Philomela

[wolfinthewood]

Today on its very last day I caught the ‘Fabric of Myth’ exhibition at Compton Verney. There was some great stuff there, but one piece knocked me out: the mixed media installation Gynaikonitides, by Delaine Le Bas. The name is a transliteration of a classical Greek word that means ‘Women’s Quarters’. The interpretation panel on the wall briefly mentioned Philomela, without giving many details of the story. That was a mistake, I think, since a lot of people don’t know it. It is not one of the ‘Greek Myths’ that they retell (often in sanitized versions) in children’s books. Nothing could sanitize the story of Philomela and her sister Procne.

Ovid goes to town on it (he liked the gruesome ones), and I can’t include all of his text here. Briefly, Procne daughter of Pandion marries Tereus, King of Thrace and they have a son, Itys. Five years after the marriage, Procne longs to see her little sister, Philomela, and Tereus goes and fetches her for a visit. He promises her father to take great care of her. But in fact, the moment he saw her he was overcome with lust. Tereus sails back to Thrace, bringing Philomela.



Their vessels now had made th’ intended land,
And all with joy descend upon the strand;
When the false tyrant seiz’d the princely maid,
And to a lodge in distant woods convey’d;
Pale, sinking, and distress’d with jealous fears,
And asking for her sister all in tears.
The letcher, for enjoyment fully bent,
No longer now conceal’d his base intent;
But with rude haste the bloomy girl deflow’r’d,
Tender, defenceless, and with ease o’erpower’d.
Her piercing accents to her sire complain,
And to her absent sister, but in vain:
In vain she importunes, with doleful cries,
Each unattentive godhead of the skies.
She pants and trembles, like the bleating prey,
From some close-hunted wolf just snatch’d away;
That still, with fearful horror, looks around,
And on its flank regards the bleeding wound.
Or, as the tim’rous dove, the danger o’er,
Beholds her shining plumes besmear’d with gore,
And, tho’ deliver’d from the faulcon’s claw,
Yet shivers, and retains a secret awe.

But when her mind a calm reflection shar’d,
And all her scatter’d spirits were repair’d:
Torn, and disorder’d while her tresses hung,
Her livid hands, like one that mourn’d, she wrung;
Then thus, with grief o’erwhelm’d her languid eyes,
Savage, inhumane, cruel wretch! she cries;
Whom not a parent’s strict commands could move,
Tho’ charg’d, and utter’d with the tears of love;
Nor virgin innocence, nor all that’s due
To the strong contract of the nuptial vow:
Virtue, by this, in wild confusion’s laid,
And I compell’d to wrong my sister’s bed;
Whilst you, regardless of your marriage oath,
With stains of incest have defil’d us both.
Tho’ I deserv’d some punishment to find,
This was, ye Gods! too cruel, and unkind.
Yet, villain, to compleat your horrid guilt,
Stab here, and let my tainted blood be spilt.
Oh happy! had it come, before I knew
The curs’d embrace of vile perfidious you;
Then my pale ghost, pure from incestuous love,
Had wander’d spotless thro’ th’ Elysian grove.
But, if the Gods above have pow’r to know,
And judge those actions that are done below;
Unless the dreaded thunders of the sky,
Like me, subdu’d, and violated lye;
Still my revenge shall take its proper time,
And suit the baseness of your hellish crime.
My self, abandon’d, and devoid of shame,
Thro’ the wide world your actions will proclaim;
Or tho’ I’m prison’d in this lonely den,
Obscur’d, and bury’d from the sight of men,
My mournful voice the pitying rocks shall move,
And my complainings eccho thro’ the grove.
Hear me, o Heav’n! and, if a God be there,
Let him regard me, and accept my pray’r.

Struck with these words, the tyrant’s guilty breast
With fear, and anger, was, by turns, possest;
Now, with remorse his conscience deeply stung,
He drew the faulchion that beside her hung,
And first her tender arms behind her bound,
Then drag’d her by the hair along the ground.
The princess willingly her throat reclin’d,
And view’d the steel with a contented mind;
But soon her tongue the girding pinchers strain,
With anguish, soon she feels the piercing pain:
Oh father! father! would fain have spoke,
But the sharp torture her intention broke;
In vain she tries, for now the blade has cut
Her tongue sheer off, close to the trembling root.
The mangled part still quiver’d on the ground,
Murmuring with a faint imperfect sound:
And, as a serpent writhes his wounded train,
Uneasy, panting, and possess’d with pain;
The piece, while life remain’d, still trembled fast,
And to its mistress pointed to the last.

Yet, after this so damn’d, and black a deed,
Fame (which I scarce can credit) has agreed,
That on her rifled charms, still void of shame,
He frequently indulg’d his lustful flame,
At last he ventures to his Procne’s sight,
Loaded with guilt, and cloy’d with long delight;
There, with feign’d grief, and false, dissembled sighs,
Begins a formal narrative of lies;
Her sister’s death he artfully declares,
Then weeps, and raises credit from his tears.
Her vest, with flow’rs of gold embroider’d o’er,
With grief distress’d, the mournful matron tore,
And a beseeming suit of gloomy sable wore.
With cost, an honorary tomb she rais’d,
And thus th’ imaginary ghost appeas’d.
Deluded queen! the fate of her you love,
Nor grief, nor pity, but revenge should move.

Thro’ the twelve signs had pass’d the circling sun,
And round the compass of the Zodiac run;
What must unhappy Philomela do,
For ever subject to her keeper’s view?
Huge walls of massy stone the lodge surround,
From her own mouth no way of speaking’s found.
But all our wants by wit may be supply’d,
And art makes up, what fortune has deny’d:
With skill exact a Phrygian web she strung,
Fix’d to a loom that in her chamber hung,
Where in-wrought letters, upon white display’d,
In purple notes, her wretched case betray’d:
The piece, when finish’d, secretly she gave
Into the charge of one poor menial slave;
And then, with gestures, made him understand,
It must be safe convey’d to Procne’s hand.
The slave, with speed, the queen’s apartment sought,
And render’d up his charge, unknowing what he brought.
But when the cyphers, figur’d in each fold,
Her sister’s melancholy story told
(Strange that she could!) with silence, she survey’d
The tragick piece, and without weeping read:
In such tumultuous haste her passions sprung,
They choak’d her voice, and quite disarm’d her tongue.
No room for female tears; the Furies rise,
Darting vindictive glances from her eyes;
And, stung with rage, she bounds from place to place,
While stern revenge sits low’ring in her face.

P. Ovidius Naso

from Metamorphoses

trans Samuel Croxall (1688/9–1752)

Procne rescues Philomela from the place where Tereus is keeping her prisoner and takes her back to the palace. Then she and Philomela murder her son Itys, dismember him, cook him and feed him to his father. When at the end of the feast Tereus calls for his son, Philomela appears with the boy’s severed head. Once Tereus understands that not only is his son dead, but he himself has eaten his body, he pursues the sisters with his sword drawn, but the gods transform them all to birds: Philomela to a nightingale, Procne to a swallow, and Tereus to a hoopoe; his sword becomes the bird’s jutting beak.

And the installation? Some people looked at it blankly and wandered on. Some people paused, looked troubled, and left quite soon. Some people spent more time there. I went back five times. ‘Disturbing’ was a word I heard some people mutter. It was disturbing: dolls with bleeding mouths, tiny severed doll limbs, suspended on strings from the ceiling, a web of strings that entangled anyone who entered: especially when you tried to leave. The disquieting sound-track combined sounds of bird-song, a nightingale, and I think a swallow's twittering, and a hoarser cry that may have been a hoopoe, with the cries of women and children. There were peepholes into peepshows on either side: child-sized figures with the heads of lambs, bigger figures with leopard masks, and dark distorted human shapes painted on the walls. 'Like lambs to the slaughter' read one inscription. The White Rabbit, who leads the way into the world of a child's nightmares, was a motif that recurred a couple of times. At the far end of the installation was a broken spinning wheel and a cot with a child-sized figure in it.

It was a harrowing place to be. But I stayed because there was so much detail, and every detail contributed something more. Also, because I wanted to fathom the whole of it, take it in, come to terms with it. It was harrowing, but it was not gratuitously horrible, and not, I thought, despairing. In spite of everything, Philomela told her story, made her art, resisted and escaped. On the wall above the cot was a painting of a moth: symbol of metamorphosis.

I was moved, and very impressed.


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