The Love of the Nightingale

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The Love of the Nightingale is a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, commissioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company and published in 1989. It is an adaptation of the Ancient Greek legend of the rape of Philomela by her brother-in-law Tereus, and the gruesome revenge undertaken by Philomela and her sister Procne. The play takes a feminist look at the ancient tale.

[edit] Synopsis

The King of Athens, Pandion I, fights a war with Thebes over land. The King of Thrace, Tereus helps out Pandion, and in return, Pandion allows Tereus to marry Procne. While in Thrace, Procne struggles to adjust to life, as her maidens have completely different ideas to her, so she asks Tereus to return to Athens and bring her sister, Philomele, to come and see her, as she is the only one who understands her.

Tereus returns and takes Philomele on his ship and returns to Thrace. On the way, Philomele falls in love with the Captain of the ship, who has no name other than 'Captain'. He in turn falls in love with her. Tereus convinces himself that he has fallen in love with Philomele, so he kills the Captain so he cannot have her. In order to make her weak and vulnerable, Tereus informs Philomele untruthfully that Procne has died while trying to see whether her sister is coming. He eventually rapes her and due to her determination to rebel and inform her sister, who she has worked out by now is not dead, he cuts out her tongue.

Tereus informs Procne that Philomele was drowned on the journey. Five years pass.

Philomele has been working making life size dolls for 5 years, and has seen nobody except the king, Niobe (her servant) and Niobe's servant. Niobe takes her to the annual Bachann/Dionysian festival, which is the only day of the year in which the women can act madly and drink. Philomele performs a re-enactment of the rape in order to inform Procne that she is alive and of what Tereus has done. In revenge, Procne kills her son, Itys. As Tereus begins to chase the women, his intent being to kill them, the gods turn Procne into a Swallow, Tereus into a Hoopoe and Philomele into a Nightingale.