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Progne y Filomena (1608-1612), Guillén de Castro

Titles
English title: Procne and Philomena
Date written: sometime between 1608 and 1612
Keywords: morality > honour, morality > crime, morality > justice-revenge, violence > personal, violence > revenge, family > parents and children, family > marriage, family > brothers/sisters
Genre and type: tragedy
Title information

Wilson calls it ‘Procne and Philomela’ but only in reference to the Spanish play. The characters are from Ovid’s sixth book in the Metamorphoses, where they can be spelled differently based on the translation; variations include Procne for Progne, and Philomena, Philomela and Filomela for Filomena.

Pitch

The story of two sisters caught in a love triangle is one of nightmares, omens and a ‘Titus Andronicus’ style meal. Filomena is loved by the king, who marries her sister Progne by mistake; he gets his revenge by attempting to rape her and cutting her tongue to prevent her crying out against him. His wife Progne pays him back for his crimes by killing their four-year-old son and serving the child’s body to him in a grisly supper. However, the ending shows that forgiveness is possible for any crime, even that of serving your own child in a pie to your spouse.

Synopsis

The play revolves around two sets of siblings: Tereo, King of Thrace and his brother Teosindo; and the sisters Progne and Filomena. Filomena and Teosindo are in love, but they cannot ma... (Read more...)

Sources

The characters are based on Ovid’s sixth book in the Metamorphoses. However, the brother of the King, Teosindo, is an invention of Castro’s, and does not appear in the original myth, n... (Read more...)

Critical response

Wilson is probably right that some of the events of this play, especially perhaps the reconciliatory ending, are ‘improbable’ (1973: 30). However he champions Procne and Philomela as ‘... (Read more...)

Editions
  • Castro, Guillén de. 1925. Progne y Filomena. In Obras de Gullén de Castro y Bellvís, ed. Eduardo Juliá Martínez, vol. 1, pp. 121-64. Madrid, Real Academia Española, Imprenta de la Revi... (Read more...)

Information about the editions

There were lots of productions documented of a play by the name of ‘Progne y Filomena’ between 1622 and 1688, so we know it was popular, but it is not known whether they were of Castro’... (Read more...)

Useful readings and websites
  • Barrett, L. L. 1976. ‘The Omen in Guillén de Castro’s Drama’, Hispania, 22, 73-8

  • Escribano, Jean. 1976. ‘The Function of Classical Myth in the Theater of Guillén de Castro’. In Studies in Language and Literature, Proceedings of the 23rd Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference, pp. 147-51. Richmond, Department of Foreign Languages, Eastern Kentucky University

  • Friedman, Edward H. 1988. ‘Guillén de Castro's Progne y Filomena: Between the Classic and the comedia’, Neophilologus, 72, 2, 213-7

  • García Lorenzo, Luciano. 1976. ‘Progne y Filomena’. In El teatro de Guillén de Castro, pp. 169-82. Barcelona, Planeta (in Spanish)

  • Juliá Martínez, Eduardo. 1929. ‘Observaciones preliminares’. In Poetas dramáticos valencianos, vol.I, pp. v-cxxxv. Madrid, Tipografía de la ‘Revista de Archivos’ (in Spanish)

  • Wilson, William E. 1973. ‘Procne and Philomela’. In Guillén de Castro, pp. 29-31. Twayne’s World Authors Series. New York, Twayne

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Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.

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