View source for Tereus

{{Short description|Thracian king}}
{{For|the play by [[Sophocles]] by this title|Tereus (play)}}
[[File:Tereo.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Peter Paul Rubens|Rubens]]: ''Tereus Confronted with the Head of his Son Itys'', 1636–38]]
In [[Greek mythology]], '''Tereus''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|t|ɛ|r|i|ə|s|,_|ˈ|t|ɪər|j|uː|s}}; {{Langx|grc|Τηρεύς|Tēreús}}) was a [[Thracians|Thracian]] king,<ref name=T>[[Thucydides]]: ''[[History of the Peloponnesian War]]'' [[s:History of the Peloponnesian War/Book 2#2:29|2:29]]</ref><ref>''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022&layout=&loc=3.14.8 3.14.8]</ref> the son of [[Ares]] and the naiad [[Bistonis]]. He was the brother of [[Dryas of Calydon|Dryas]]. Tereus was the husband of the Athenian princess [[Procne]] and the father of [[Itys]].

== Mythology ==
When Tereus desired his wife's sister, [[Philomela]], he came to Athens to his father-in-law [[Pandion I|Pandion]] to ask for his other daughter in marriage, stating that Procne had died. Pandion granted him the favour, and sent Philomela and guards along with her. But Tereus threw the guards into the sea, and finding Philomela on a mountain, forced himself upon her. He then cut her tongue out and held her captive so she could never tell anyone. After he returned to Thrace, Tereus gave Philomela to King [[Lynceus (mythology)|Lynceus]] and told his wife that her sister had died. Philomela wove letters in a [[tapestry]] depicting Tereus's crime and sent it secretly to Procne. Lynceus' wife [[Lathusa]], who was a friend of Procne, at once sent Philomela to her.

When Procne recognized her sister and knew the impious deed of Tereus, the two planned to return the favour to the king. Meanwhile, it was revealed to Tereus by prodigies that death by a relative's hand was coming to his son Itys. When he heard this, thinking that his brother Dryas was plotting his son's death, he killed the innocent man. Procne, however, killed Itys, her son by Tereus, [[human cannibalism|served his flesh]] in a meal at his father's table in revenge, and fled with her sister.

When Tereus learned of her crime, he pursued the sisters and tried to kill them, but all three were changed by the [[Twelve Olympians|Olympian Gods]] into birds out of pity: Tereus became a [[hoopoe]] or a hawk; Procne became the [[swallow]] whose song is a song of mourning for the loss of her child; Philomela became the [[nightingale]]. Incidentally, the female nightingale has no song. ([[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'', 45).

A very similar story was told about [[Polytechnus]].

== Other usage ==
Tereus was also a common given name among Thracians.<ref name=T />

The [[Athens|Attic]] playwrights [[Sophocles]] and [[Philocles]] both wrote plays entitled ''[[Tereus (play)|Tereus]]'' on the subject of the story of Tereus.<ref>{{cite book|title=Word and Image in Ancient Greece|editor1=Rutter, N.K.|editor2=Sparkes, B.A.|author=March, J.|chapter=Vases and Tragic Drama|pages=121–123|year=2000|publisher=University of Edinburgh|isbn=978-0-7486-1405-9}}</ref> The popularity of Sophocles' play caused a confusion among Athenians between ''Tereus'' and ''[[Teres I|Teres]]'', a Thracian king and father of the king with whom Athenians made an alliance in 431 BC.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontoso0000webs_z7p5/page/2/mode/2up? 3]|last=Webster|first=Thomas B. L.|title=An Introduction to Sophocles|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=1936|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoso0000webs_z7p5/}}</ref>

The transformed Tereus is a character in ''[[The Birds (play)|The Birds]]'' by [[Aristophanes]].

[[John Gower]] includes a version of the story in his poem ''[[Confessio Amantis|The Lover's Confession]]'' during which a [[Confessor]] named Genius recounts the story to the penitent Amans to educate and reform Amans' moral character. <ref>{{cite book |author=<!-- not stated --> | editor-last=Simpson |editor-first=James |date=2018 |title=The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages Tenth Edition |location=New York, United States of America |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |page=365 |isbn=978-0-393-60302-6 }}</ref>

[[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] refers to Tereus in ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'', after Chiron and Demetrius have raped Lavinia and cut out her tongue and also both her hands. He also makes reference to Tereus in ''[[Cymbeline]]'', when Iachimo spies upon the sleeping Imogen to gather false evidence so he can persuade Posthumus he has seduced her.

==Modern adaptations==
*''[[The Love of the Nightingale]]'', play by [[Timberlake Wertenbaker]]
*''[[The Love of the Nightingale (opera)|The Love of the Nightingale]]'', [[opera]] by [[Richard Mills (composer)|Richard Mills]] to a [[libretto]] from the above play

== See also ==
{{portal|Ancient Greece|Ancient Rome|Mythology}}

* [[Child cannibalism]]

Other fathers who were tricked into consuming their children:

* [[Thyestes]]
* [[Demophon of Elaeus]]
* [[Polytechnus]]

==References==
<references />

== External links ==
* [https://archive.org/details/LustsDominiontereus ''The New Tereus'' by Robert Lalonde]

{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Children of Ares]]
[[Category:Mythological kings of Thrace]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses into birds in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Mythological cannibals]]
[[Category:Mythological rapists]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses characters]]