One of the most evil villains of the myths of ancient Greece is Tereo . It exemplifies villainy and receives the maximum punishment from the hands of its victims. Being the son of the god Ares does not free him from horror. His victims and terrible avengers were Procne and Filomela ; come with us to know the most dramatic history of Greek mythology and one of the tonadas of the Chilean Violeta Parra called "Blancaflor y Filumela" that chronicles, in a dramatic and more modern way, the myth of Tereo.
Procne and Filomela
As of many Greek myths, that of Procne and Filomela There are several versions. Here we will report the most common. The king of Athens , Pandión I, had two daughters, Procne and Filomela and to its court Tereo, king of Thrace and son of Ares , the Olympian god, to ask for the hand of one of his daughters.
Pandion I, granted him the hand of the eldest, Procne. They got married and soon left for Thrace. However, Tereo had fallen in love with the youngest of the king's daughters: Filomela and could not forget her. Procne and Filomela They loved each other very much and the separation was very hard. The real couple had a son they called Itis and Procne asked her husband to travel to Athens and bring his sister he had not seen for 5 years. Tereo traveled to the kingdom of his father-in-law and got him to entrust his little daughter with the promise to watch over her and guard her and make her return as soon as possible. Tereo agreed to everything and was before the court as a solicitous husband who did everything for his wife Procne.
The desire for his sister-in-law was such that before arriving to his kingdom he disembarked with his sister-in-law in a place on the coast and approaching a small wood in which there was a cabin he pounced on her and raped her . Filomela, at the end of the brutal attack, threatened Tereo with telling everyone what happened. At that time the King of Thrace drew a sword, but instead of killing it he cut off his tongue so that he could not explain rape to anyone. He left her in the hut guarded by guards and left for his kingdom. When he arrived at his palace he explained to his wife that Filomela had died on the way. Procne wept bitterly and even had a monument erected in her honor.
Meanwhile, Filomela remained in the cabin without being able to communicate until she had the idea to embroider with purple thread on white cloth the story of what had happened to her and by signs she asked a woman who helped her to take the work to her sister Filomela. When she received the job, she immediately understood what had happened and, taking advantage of a trip from her husband, she found the forest cabin and freed Filomela. Procne and Filomela They decided to take revenge in the most terrible way imaginable. When they returned from Tereo, they cooked a feast, but the meat they served was not beef, but Itis, their son and the living image of their father. When he finished eating, he asked that Itis be brought and Filomela, who had been hiding, appeared and threw her the head of her own son telling him that what he asked for was inside him. Desperate and horrified he went looking for them, but they had already fled.
The gods , sympathetic to the tragedy they had just witnessed, they turned the sisters into birds: Filomela in a swallow and Procne in a nightingale. Tereo also awakened the mercy of the gods that turned him into a hoopoe. And so ends the tragic myth of Procne and Filomela .
Did you know this ancient myth of Procne and Filomela ? Do you know any of the many romance that both in Spain and Latin America are based on this Greek myth? If so, share with us what they resemble and how they differ. If you want to know other interesting stories of Greek mythology, we invite you to read: Lovers of the god Apollo | Myths of men and women who seduced .