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- Male: 1
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Context
During the Bacchic revels the evening before, Philomele used large dolls to act out how she was raped and maimed by Tereus. She is reunited with her sister Procne, but the women are discovered by Itys (Tereus and Procne’s son). To protect themselves, and punish Tereus, the sisters kill the boy. At the beginning of this scene, Tereus enters to send all of the bacchae home, and is confronted with his sins against Philomele. In the scene, Philomele is present, but silent, as Tereus had cut out
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Start:
Tereus: It’s daylight at last. The revels are over. Time to go home.
Silence. No one moves.
We’re whitewashing the streets. All that wine. Poured like blood. It’s time for you to go home.
No one moves.
Stupefied? You should hold your wine better. You’ve had your revels. Go on, Stagger home. Procne, tell your women to go home.
Philomele is revealed. Hands bloodied. There is a silence.
[... … …]
End:
Tereus: How could I know what love was? Who was there to tell me?
Procne: Did you ask?
Tereus: Monsters. Fiends. I will kill you both.
Timberlake Wertenbaker, The Love of the Nightingale, in Timberlake Wertenbaker: Plays 1, London, Faber and Faber, 1996, pp. 350-352.
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Show review: The Love of the Nightingale in Washington, D.C.
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