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But when she takes off these bacchic insignia (603), she also takes off the sacral dimension of her task and instead blazes up in a vengeful fury that she can control no more than Tereus could the fire of his lust (ardet et iram / non capit ipsa sua, 609f.; cf. 466, nec capiunt inclusas pectora flammas). In place of a woman's tears she now demands a sword (61118). For her, as for her sister, "hands" stand in the place of "voice" in more senses than one (pro voce manus fuit, 609). Amid Procne's threats to Tereus' tongue, eyes, and genitals, the infant Itys enters. Now the ties of "mother" and "wife" give way entirely to those of "sister'' and "daughter" (63035, 640, 666). |
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Tereus' wild overthrowing of the tables and his invocation of the Stygian Furies 662) confirm that we are indeed in the realm of the Furies (cf. 657, furiali caede). The association of the sisters with the Furies (made all the stronger by Tereus' "sisters" for the Furies in 662) reinforces the horror of Philomela's inner transformation. The presence of the Furies suggests that the crime of rape has robbed Philomela of her previous self, her identity as a young Athenian princess, and changed her into something terrible and scarcely human. The metamorphosis begins before her actual change of shape. Tereus' brutalization of her has made her into a demon of revenge as all the rage of his violation of her now turns against him. In a sense, then, Philomela is victimized even in the justice of her revenge as she is brought down to the level of her attacker's bestiality and so endlessly pursued by him in the non-human forms that all three actors now assume. |
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It is illuminating to compare this reading of the episode, which owes much to Joplin's feminist approach, with the traditional "humanist" reading of Brooks Otis. Otis gives a good description of the dehumanization of the two women, but regards the metamorphosis as the "solution of their catastrophe" rather than as the problematization of justice in this world of sub-human behavior (Otis, 1970, 215). Joplin reads the myth (she does not deal with Ovid in detail) as a narrative that needs to be deconstructed or subverted into a critique of patriarchy: "The Greek imagination uses the mythic end to expel its own violence and to avoid any knowledge of its process. Patriarchal culture feels, as Tereus does, that it is asked to incorporate something monstrous when the woman returns from exile to tell her own story" (Joplin 1991, 49). |
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The issue here can perhaps be reframed as the critic's decision about where to situate himself or herself in relation to the text. If one reads the episode from within the frame of the narrative, Ovid receives credit for his full depiction of Tereus' savagery and his sympathetic treatment of the victims. If one reads the episode from outside this frame, Ovid is open to the charge of perpetuating a cultural pattern of subjugating and exploiting women and of demonizing their rage at such subjugation. I cannot hope to resolve this issue here, for it is the issue for any interpretation that confronts the moral dimensions of literature. But facing these tensions fairly can lead |
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