“Scelus est Pietas:” Pietas and Incest in Ovid’s “Procne and Tereus”

Jessica Seidman (University of Chicago)

The gruesome tale of Procne and Tereus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is best understood as one of the author’s most risqué incest narratives, although scholars thus far have neglected to treat it as such. This omission is best explained by the complexity of the relationships involved; after all, Tereus is not related by blood to Procne or Philomela. Rather, the sisters engage in what anthropologist Francoise Heritier terms “incest of the second type” (Heritier, 11): Procne and Philomela participate in an incestuous relationship by having sex with the same man, Tereus, a crime under Roman law. This paper argues that just as the incest occurs by proxy in this narrative, so the criminalization of familial gestures and pietas also occurs through an intermediary. Furthermore, Procne’s revenge against Tereus, namely endocannibalism, reflects exactly the same type of criminalization of pietas as the act of incest itself.

From the moment Tereus recognizes his lust for Philomela, he begins appropriating and defiling the pietas of her family. He starts by appropriating Procne’s chaste love of her sister, “pleading his own desires under the guise of her” (“…agit sua vota sub illa,” 6.468) and weeping the tears Procne would have wept (471). His performance as Procne is so convincing that “he is believed to be full of pietas and derives praise from his wrong” (“creditur esse pius laudemque a crimine sumit,” 474). In other words, Tereus has stolen the pietas which would have been more appropriate for Procne and has defiled it by using it as a cover for his incestuous lust. Just a few lines later, Tereus seeks to co-opt Pandion’s role as Philomela’s father so that he might kiss and embrace her with impunity just as Pandion does (478-482). Pandion unwittingly encourages this corruption of pietas, urging his son-in-law to “take care of this girl with the love of a father” (“patrio tuearis amore,” 499). Just as Procne’s relationship with her sister will be defiled by a third party (Tereus), so Tereus must take on the roles of Procne and Pandion to defile the once-revered pietas within their family.

As she plots her revenge on Tereus, Procne recognizes that her husband has rendered obsolete the old pietas, a noble devotion to one’s family, and that she can never balance the scales if she continues to exercise too much of this ineffectual devotion (629). “The crime in the case of my husband, Tereus, is pietas,” she declares (“Scelus est pietas in coniuge Tereo,” 635), and her retribution must also employ the newly criminalized pietas. This is the best way to understand Procne’s betrayal of her own son and the lavish ceremony she employs in presenting the gruesome meal to her husband. By the end of the tale, incest has transformed pietas, that great Roman virtue, into an unspeakable crimen.

Heritier, Francoise. Two Sisters and Their Mother: The Anthropology of Incest. Trans. Jeanine Herman. New York: Zone Books, 2002.