‘The Tale of Tereus’ and the Story of Procne: Innogen’s Bedside Reading

Abstract

ABSTRACT The essay discusses the wider significance of Innogen’s bedside reading in Cymbeline. When Giacomo enters her bedchamber in Act 2 Scene 2, the audience learns that she has been reading ‘the tale of Tereus’, and that she fell asleep ‘where Philomel [gives] up’. Existing scholarship has mostly assumed that Cymbeline presents Innogen reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and that the reference to Tereus, like the one earlier in the scene to Tarquin, reinforces the sense that Giacomo is going to rape the princess. By contrast, this essay argues that the intertext that Giacomo alludes to is not necessarily the Metamorphoses themselves, but just as likely a medieval or Early Modern reworking of them. It focusses on versions of the story that present it as a tale for and/or about women: Geoffrey Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, George Gascoigne’s Complaynt of Phylomene and George Pettie’s A Petite Pallace of Pettie His Pleasure (1576). These works foreground issues that resonate richly with Cymbeline: misogyny, marital fidelity and good rulership. They provide perspectives on Innogen that focus on her intellect, her emotional state and her political role rather than on her body as an object of physical or metaphorical violation.