Tereus Character Analysis in Metamorphoses

Tereus is a barbarian king who marries Procne—the daughter of an Athenian king who seeks to make peace with the barbarians. After marrying Procne, Tereus returns to Athens to retrieve Procne’s sister Philomela. As soon as Tereus sees Philomela, he lusts after her. Pretending to act as a devoted husband bringing his wife’s sister to visit his wife, he brings Philomela on his ship to his homeland. Once on land, he brutally rapes Philomela, cuts out her tongue, and rapes her two more times. He imprisons Philomela and returns to Procne, pretending as though nothing happened. Meanwhile, the two sisters manage to reunite, and they seek their revenge against Tereus by killing his son Itys and feeding him to Tereus at a banquet. After this episode, Tereus is turned into a monstrous bird with a long beak.

Tereus Quotes in Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses quotes below are all either spoken by Tereus or refer to Tereus . 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:

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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: Procne (speaker), Tereus , Philomela , Itys

Related Symbols: Speech, Words, and Writing

Page Number and Citation: 629

Explanation and Analysis: