Editing Philomela (section)

===In Elizabethan and Jacobean England===
Throughout the late Renaissance and Elizabethan eras, the image of Philomela and the nightingale incorporated elements of mourning and beauty after being subjected to an act of [[violence]]. In his long poem "The Steele Glas" (1576), poet [[George Gascoigne]] (1535–1577) depicts "Philomel" as the representative of poetry (Poesys), her sister Progne as satire (Satyra), and Tereus as "vayne Delight".<ref>Olson, Rebecca. ''Behind the Arras: Tapestry Ekphrasis in Spenser and Shakespeare'' (ProQuest, 2008), p. 164.</ref> The characterization of Philomela and the nightingale was that of a woman choosing to exercise her will in recovering her voice and resisting those forces which attempts to silence her. Critics have pointed to Gascoigne's use of the Philomela myth as a personal appeal and that he was fighting in verse a battle with his enemies who violently opposed his poems.<ref>Maslen, R. W., "Myths Exploited: the Metamorphoses of Ovid in Early Elizabethan England" in Taylor, A. B. (ed.), ''Shakespeare's Ovid: The Metamorphoses in the Plays and Poems'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 25.</ref><ref>Henderson, Diana E. ''Passion Made Public: Elizabethan Lyric, Gender, and Performance''. (University of Illinois Press, 1995), pp. 48–49.</ref> In Gascoigne's poem "The complaynt of Philomene" (1576), the myth is employed to depict punishment and control.<ref>Hunter, Lynette, and Lichtenfels, Peter. ''Negotiating Shakespeare's Language in Romeo and Juliet: Reading Strategies from Criticism, Editing and the Theatre''. (Farnham, England and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009), p. 106.</ref>

In "[[The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd]]", Sir [[Walter Raleigh]] (1554–1618) relays consolation regarding the [[nymph]]'s harsh rejection of the shepherd's romantic advances in the spirit of "time heals all wounds" by citing in the second stanza (among several examples) that eventually, with the passage of time, Philomel would become "dumb" to her own pain and that her attention would be drawn away from the pain by the events of life to come.<ref>Lourenco, Alexander. [http://www.helum.com/items/879551-poetry-analysis-the-nymphs-reply-to-the-shepherd-by-william-raleigh Poetry analysis: The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd, by William Raleigh] (''sic''). Retrieved 9 January 2013.</ref><ref>Raleigh, Sir Walter "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" (1600), lines 5–8: "Time drives the flocks from field to fold / When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, / And Philomel becometh dumb; / The rest complains of cares to come."</ref>

In Sir [[Philip Sidney]]'s (1554–1586) [[courtly love]] poem "The Nightingale", the narrator, who is in love with a woman he cannot have, compares his own romantic situation to that of Philomela's plight and claims that he has more reason to be sad. However, recent literary criticism has labelled this claim as [[Sexism|sexist]] and an unfortunate marginalization of the traumatic rape of Philomela. Sidney argues that the rape was an "excess of love" and less severe than being deprived of love as attested by the line, "Since wanting is more woe than too much having."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Addison|first=Catherine|date=2009|title='Darkling I Listen': The Nightingale's Song In and Out of Poetry|url=http://alternation.ukzn.ac.za/Files/docs/16.2/13%20Addison%20F.PDF|journal=Alternation|volume=16|issue=2|pages=190–220|access-date=1 December 2020}}</ref>

Playwright and poet [[William Shakespeare]] (1564–1616) makes frequent use of the Philomela myth—most notably in his tragedy ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'' (c. 1588–1593) where characters directly reference Tereus and Philomela in commenting on rape and mutilation of Lavinia by Aaron, Chiron, and Demetrius.<ref>Oakley-Brown, Liz. ''Ovid And the Cultural Politics of Translation in Early Modern England''. (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), 26–32.</ref> Prominent allusions to Philomela also occur in the depiction of Lucrece in ''[[The Rape of Lucrece]]'',<ref>See Newman, Jane O. "'And Let Mild Women to Him Lose Their Mildness': Philomela, Female Violence, and Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece" ''Shakespeare Quarterly'' Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 304–326.</ref><ref>Cheney, Patrick (ed.) ''[[The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry]]''. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 94–95, 105 and 191.</ref> in the depiction of Imogen in ''[[Cymbeline]],''<ref>Shakespeare, William. "Cymbeline", Act II, Scene ii, and Act III, Scene iv.</ref><ref>Kemp, Theresa D. ''Women in the Age of Shakespeare'' (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2010), pp. 98–99.</ref> and in [[Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream)|Titania]]'s lullaby in ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' where she asks Philomel to "sing in our sweet lullaby".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Nicole|date=4 December 2011|title=The Significance of the Reference to Philomel in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Shakespeare|url=https://www.articlemyriad.com/significance-philomel-midsummer-nights-dream/|access-date=9 January 2013|website=Article Myriad}}</ref> In [[Sonnet 102]], Shakespeare addresses his lover (the "fair youth") and compares his love poetry to the song of the nightingale, noting that "her mournful hymns did hush the night" (line 10), and that as a poet would "hold his tongue" (line 13) in deference to the more beautiful nightingale's song so that he "not dull you with my song" (line 14).<ref>Cheney, Patrick. ''Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright''. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 235–236.</ref><ref>Luckyj, Christina. ''"A Moving Rhetoricke": Gender and Silence in Early Modern England''. (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 169.</ref><ref>Parker, Patricia A. ''Shakespeare and the Question of Theory'' (New York: Methuen, 1985), p. 97.</ref> [[Emilia Lanier]] (1569–1645), a poet who is considered by some scholars to be the woman referred to in the poetry of William Shakespeare as "[[The Dark Lady|Dark Lady]]", makes several references to Philomela in her patronage poem "The Description of Cookeham" in ''Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum'' (1611). Lanier's poem, dedicated to [[Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland]] and her daughter [[Lady Anne Clifford]] refers to Philomela's "sundry layes"(line 31) and later to her "mournful ditty" (line 189).<ref>Lanyer, Emilia. "The Description of Cookeham" in ''Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum'' (1611).</ref>

The image of the nightingale appears frequently in poetry of the period with it and its song described by poets as an example of "joyance" and gaiety or as an example of melancholy, sad, sorrowful, and mourning. However, many use the nightingale as a symbol of sorrow but without a direct reference to the Philomela myth.<ref>{{harvnb|Addison|2009}} cites examples including [[William Drummond of Hawthornden]], [[Charlotte Turner Smith|Charlotte Smith]] and [[Robert Southey]], [[Mary Robinson (poet)|Mary Robinson]]. However, he cites later examples like [[Robert Bridges]] where an indirect reference to the myth may be called a "dark nocturnal secret".</ref>