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Tereus 1 is the cruel Thracian king who helped
King Pandion 2 of Athens
in his war against King Labdacus 1 of
Thebes, and having
received one of his daughters seduced the other.
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Thrace's military aid to
Athens
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These events took place five or six generations
before the Trojan War,
at the time when Thebes
and Athens waged war
against each other for a matter of boundaries. This
war was yet another setback for
Thebes, then ruled by
King Labdacus 1, grandfather of
Oedipus. For King
Pandion 2 of Athens
requested military assistance from abroad,
receiving it from the Thracian King Tereus 1, who
helped to bring the war to a successful close.
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Alliance through marriage
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Now, either because this kind of help is seldom
free, or just because King Pandion 2 felt grateful
towards Tereus 1 for having contributed to the
victory of Athens, or
because it was a way of making of the Thracian king
a permanent ally, it was decided that Tereus 1
would receive Princess Procne, daughter of Pandion
2, as wife.
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Bad omens
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Some affirm that this wedding was neither
attended by Hera, the
bridal goddess, nor by the
CHARITES, but that
instead the general and the princess, on the day of
their marriage, were lighted by the
ERINYES with torches
stolen from a funeral. But these things, not being
visible to the eye, pass unnoticed.
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Happiness of the Royal Family
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Tereus 1 took his wife Procne to Thrace where
everybody rejoiced, first at their illustrious king
marrying the Athenian princess, and even more when
their child Itys 1 was born.
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Procne's longing
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When five years had passed and they had had the
time to grow accustomed to their happiness, Procne
started longing after her sister Philomela 1, who
had remained in Athens,
and asked her husband:
"If I have
found any favour in your sight, either send me to
visit my sister or let my sister come to
me." [Procne to Tereus 1. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
6.440]
Tereus 1 gave his assent to his wife's request,
and sailed to Athens.
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Tereus 1 covets his sister in law
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However, when he was received in the court of
King Pandion 2, he met sweet Philomela 1 and fell
in love with her. At the moment, they say, he
understood that he was ready to pay whatever it
costed to win the maid, being willing to corrupt
her attendants with bribes, or tempt the girl
herself with gifts, or even to ravish her and
support his act by war, if it were necessary.
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Tereus 1 moved to tears
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So with this resolution in mind, Tereus 1
transmitted to the king, more than willingly,
Procne's request, and as his heart secretly burned
with love for Philomela 1, they say, eloquence
assisted his speech, and even tears came to his
eyes while pleading for this cause that had become
his own. He was so convincing that soon Philomela 1
herself was asking the same thing, and finally King
Pandion 2, yielding to the prayers of both, gave a
second daughter to Tereus 1's keeping, saying:
"I pray you
guard her with a father's love, and as soon as
possible ... send back to me this sweet solace of
my tedious years." [Pandion 2 to Tereus 1.
Ovid,
Metamorphoses
6.500]
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Passion turns Tereus 1 into a barbarian ...
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Tereus 1 left Athens
with Philomela 1 on board, and so soon they came to
Thrace, the barbarous king dragged her to a hut
hidden in the woods where he, taking advantage of
his physical strength, violated the girl.
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... and a traitor
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This is how the king of Thrace, caring nothing
for the injunctions of Pandion 2, became a traitor
and confused all natural relations, deceiving his
wife, her sister, and the father of both. And by
turning the girl who had been entrusted to him into
his concubine, he made her the rival of her own
sister.
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Shame kept secret by cutting off a tongue
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However, Philomela 1 had no intentions of
submitting, and she proclaimed that she would tell
what happened to whoever listened, and that is why
the savage tyrant, catching her by the hair and
seizing her tongue with pincers, cut it off with
his sword. And having done this horrid deed, the
coward fellow proceeded to violate his victim again
and again.
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The lies of the coward
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Having thus obtained such a crushing victory,
General Tereus 1 returned home with his heart full
of lies, telling his wife Procne a made-up story
about the death of Philomela 1, whom he in reality
had left speechless in the hut with a guard
preventing her flight.
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Procne learns the truth
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The girl remained a prisoner for one year, but
in the course of it she wove a web with signs
telling the story of her sorrows. When the web was
finished, she gave it to one attendant, an old
woman, begging her to carry it to Queen Procne,
who, after unrolling the cloth, read the true story
of her sister.
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Philomela 1 rescued
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When Procne learned what had happened, she did
not utter a word, but instead prepared herself to
rescue her sister during the natural confusion
created by the festival of
Dionysus 2 that was
being celebrated that year. Appropriately
disguised, she then came to the hut, and seizing
her sister took her to the palace.
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Procne plans revenge
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Now that Philomela 1 was safe, Procne felt that
she was ready for any crime in order to avenge
herself and her sister. And while she deliberated
whether to put fire to the palace, or to cut out
the king's tongue and eyes, or cut off his private
parts, her son Itys 1 came in.
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Procne turns into a criminal
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And it was this little Itys 1 who became the
victim of the wrath of his unnatural mother. For
such was her distress and hate that she smote
little Itys 1 with a knife. And when the child was
dead, both sisters cut the body into pieces and
boiled it in brazen kettles.
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Horrible deed
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When they had thus turned the child into a meal,
Procne served it to Tereus 1, an ancestral sacred
feast of which only the husband may partake, she
said. That is how the king unwittingly devoured his
own child, founding it delicious; and when he then
asked for his son, Procne answered in cruel joy:
"You have,
within, him whom you want." [Procne to
Tereus 1. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
6.655]
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Difficult to believe
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But these things are so unbelievable, and so
impossible to imagine that he kept asking for his
son, not understanding in his utter blindness what
his wife had told him until Philomela 1 came
forward and hurled the head of little Itys 1 into
his face.
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Tereus 1 counterattacks
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When Tereus 1 understood what he had done, he
overturned the table, and with drawn sword pursued
both sisters. But, as they say, they turned into
birds, and so did he.
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Philomela 1 about to hurl
little Itys 1's head into the king's
face
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Things happened differently
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This is what happened to Tereus 1 and the
daughters of Pandion 2. Yet some have said that
Tereus 1 came to Athens
to ask for Philomela 1's hand saying that Procne
had died. They add that Pandion 2 granted Tereus 1
this second favour, and that the Thracian king
embarked with Philomela 1 and Athenian guards along
with her. But Tereus 1 threw the guards into the
sea, and after having violated Philomela 1, he
entrusted her to the Thracian King Lynceus 4, whose
wife Lathusa, being a friend of Procne, sent the
girl to her. At that time, prodigies revealed to
Tereus 1 that his son Itys 1 was about to be killed
by a relative, and he, believing that his own
brother Dryas 2 was plotting against little Itys 1,
killed the innocent man.
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All turned into birds
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In any case, after having committed the horrid
crime, the sisters fled but were overtaken at
Daulis in Phocis (the region bordering the Gulf of
Corinth west of Boeotia)
where they were turned into birds by the pity of
the gods, Procne becoming a nightingale, and
Philomela 1 a swallow (or the other way round), and
Tereus 1 turning into a hoopoe, or as others say
into a hawk.
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Suicide
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Others affirm that Tereus 1 reigned not in
Thrace but in Daulis, and still others have said
that his kingdom was near
Megara, and that here he
committed suicide when he found himself unable to
seize the daughters of Pandion 2.
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Ornithology in Megara
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The Megarians are reported to have raised Tereus
1 a barrow, and to have sacrificed every year to
him, for they said that the hoopoe first appeared
in the region after these events.
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Ornithology in Daulis
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But in Daulis it was noticed that the swallows
neither hatch nor lay eggs nor make nests in the
roof of houses, the reason being, as the Daulians
said, that Philomela 1 the swallow is afraid of
Tereus 1 the hoopoe.
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Argument in favour of Daulis
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Some have found reasonable to believe that
Tereus 1 was not a Thracian but lived in Daulis
(Phocis), arguing that
"Pandion in
contracting an alliance for his daughter would
consider the advantages of mutual assistance, and
would naturally prefer a match at the above
moderate distance to the journey of many days which
separates
Athens from the Thracians."
[Thucydides 2.29.3]
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Another Tereus
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Tereus 2 was one of
Aeneas' warriors in
Italy. He was killed by Camilla, a woman-warrior,
ally of Turnus. She was the daughter of King
Metabus of the Volscians and Casmilla. Camilla was
killed by Arruns, an Etruscan ally of
Aeneas.
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