×

Get the Point!

PAIN – WOMAN – UKRAINE – PUTIN

MOTHER – SISTER – SPOUSE – MOTHER

RUSSIAN WAR – HOLOCAUST – GENOCIDE

HELP! - Click

UNINTENDED CANNIBALISM - SWALLOWS, NIGHINGALES, AND HAWKS REMIND US OF THIS TRAGEDY

"El banquete de Tereo (The banquet of King Tereus)", 1635 Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) El Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

This work was inspired by the poetic work Metamorphoses by Ovid. King Tereus, married to Procne, or Prokne, could not resist the charms of his sister in law Filomela or Philomela.  To keep Philomela quiet, Tereus tore her tongue out (glossectomy). When his wife Procne discovered the crime, she killed Itis, or Itys, her son by Tereus, and served his flesh for a dinner hosted by Tereus.

The Olympic Gods transformed Prokne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale (birds that remain silent except during spring) and Tereus into a flesh eating hawk.

20200925 ww
×