Philomela
The painting on the bedroom wall depicts a horrific story from Greek mythology. Eliot's Notes point us to the story of Philomela as it is told in the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Tereus, King of Thrace married Procne, daughter of the King of Athens. They had a child called Itys. Procne was lonely in Thrace, and asked her husband to arrange for her sister, Philomela, to visit. Tereus sailed to Athens to fetch Philomela, but on meeting her, was consumed by lust. He took Philomela back to Thrace and imprisoned her in a fort in the woods, where he raped her.
Philomela's cries for help alarmed Tereus; so to silence her, he cut out her tongue. On his return home, he told Procne that Philomela had died on the journey.
A year passed. Philomela, still imprisoned and unable to express in words what has happened to her, instead wove a tapestry of her story and sent it to her sister. When Procne viewed the images, she understood what had happened and went to rescue Philomela.
The sisters plotted a shocking revenge. Procne killed the boy Itys, cooked his flesh and fed it to the unwitting Tereus. When Procne revealed the truth to her husband, he pursued the sisters with his sword drawn. At this point the Gods intervened, and transformed the three into birds. Procne became a swallow, Philomela a nightingale, and Tereus the sharp-beaked hoopoe.
At first sight this image of ultra-violence seems over the top in the context of a fraught middle-class conversation; but it serves as an archetype of violence and fractured relationships from prehistory until the present day, emphasised by Eliot's abrupttense shift from past to present: "And still she cried, and still the world pursues..."
It also anticipates the poem's shift towards Buddhist philosophy, exemplifying its central doctrine that suffering is caused by desire: Tereus' lust results in his family's destruction.
Tereus, King of Thrace married Procne, daughter of the King of Athens. They had a child called Itys. Procne was lonely in Thrace, and asked her husband to arrange for her sister, Philomela, to visit. Tereus sailed to Athens to fetch Philomela, but on meeting her, was consumed by lust. He took Philomela back to Thrace and imprisoned her in a fort in the woods, where he raped her.
Philomela's cries for help alarmed Tereus; so to silence her, he cut out her tongue. On his return home, he told Procne that Philomela had died on the journey.
A year passed. Philomela, still imprisoned and unable to express in words what has happened to her, instead wove a tapestry of her story and sent it to her sister. When Procne viewed the images, she understood what had happened and went to rescue Philomela.
At first sight this image of ultra-violence seems over the top in the context of a fraught middle-class conversation; but it serves as an archetype of violence and fractured relationships from prehistory until the present day, emphasised by Eliot's abrupttense shift from past to present: "And still she cried, and still the world pursues..."
It also anticipates the poem's shift towards Buddhist philosophy, exemplifying its central doctrine that suffering is caused by desire: Tereus' lust results in his family's destruction.
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