But ingenious nature had imitated art. She had made a natural arch out of native pumice and porous tufa. On the right, a spring of bright clear water murmured into a widening pool, enclosed by grassy banks. Here the woodland goddess, weary from the chase, would bathe her virgin limbs in the crystal liquid.

Bk III:165-205

Actaeon sees Diana naked and is turned into a stag.

   Having reached the place, she gives her spear, quiver and unstrung bow to one of the nymphs, her weapon-bearer. Another takes her robe over her arm, while two unfasten the sandals on her feet. Then, more skilful than the rest, Theban Crocale gathers the hair strewn around her neck into a knot, while her own is still loose. Nephele, Hyale, Rhanis, Psecas and Phiale draw water, and pour it over their mistress out of the deep jars.

   While Titania is bathing there, in her accustomed place, Cadmus’s grandson, free of his share of the labour, strays with aimless steps through the strange wood, and enters the sacred grove. So the fates would have it. As soon as he reaches the cave mouth dampened by the fountain, the naked nymphs, seeing a man’s face, beat at their breasts and filling the whole wood with their sudden outcry, crowd round Diana to hide her with their bodies. But the goddess stood head and shoulders above all the others. Diana’s face, seen there, while she herself was naked, was the colour of clouds stained by the opposing shafts of sun, or Aurora’s brightness.

   However, though her band of nymphs gathered in confusion around her, she stood turning to one side, and looking back, and wishing she had her arrows to hand. She caught up a handful of the water that she did have, and threw it in the man’s face. And as she sprinkled his hair with the vengeful drops she added these words, harbingers of his coming ruin, ‘Now you may tell, if you can tell that is, of having seen me naked!’ Without more threats, she gave the horns of a mature stag to the head she had sprinkled, lengthening his neck, making his ear-tips pointed, changing feet for hands, long legs for arms, and covering his body with a dappled hide. And then she added fear. Autonoë’s brave son flies off, marvelling at such swift speed, within himself. But when he sees his head and horns reflected for certain in the water, he tries to say ‘Oh, look at me! but no voice follows. He groans: that is his voice, and tears run down his altered face. Only his mind remains unchanged. What can he do? Shall he return to his home and the royal palace, or lie hidden in the woods? Shame prevents the one, and fear the other.

Bk III:206-231

Actaeon is pursued by his hounds

   While he hesitates his dogs catch sight of him. First ‘Black-foot’, Melampus, and keen-scented Ichnobates, ‘Tracker’, signal him with baying, Ichnobates out of Crete, Melampus, Sparta. Then others rush at him swift as the wind, ‘Greedy’, Pamphagus, Dorceus, ‘Gazelle’, Oribasos, ‘Mountaineer’, all out of Arcady: powerful ‘Deerslayer’, Nebrophonos, savage Theron, ‘Whirlwind’, and Laelape, ‘Hunter’.

   Then swift-footed Pterelas, ‘Wings’, and trail-scenting Agre, ‘Chaser’, fierce Hylaeus, ‘Woody’, lately gored by a boar, the wolf-born Nape, ‘Valley’, Poemenis, the trusty ‘Shepherd’, and Harpyia, ‘Snatcher’, with her two pups. There is thin-flanked Sicyonian Ladon, ‘Catcher’, Dromas, ‘Runner’, ‘Grinder’, Canache, Sticte ‘Spot’, Tigris ‘Tigress’, Alce, ‘Strong’, and white-haired Leucon, ‘Whitey’, and black-haired Asbolus, ‘Soot’.

   Lacon, ‘Spartan’, follows them, a dog well known for his strength, and strong-running Aëllo, ‘Storm’. Then Thoos, ‘Swift’, and speedy Lycisce, ‘Wolf’, with her brother Cyprius ‘Cyprian’. Next ‘Grasper’, Harpalos, with a distinguishing mark of white, in the centre of his black forehead, ‘Black’, Melaneus, and Lachne, ‘Shaggy’, with hairy pelt, Labros, ‘Fury’, and Argiodus, ‘White-tooth’, born of a Cretan sire and Spartan dam, keen-voiced Hylactor, ‘Barker’, and others there is no need to name. The pack of them, greedy for the prey follow over cliffs and crags, and inaccessible rocks, where the way is hard or there is no way at all. He runs, over the places where he has often chased, flying, alas, from his own hounds. He longs to shout ‘I am Actaeon! Know your own master!’ but words fail him, the air echoes to the baying.

Bk III:232-252

Actaeon is killed by the dogs

   First ‘Black-hair’, Melanchaetes, wounds his back, then ‘Killer’, Theridamas, and Oresitrophos, the ‘Climber’, clings to his shoulder. They had set out late but outflanked the route by a shortcut over the mountains. While they hold their master the whole pack gathers and they sink their teeth in his body till there is no place left to wound him. He groans and makes a noise, not human, but still not one a deer could make, and fills familiar heights with mournful cries. And on his knees, like a suppliant begging, he turns his wordless head from side to side, as if he were stretching arms out towards them.

   Now his friends, unknowingly, urge the ravening crowd of dogs on with their usual cries, looking out for Actaeon, and shouting, in emulation, for absent Actaeon (he turning his head at the sound of his name) complaining he is not there, and through his slowness is missing the spectacle offered by their prey. He might wish to be absent it’s true, but he is here: he might wish to see and not feel the fierce doings of his own hounds. They surround him on every side, sinking their jaws into his flesh, tearing their master to pieces in the deceptive shape of the deer. They say Diana the Quiver-bearer’s anger was not appeased, until his life had ended in innumerable wounds.

[playingshakespeare]

Actaeon being attacked and killed by his own hounds after Diana turned him into a stag.

[playingshakespeare]

Titus & The Rape of Lucrece

In Titus there is at least one direct reference to the rape of Lucrece

LUCIUS (Act 3 Scene 1)

If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs; And make proud Saturnine and his empress Beg at the gates, like Tarquin and his queen. Now will I to the Goths, and raise a power, To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine.

There are obviously many parallels between the two works as they both deal with the rape of a very chaste and beautiful Roman lady of stature. 

And since Shakespeare goes into so much detail of Lucrece’s lament, remorse, guilt and a hundred other emotions, it can give insight in some of the (unwritten) emotions Lavinia may have experienced after she has was raped.

Shakespeare wrote the Rape of Lucrece around 1594, which is in the same general time period that Titus was written. Like Titus it also makes specific reference to the Tale of Philomel.

In 509BC Lucius Tarquinius was the King & his son was Sextus Tarquinius. Lucrece was the wife of Collatinus (Tarquins close friend and part of the aristocracy). She was renowned for her beauty and chastity. Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin) lusted for and eventually rapes Lucrece. Lucrece then kills herself to protect her honour and free her pure soul from her defiled body, but only after revealing who her attacker was and demanding revenge. Her body was paraded in the Roman Forum and incited a full-scale revolt against the Tarquins, the banishment of the royal family, and the founding of the Roman republic.

Tarquin and his Queen begged at the gates of Rome… well, they didn’t exactly beg since they had an army to back them up.

Shakespeare’s poem is of an epic nature and tells the story in extreme detail and is loaded with heightened language and lots of metaphors. He digs into the mind of Tarquin as he debates whether or not he should have Lucrece and he also digs into the deep lament of Lucrece after the rape has occurred.

The full text can be found here: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/Poetry/RapeOfLucrece.html It’s not for the light hearted. That language is tough, and it is on the scale of an epic poem, but it can definately be tamed.

Here are some of the relevant segments that I think will help give some insight into Lavinia’s internal monologue….

Note: unlike Demitrius & Chiron, Tarquin does experience a level of remorse for his deed.

After the rape and Tarquin has left, Lucrece prays that the morning never comes because she does not know how to hide her disgrace and fears that even the illiterate will be able to read the crime in her face. She blames night, who sets the stage for tragedy and murder, and demands that night smother the day.

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence; She like a wearied lamb lies panting there; He scowls and hates himself for his offence; She, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear; He faintly flies, sneaking with guilty fear; She stays, exclaiming on the direful night; He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loathed delight.

He thence departs a heavy convertite; She there remains a hopeless castaway; He in his speed looks for the morning light; She prays she never may behold the day, 'For day,' quoth she, 'nights scapes doth open lay, And my true eyes have never practised how To cloak offences with a cunning brow.

'They think not but that every eye can see The same disgrace which they themselves behold; And therefore would they still in darkness be, To have their unseen sin remain untold; For they their guilt with weeping will unfold, And grave, like water that doth eat in steel, Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'

Here she exclaims against repose and rest, And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind. She wakes her heart by beating on her breast, And bids it leap from thence, where it may find Some purer chest to close so pure a mind. Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite Against the unseen secrecy of night:

'O comfort-killing Night, image of hell! Dim register and notary of shame! Black stage for tragedies and murders fell! Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame! Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame! Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!

'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night! Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime, Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light, Make war against proportion'd course of time; Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed, Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

'With rotten damps ravish the morning air; Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick The life of purity, the supreme fair, Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick; And let thy misty vapours march so thick, That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light May set at noon and make perpetual night.

'Were Tarquin Night, as he is but Night's child, The silver-shining queen he would distain; Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defiled, Through Night's black bosom should not peep again: So should I have co-partners in my pain; And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage, As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.

'Where now I have no one to blush with me, To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine, To mask their brows and hide their infamy; But I alone alone must sit and pine, Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine, Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans, Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke, Let not the jealous Day behold that face Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace! Keep still possession of thy gloomy place, That all the faults which in thy reign are made May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!

'Make me not object to the tell-tale Day! The light will show, character'd in my brow, The story of sweet chastity's decay, The impious breach of holy wedlock vow: Yea the illiterate, that know not how To cipher what is writ in learned books, Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.

'The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story, And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name; The orator, to deck his oratory, Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame; Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame, Will tie the hearers to attend each line, How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.

'Let my good name, that senseless reputation, For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted: If that be made a theme for disputation, The branches of another root are rotted, And undeserved reproach to him allotted That is as clear from this attaint of mine As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.

'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me, From me by strong assault it is bereft. My honour lost, and I, a drone-like bee, Have no perfection of my summer left, But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft: In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept, And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack; Yet for thy honour did I entertain him; Coming from thee, I could not put him back, For it had been dishonour to disdain him: Besides, of weariness he did complain him, And talk'd of virtue: O unlook'd-for evil, When virtue is profaned in such a devil!

 Next she rails against Opportunity and Time. And then she rails against her own idle words that do nothing to remedy her situation. Instead, the only remedy is to kill herself as an act of honour to rid her soul of her defiled body.

 'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools! Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators! Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools; Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters; To trembling clients be you mediators: For me, I force not argument a straw, Since that my case is past the help of law.

'In vain I rail at Opportunity, At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night; In vain I cavil with mine infamy, In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite: This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. The remedy indeed to do me good Is to let forth my foul-defiled blood.

'Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree? Honour thyself to rid me of this shame: For if I die, my honour lives in thee; But if I live, thou livest in my defame: Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame, And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe, Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.'

This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth, To find some desperate instrument of death: But this no slaughterhouse no tool imparteth To make more vent for passage of her breath; Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth As smoke from AEtna, that in air consumes, Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.

'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live, and seek in vain Some happy mean to end a hapless life. I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain, Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife: But when I fear'd I was a loyal wife: So am I now: O no, that cannot be; Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

'O, that is gone for which I sought to live, And therefore now I need not fear to die. To clear this spot by death, at least I give A badge of fame to slander's livery; A dying life to living infamy: Poor helpless help, the treasure stol'n away, To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!

'Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know The stained taste of violated troth; I will not wrong thy true affection so, To flatter thee with an infringed oath; This bastard graff shall never come to growth: He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute That thou art doting father of his fruit.

'Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought, Nor laugh with his companions at thy state: But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought Basely with gold, but stol'n from forth thy gate. For me, I am the mistress of my fate, And with my trespass never will dispense, Till life to death acquit my forced offence.

'I will not poison thee with my attaint, Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses; My sable ground of sin I will not paint, To hide the truth of this false night's abuses: My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices, As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'

 She then gets angry at the birds that are singing sweet tunes and instead calls upon Philomel to languish with her and then returns to the question of killing herself:

 'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment, Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair: As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment, So I at each sad strain will strain a tear, And with deep groans the diapason bear; For burden-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still, While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill.

'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part, To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I, To imitate thee well, against my heart Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye; Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die. These means, as frets upon an instrument, Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.

'And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day, As shaming any eye should thee behold, Some dark deep desert, seated from the way, That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold, Will we find out; and there we will unfold To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds: Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'

As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze, Wildly determining which way to fly, Or one encompass'd with a winding maze, That cannot tread the way out readily; So with herself is she in mutiny, To live or die which of the twain were better, When life is shamed, and death reproach's debtor.

'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack, what were it, But with my body my poor soul's pollution? They that lose half with greater patience bear it Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion. That mother tries a merciless conclusion Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one, Will slay the other and be nurse to none.

'My body or my soul, which was the dearer, When the one pure, the other made divine? Whose love of either to myself was nearer, When both were kept for heaven and Collatine? Ay me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine, His leaves will wither and his sap decay; So must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.

'Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted, Her mansion batter'd by the enemy; Her sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted, Grossly engirt with daring infamy: Then let it not be call'd impiety, If in this blemish'd fort I make some hole Through which I may convey this troubled soul.

'Yet die I will not till my Collatine Have heard the cause of my untimely death; That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine, Revenge on him that made me stop my breath. My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath, Which by him tainted shall for him be spent, And as his due writ in my testament.

'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife That wounds my body so dishonoured. 'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life; The one will live, the other being dead: So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred; For in my death I murder shameful scorn: My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.

'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost, What legacy shall I bequeath to thee? My resolution, love, shall be thy boast, By whose example thou revenged mayest be. How Tarquin must be used, read it in me: Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe, And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.

'This brief abridgement of my will I make: My soul and body to the skies and ground; My resolution, husband, do thou take; Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound; My shame be his that did my fame confound; And all my fame that lives disbursed be To those that live, and think no shame of me.

[playingshakespeare]

The Tale of Philomel

In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus the name Philomel is referenced on six occasions and the rape of Lavinia follows very closely to the tale of Philomel. Here are the references:

AARON (Titus A2 S3)

This is the day of doom for Bassianus: His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day, Thy sons make pillage of her chastity And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.

MARCUS (Titus A2 S4)

O, that I knew thy heart; and knew the beast, That I might rail at him, to ease my mind! Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd, Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is. Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue, And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind: But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee; A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met, And he hath cut those pretty fingers off, That could have better sew'd than Philomel.

TITUS (Titus A4 S1)

What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read? This is the tragic tale of Philomel, And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape: And rape, I fear, was root of thine annoy.

TITUS (Titus A2 S1)

Lavinia, wert thou thus surprised, sweet girl, Ravish'd and wrong'd, as Philomela was, Forced in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods? See, see! Ay, such a place there is, where we did hunt-- O, had we never, never hunted there!-- Pattern'd by that the poet here describes, By nature made for murders and for rapes.

The tale of Philomel is a story from Greek Mythology that the Roman poet Ovid (43BC - AD18) developed and wrote about in Book VI of his Metamorphoses. Philomel was a Princess of Athens and her sister Procne was married to Tereus, the King of Thrace. Missing her sister Procne asked her husband to bring Philomel to Thrace. When at Athens Tereus began lusting for Philomel. He took her on his ship back to Thrace and when he landed he took her to the woods and raped her. Tereus threatened her & advised her to keep silent but she was defiant so he cut out her tongue and locked her up with slaves.

Unable to speak Philomel wove a tapestry that told her story. Procne, her sister was incensed to revenge and in revenge killed her son by Tereus and served him as a meal to her husband.

In Titus, the tale of Philomel is well known to most of the characters and Demitruis and Chiron, having learnt from Tereus’ mistake, ‘wisely’ cut off Lavinia’s hands so that she cannot sew and reveal the identities of those that raped and mutilated her.

See below for an translated account of the tale from Ovid.

From A. S. Kline’s Translation: 

Day broke, and Pandion, clasping his son-in-law’s right hand, in parting, with tears welling in his eyes, entrusted his daughter to him. ‘Dear son, since affectionate reasons compel it, and both of them desire it (you too have desired it, Tereus), I give her over to you, and by your honour, by the entreaty of a heart joined to yours, and by the gods above, I beg you, protect her with a father’s love, and send back to me, as soon as is possible (it will be all too long a wait for me), this sweet comfort of my old age.  You too, as soon as is possible (it is enough that your sister is so far away), if you are at all dutiful, Philomela, return to me!’

   So he commanded his daughter and kissed her, and soft tears mingled with his commands. As a token of their promise he took their two right hands and linked them together, and asked them, with a prayer, to remember to greet his absent daughter, and grandson, for him. His mouth sobbing, he could barely say a last farewell, and he feared the forebodings in his mind.

   As soon as Philomela was on board the brightly painted ship, and the sea was churned by the oars, and the land left behind them, the barbarian king cried ‘I have won! I carry with me what I wished for! He exults, and his passion can scarcely wait for its satisfaction. He never turns his eyes away from her, no differently than when Jupiter’s eagle deposits a hare, caught by the curved talons, in its high eyrie: there is no escape for the captive, and the raptor gazes at its prize.

   Now they had completed their journey, and disembarked from the wave-worn ship, on the shores of his country. The king took her to a high-walled building, hidden in an ancient forest, and there he locked her away, she, pale and trembling, fearing everything, in tears now, begging to know where her sister was. Then, confessing his evil intent, he overcame her by force, she a virgin and alone, as she called out, again and again, in vain, to her father, her sister, and most of all to the great gods. She quivered like a frightened lamb, that fails to realise it is free, wounded and discarded by a grey wolf, or like a dove trembling, its feathers stained with its blood, still fearing the rapacious claws that gripped it. After a brief while, when she had come to her senses, she dragged at her dishevelled hair, and like a mourner, clawed at her arms, beating them against her breasts. Hands outstretched, she shouted ‘Oh, you savage. Oh, what an evil, cruel, thing you have done. Did you care nothing for my father’s trust, sealed with holy tears, my sister’s affection, my own virginity, your marriage vows? You have confounded everything. I have been forced to become my sister’s rival. You are joined to both. Now Procne will be my enemy! Why not rob me of life as well, you traitor, so that no crime escapes you? If only you had done it before that impious act. Then my shade would have been free of guilt. Yet, if the gods above witness such things, if the powers of heaven mean anything, if all is not lost, as I am, then one day you will pay me for this! I, without shame, will tell what you have done. If I get the chance it will be in front of everyone. If I am kept imprisoned in these woods, I will fill the woods with it, and move the stones, that know of my guilt, to pity. The skies will hear of it, and any god that may be there!’

Bk VI:549-570

Philomela is mutilated

   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.

Bk VI:571-619

The truth is revealed

   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. Procne burned, and could not control her anger, reproaching her sister for weeping, saying ‘Now is not the time for tears, but for the sword, or for what overcomes the sword, if you know of such a thing. I am prepared for any wickedness, sister; to set the palace alight with a torch, and throw Tereus, the author of this, into the midst of the flames; or to cut out his eyes and tongue, and the parts which brought shame to you; or to force out his guilty spirit through a thousand wounds! I am ready for any enormity: but what it should be, I still do not know yet.’

Bk VI:619-652

The pitiless feast

   While Procne was going over these things, Itys came to his mother. His arrival suggested what she might do, and regarding him with a cold gaze, she said ‘Ah! How like your father you are!’ Without speaking further, seething in silent indignation, she began to conceive her tragic plan. Yet, when the boy approached, and greeted his mother, and put his little arms round her neck, and kissed her with childish endearments, she was moved, her anger was checked, and her eyes were wet with the tears that gathered against her will. But, realising that her mind was wavering through excess affection, she turned away from him, and turned to look at her sister’s face again, till, gazing at both in turn, she said ‘Why should the one be able to speak his endearments, while the other is silent, her tongue torn out?’

   Though he calls me mother, why can she not call me sister? Look at the husband you are bride to, Pandion’s daughter! This is unworthy of you! Affection is criminal in a wife of Tereus’

   Without delay, she dragged Itys off, as a tigress does an unweaned fawn, in the dark forests of the Ganges. As they reached a remote part of the great palace, Procne, with an unchanging expression, struck him with a knife, in the side close to the heart, while he stretched out his hands, knowing his fate at the last, crying out ‘Mother! Mother!’, and reaching out for her neck.  That one wound was probably enough to seal his fate, but Philomela opened his throat with the knife. While the limbs were still warm, and retained some life, they tore them to pieces. Part bubble in bronze cauldrons, part hiss on the spit: and the distant rooms drip with grease.

   The wife invites the unsuspecting Tereus to the feast, and giving out that it is a sacred rite, practised in her country, where it is only lawful for the husband to be present, she sends away their followers and servants. Tereus eats by himself, seated in his tall ancestral chair, and fills his belly with his own child. And in the darkness of his understanding cries ‘Fetch Ithys here’.

Bk VI:653-674

They are transformed into birds

   Procne cannot hide her cruel exultation, and now, eager to be, herself, the messenger of destruction, she cries ‘You have him there, inside, the one you ask for.’ He looks around and questions where the boy is. And then while he is calling out and seeking him, Philomela, springs forward, her hair wet with the dew of that frenzied murder, and hurls the bloodstained head of Itys in his father’s face. Nor was there a time when she wished more strongly to have the power of speech, and to declare her exultation in fitting words.

   The Thracian king pushed back the table with a great cry, calling on the Furies, the snake-haired sisters of the vale of Styx. Now if he could, he would tear open his body, and reveal the dreadful substance of the feast, and his half-consumed child. Then he weeps, and calls himself the sepulchre of his unhappy son, and now pursues, with naked sword, the daughters of Pandion.

   You might think the Athenian women have taken wing: they have taken wings. One of them, a nightingale, Procne, makes for the woods. The other, a swallow, Philomela, flies to the eaves of the palace, and even now her throat has not lost the stain of that murder, and the soft down bears witness to the blood. Tereus swift in his grief and desire for revenge, is himself changed to a bird, with a feathered crest on its head. An immoderate, elongated, beak juts out, like a long spear. The name of the bird is the hoopoe, and it looks as though it is armed.

[playingshakespeare]

Euro-English Humor

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

[playingshakespeare]

Fate

I was reading Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well and came across this comment from Helen: 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky

Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull

Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull

                                                ~ All's Well, A1 S1

    It reminded me of Cassius from Julius Caesar:

  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

                              ~ Julius Caesar, A1 S2

[playingshakespeare]

So every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity

Shakespeare

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What I can tell you is that ANY serious reader of Shakespeare is going to experience an evolution! It is an absolute magic, and the magic has little to do with what Shakespeare has to say. You can memorize every cool quote and be as clueless as you were before reading. So it is not Shakespeare's offering that invokes this evolution. The secret, the magic, is YOU! Shakespeare has created an environment that allows for genuine development. The Shakespearean efforts are not to replace your pre-existing ideas with the ideas of some facilitator. the efforts are not to see you become the cookie-cutter copy of what some other person thinks you "should" be. Shakespeare is simply an environment that allows us to evolve without the influence of everyone telling us what we should evolve into. Shakespeare offers a freedom from those prisons! Your mind will begin shaking the residue of other people's ideas and begin developing understandings that are genuinely yours! That is the goal of these Shakespearean efforts. You have nothing to lose but the parts of you that do not belong anyhow.

Larry Newman (serving a life sentence for murder), Introduction to "The Prisoner's Guide to the Complete Works of Shakespeare"

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Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full character'd with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date, even to eternity; Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. That poor retention could not so much hold, Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; Therefore to give them from me was I bold, To trust those tables that receive thee more: To keep an adjunct to remember thee Were to import forgetfulness in me.

William Shakespeare

[playingshakespeare]

Solitary Confinement Prisoner: 'Shakespeare Saved My Life'

The following is an excerpt from Laura Bates's Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard. Bates taught Shakespeare to solitary confinement prison inmates.

I read this review & then immediately bought the book. It is an amazing read! Unbelievable, the impact that Shakespeare has had on a group of murderers serving life in prison. 

[playingshakespeare]

PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court. HELENA Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star. PAROLLES Under Mars, I. HELENA I especially think, under Mars. PAROLLES Why under Mars? HELENA The wars have so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars. PAROLLES When he was predominant. HELENA When he was retrograde, I think, rather. PAROLLES Why think you so? HELENA You go so much backward when you fight. PAROLLES That's for advantage. HELENA So is running away, when fear proposes the safety; but the composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well. PAROLLES I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee; so, farewell.

Shakespeare reference's the retrograde motion of Mars. 

All's Well That Ends Well

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Interview clips from the PBS documentary on Eugene O'Neill. In the second part of the interview Robards discusses 'breaking time and space'.

[playingshakespeare]

When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and check'd even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night; And all in war with Time for love of you, As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

William Shakespeare

[riverart]

Spending some time with Keats :)