Thyestes

In Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, King of Olympia, and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. Thyestes and his brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia. They took refuge in Mycenae, where they ascended the throne upon the absence of King Eurystheus, who was fighting the Heracleidae. Eurystheus had meant for their lordship to be temporary; it became permanent due to his death in conflict.

In the first century AD, Seneca the Younger wrote a tragedy called 'Thyestes'. In 1560 Jasper Heywood, then a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, published a verse translation. Shakespeare's tragedy 'Titus Andronicus' derives some of its plot elements from the story of Thyestes. In 1681, John Crowne wrote 'Thyestes, A Tragedy', based closely on Seneca's 'Thyestes', but with the incongruous addition of a love story. Prosper Jolyot Crebillon (1674-1762) wrote a tragedy 'Atree et Thyeste' (1707), which is prominent in two tales of ratiocination by Edgar Allan Poe. In 1796, Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827) wrote a tragedy called 'Tieste' that was represented first in Venice one year later. Caryl Churchill wrote a translation of Seneca's play in 2001. In 2004, Jan van Vlijmen (1935–2004) completed his opera 'Thyeste'. The libretto was a text in French by Hugo Claus, based on his 20th century play with the same title. Thyestes appears in Ford Ainsworth's one-act play, 'Persephone'.