SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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willingness to sacrifice the lives of others to get what he wants. Only at the last minute
does the plot veer from this path. The comic ending and happy resolution is made
possible by the absolute suppression of female sexuality and the reaffirmation of
patriarchy. In brief, the storyline is that Arbaces, king of Iberia, has won his battle
against Tigranes, king of Armenia. Because the defeated Tigranes was still a noble
character, and to encourage peace between the lands, Arbaces declares that he will give
his beautiful sister Panthea in marriage to Tigranes. When the company returns to Iberia,
Panthea approaches her brother, whom she has not seen for a dozen years, to welcome
him home. He does not recognize her as an adult, immediately falls in love with her, and
begins to deny privately and publicly that she is his sister. Inwardly, though, he feels the
guilt of incest, which causes his emotions to wax to extremes. He orders Panthea
imprisoned yet hears her admit that she loves him, too. Finally his lust threatens to
overwhelm him and he vows to rape Panthea and kill himself.
Arbaces’ angst builds for most of the play. He struggles between good and evil as
he tries to avoid temptation, vacillating between his unnatural desire for his sister and his
fear of the consequences of committing incest. But it is not only for himself that he is
afraid, because he knows that acting on his desire would damn Panthea, too. Finally,
though, even with the full knowledge of right and wrong, he is unable to refrain from
committing the sin. Arbaces is “beset with personal ambition, yet frustrated by it; he is
also filled with thoughts of self-deification. With these qualities, Arbaces is behaving
very much like James” (Wilkinson 357). On his return home from long wars Arbaces
displays his foe and prisoner, Tigranes, to his people and tell them that this capture has