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| Kjell Torriset Waiting 1977 oil on canvas Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo |
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| Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci) Standing Figure ca. 1520 drawing Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Bartolomeo Passarotti Figure Study ca. 1570 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Pablo Picasso Three Bathers 1922-23 etching Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Matteo Rosselli Study for The Deposition ca. 1600-1625 drawing Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
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| Nicolò dell'Abate Figure Studies ca. 1560 drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Lorenzo Costa the Elder St Sebastian ca. 1480-90 tempera on panel (altarpiece fragment) High Museum of Art, Atlanta |
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| Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi) St Sebastian 1525 oil on canvas Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Innocenzo Spinazzi Cupid ca. 1775 marble (incorporating Roman fragment of a Funerary Genius, AD 150) Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Bartholomeus Spranger The Fall of Man ca. 1600 drawing National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Anthony van Dyck The Lamentation ca. 1630 oil on canvas Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp |
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| Ferraù Fenzoni Figure struggling with Serpent 1587 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Ernest-Eugène Hiolle Aristaeus mourning the Death of his Bees 1862 plaster (lost in a fire during World War II) Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes |
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| Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola) Conversion of St Paul ca. 1527-28 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| El Greco Christ on the Cross with View of Toledo ca. 1610 oil on canvas Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| Prospero Mallerini Trompe-l'oeil Still Life with Ivory Crucifix 1793 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
Then Leucippe asked me (for there's something in the nature of women that dearly loves a tale): "What does this picture mean? In the story, who are these birds, and the women, and that awful man?"
And I began to tell their tale: "Nightingale, swallow, hoopoe – each a human being, each a bird. The man is the hoopoe; the two women are Philomela the swallow and Procne the nightingale; their city, Athens. Tereus was the husband; Procne, Tereus's wife. But it seems the sexual appetite of barbarian men is not satisfied by a single wife, especially when the situation offers scope for sadistic luxury. In the case of this Thracian, the opportunity to give rein to his nature was afforded by Procne's familiar affection; for she sent her husband, Tereus, to fetch her sister. He departed Procne's husband; he returned Philomela's lover. Along the way he made Philomela another Procne. He feared Philomela's tongue, and his wedding present to her was the gift of silence. He snipped off the blossom of her voice. But even this was ineffectual, for Philomela's skill discovered voiceless speech. She wove, you see, a robe as messenger, and she threaded the drama into her embroidery, hand imitating tongue; she conveyed the ears' message to Procne's eyes, telling her what she suffered by means of her shuttle. Procne, learning the rape from the robe, exacted an exorbitant revenge on her husband: the conspiracy of two women and two passions, jealousy and outrage, plan a feast far worse than his weddings. The meal was Tereus's son, whose mother had been Procne before her fury was roused and she forgot the pain of giving birth; for the pains of jealousy are stronger than those of the womb. Women in love who hurt a man in return for his affront, even if they must endure as much harm as they impose, weigh the pain of their suffering against the pleasure of taking action. It was a feast of Furies set for Tereus. And then, laughing with terror, they brought in the basket with the child's remains. Tereus, when he saw the fragments of his son, grieved over what he had eaten, and recognized himself as the father of the meal. This knowledge drives him mad; he plucks his sword, runs after the women, who rise into the air. And Tereus ascends with them, a bird. Even now they enact a shadowy dream of that shameful drama: the nightingale flees, Tereus pursues. His hate is still intact, even as a bird.
– Achilles Tatius, from Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by John J. Winkler (1989)