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Tereus' Tears: the Performance and Performativity of Crying in Met.6.412

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Tereus' Tears: the Performance and Performativity of Crying in Met.6.412 Tereus’ tears: the performance and performativity of crying in Met. 6.412-674 Jessica A. Westerhold University of Tennessee, Knoxville In book 6 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we encounter the gruesome and heartbreaking story of the Athenian princess Procne, her husband Tereus, king of T race, and her sister Philomela (Met. 6.412-674). After returning to Athens in order to fetch Philomela back to T race for a family visit, Tereus is overcome by lust. He returns with the maiden to T race but locks her in a hut in the woods and rapes her repeatedly, cutting out her tongue in order to prevent her from calling for help and revealing his crime. She succeeds in communicating with her sister by means of a woven message, and the two take revenge. T ey kill Tereus’ and Procne’s son, Itys, and feed him to his father. T e three are changed into birds – a hoopoe, a swallow and a nightingale. Scholarship on this passage has fruitfully explored its debt to Greek and Roman tragedy,1 and, in some cases, attempted to reconstruct the lost tragedies of Sophocles and Accius.2 Scholars 1 See, e.g., Curley (1997; 2003; 2013); Gildenhard and Zissos (1999; 2007). 2 See, e.g., Coo (2013); Curley (2003); March (2003). 386 AUGUSTAN POETRY have also noted the metapoetic signif cance of Philomela’s web and the relationship between free speech, power and violence which it may represent.3 In this paper I focus exclusively on the shedding of tears (lacrimae, f etus).4 We may see tears performing emotions – that is, demonstrating to others through gesture a character’s experience of grief (dolor), anticipation of grief, or fear. T ey are also performative – that is, they do something.5 In Ovid’s tale, for example, Tereus’ tears often create a sense of trust. T e emotion grief (dolor) also incites characters to act – specif cally, to seek revenge for a wrong. For Procne, Philomela and Tereus, however, the performance of dolor and action motivated by dolor are mutually exclusive.6 Action motivated by dolor requires the ef ective suppression of its performance 3 See, e.g., Enterline (2000); Gildenhard and Zissos (2007); Joplin (1984); Marder (1991); Richlin (1991); Segal (1994). 4 See Hollenburger-Rusch (2001) for a comprehensive treatment of tears in the Metamorphoses as a whole and 19-29 for an analysis of the poem’s vocabulary of crying. See Osmun (1984) for tears and their function in Roman erotic elegy, including Ovid’s eroto-didactic and epistolary elegy. See James (2003) for the power of the lover to elicit tears from the puella. See further Fögen (2009) for tears in ancient Greece and Rome. 5 I am following Austin’s seminal (1955 [1975]) def nition of performative utterances, a name that “indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action” (6). For more recent theoretical developments of Austin’s performative utterance, see e.g., Sedgwick (2003, 3-8 and passim), and (35-38, 61-65), for shame and performativity; and Butler (1993, 1-21 and passim). See Vingerhoets, Bylsma and Rottenberg (2009, 439-75), for a summary of recent studies on the function and ef ect of crying. See de Libero (2009, 210- 22), on “appealing tears” in Livy. See Lateiner (1992; 1996) for the performative functions of non-verbal behavior in Ovid’s Met. in general and (1992, 260-61), and (1996, 234-35), for crying in particular. 6 More often, especially in Greek literature, weeping motivates revenge. Cf. Achilles’ tears and subsequent revenge (Hom. Il.), Electra’s tears and Orestes’ revenge (Aesch., Or.; Soph., El.; Eur., El.), or Lucretia’s tears and the expulsion of the Tarquins (Liv. 1.58-60). For the connection between lament and (male) vengeance in ancient Greek culture and literature, see, e.g., Alexiou (2002 [1974], 21-23, 124-25, 171); Due (2006, 47, 117-35); Foley (2001, 23-25, 145- 71); Holst-Warhaft (1992, 75-97, 140-53); Loraux (1990); Murnaghan (1999, 210-12). In Roman culture and literature, see, e.g., de Libero (2009, 210-11, TEREUS’ TEARS 387 through weeping. Moreover, Tereus, who initially applies tears as a rhetorical technique in the absence of the emotion they perform, undergoes an emotional metamorphosis at the close of the tale. Ironically, while Ovid’s tale represents only the false, performative tears of Tereus as successful, his success creates the circumstances under which he will genuinely experience dolor. Tereus’ performance of grief produces grief. Lateiner (1992) and (1996) has explored the importance of non-verbal communication in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Hollenburger-Rusch (2001) discusses the function of tears in particular. I chose to focus on weeping in this tale due to its central importance to the myth. Procne and Philomela, associated with the nightingale and swallow, are exemplary in mythology for mourning Procne’s dead son Itys.7 Homer’s Penelope likens herself to Procne mourning her child (Od. 19.518-23). Likewise, Sophocles’ Elektra is compared on three occasions to Procne (El. 107, 148-9, 1077). In the second instance, Elektra pairs Procne with another exemplary lamenting mother, Niobe (150-52), whose story precedes Procne’s in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It is surprising to f nd that Ovid’s Procne, who is famous for her eternal tears, does very little crying in his version.8 T e narrator closes the tale with the familiar description of the metamorphoses and their signif cance as examples in myth. Neither sister becomes the querulous bird of Homer. 229); Erker (2009, 144-49); Fantham (1999); Keith (2008, 249). In Ovid’s Met., see, e.g., Fantham (2004-2005); McAuley (2012, 151-8 and passim). 7 Procne functions thus elsewhere in Ovid: Am. 3.12.32, concinit Odrysium Cecropis ales Ityn; Ep. 15.154, concinit Ismarium Daulias ales Ityn; Fast. 2.855, Procne, nimium properasse quereris; Fast. 4.482, ut amissum cum gemit ales Ityn; Tr. 2.390, luget …mater Ityn; Tr. 5.1.60, querulam Procnen. Cf. of Philomela: Am. 2.6.7, 10, quereris, Philomela,…magna, sed antiqua est causa doloris Itys. See, e.g., Anderson (1972, 206-37); Loraux (1990, 84-100); Monella (2005) for Procne as an exemplum of the mourning mother in Greek and Roman literature. 8 Itys’ cry (‘mater, mater’, 6.640), Curley (1997) argues, may also replace Procne’s own traditional lament of “Itys, Itys” from Greek poetry, while serving as aetiol- ogy for her lament as an answer to her son’s. 388 AUGUSTAN POETRY Instead, Ovid’s birds carry the mark of their murderous revenge, “their feathers marked by blood” (signataque sanguine pluma est, 670),9 while Tereus’ metamorphosis is characterized by the grief traditionally associated with the sisters, for the narrator describes him as “swift due to his own grief (dolor) and desire for revenge” (ille dolore suo poenaeque cupidine uelox, 671). Tereus is the f rst character and the last character to cry in the tale. His initial tears are shed while entreating Pandion to entrust Philomela to him, ostensibly on behalf of Procne.10 We are told, however, that Tereus is seized by lust for Philomela at their f rst meeting: “Tereus burned at the sight of the maiden” (exarsit conspecta uirgine Tereus, 455). His desire has already led him to consider the usual comic and elegiac routes to a beloved (her friends, 461; her nurse, 462; and gifts, 463)11 as well as a more epic route (war captive, 464). Finally Tereus focuses his attention on his father-in-law (458-60, 467-74). digna quidem facies, sed et hunc innata libido exstimulat, pronumque genus regionibus illis in Venerem est; f agrat uitio gentisque suoque. … iamque moras male fert cupidoque reuertitur ore ad mandata Procnes et agit sua uota sub illa. facundum faciebat amor, quotiensque rogabat ulterius iusto, Procnen ita uelle ferebat; addidit et lacrimas, tamquam mandasset et illas. pro superi, quantum mortalia pectora caecae noctis habent! ipso sceleris molimine Tereus creditur esse pius laudemque a crimine sumit. 9 See also Procne in Ovid’s Ars 2.384, where the poet-praeceptor notes signatum sanguine pectus habet; Rem. 60: quae socii damno sanguinis ulta uirum est; of Medea in Am. 2.14.29-30, 32, paired with the lamenting Procne: Colchida respersam puerorum sanguine culpant/ aque sua caesum matre queruntur Ityn… iactura socii sanguinis ulta uirum. 10 Hollenburger-Rusch (2001, 134-8). 11 Curley (2013, 71). TEREUS’ TEARS 389 …Indeed her appearance was worthy, but a natural lust also stimulates him, and the people of that country are prone to lust; he is inf amed by his national vice and his own… He is already bearing the delay badly and is turned with a face of desire back to Procne’s commands and makes his own pleas as if for her. Love was making him eloquent, and whenever he was asking with a little too much enthusiasm, he said that Procne wanted him to do so; he added tears as well, as if she had commanded even these. By the gods, the human heart has such dark blindness! T rough the sheer size of his crime Tereus is trusted to be pious and he earns praise from his crime.12 He pretends to carry out the requests of his wife (sub illa, 468). In truth, he is now secretly speaking on his own behalf (sua vota, 468-70). We are told that love was making him eloquent (facundum, 469). He “adds tears as if she had commanded even these” (et lacrimas, 471). T e tears seem to be the f nal touch which sells his credibility to Pandion (474).
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