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Tereus
Procne is Tereus’s wife and Philomela’s sister. When Procne hears that her husband has raped her sister, she furiously seeks revenge against him. After debating as to how to seek her revenge, she decides to kill her and Tereus’s son Itys and serve him to Tereus at a banquet; she can no longer look at her son with motherly tenderness, but only sees him as a reminder and image of her husband’s brutality. At the end of the story, Procne is turned into a nightingale with “the red badge of murder” on its chest.
Procne Quotes in Metamorphoses
The Metamorphoses quotes below are all either spoken by Procne or refer to Procne . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 6: Tereus, Procne and Philomela
Quotes
But once she saw that maternal claims were making her purpose
waver, she turned away from her child to the face of her sister,
then looking at each in turn, she reflected: ‘Should Itys be able
to say that he loves me, when poor Philomela has lost her tongue?
He can call out to his mother, but she cannot call out to her sister.’
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Metamorphoses LitChart as a printable PDF.
Procne Quotes in Metamorphoses
The Metamorphoses quotes below are all either spoken by Procne or refer to Procne . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 6: Tereus, Procne and Philomela
Quotes
But once she saw that maternal claims were making her purpose
waver, she turned away from her child to the face of her sister,
then looking at each in turn, she reflected: ‘Should Itys be able
to say that he loves me, when poor Philomela has lost her tongue?
He can call out to his mother, but she cannot call out to her sister.’
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
