Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (l 97-103)
This post has nothing to do with Eliot, but it does have everything to do with “The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king.”
I’ve posted another older work , which focuses on “familial impiety” in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the cycle of brutal violence that plays out between Tereus, Procne, and Philomela.
- as ever, all works are under constant revision.
JACQUELINE A. POLLARD 