Abstract
Sophocles’ Tereus was an important play in antiquity, satirised by Aristophanes in his Birds and influential (via its refashioning by Ovid) on later literature and art; unfortunately, however, it did not survive down to our own day, and until recently we had just a few quotations from the drama preserved by other authors. This chapter examines Sophocles’ Tereus in the light of a new (2016) papyrus that illuminates different characteristics of the play, and in particular considers how hunting (according to a likely restoration of the papyrus text) seems to have played a part in the drama – just as it would in a later retelling of the myth in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and just as an episode from the myth as painted by Titian was chosen by the King of Spain to decorate a royal hunting lodge in the sixteenth century. What is it about the Tereus myth that makes it so perennially associated with the hunt?
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Tereus through the Ages |
Editors | A. Abbattista , C. Blanco, M. Haley, G. Savani |
Place of Publication | Berlin and Boston |
Publisher | de Gruyter |
Publication status | Accepted/In press - 20 Jul 2023 |