Procne (; ) or Progne is a minor figure in Greek and Roman mythology. Traditionally she is an Athenian princess as the elder daughter of a king of Athens named Pandion. Procne was married to the king of Thrace, Tereus, who lusted after her sister Philomela. Tereus raped Philomela, cut out her tongue, and locked her away. When Procne discovered her sister's rape from a tapestry which Philomela wove and sent to her, she took revenge against her husband by murdering their only child, a boy named Itys, and serving him as food to Tereus. Procne's story serves as an origin myth for the nightingale, a singing bird whose melodic song was believed to be a sad lament.
Procne's mythological doublet is Aëdon, the queen of Thebes who also turned into a nightingale after killing her only son. Procne's origins seem to lie in earlier traditions about the nightingale and its sorrowful song before the definitive version of her tale was probably codified during the fifth century BC in the now lost play Tereus by the Athenian tragedian Sophocles, whose initial popularity eclipsed the prior story with Aëdon. However, Procne's myth became widely known in the post-classical era due to its inclusion in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a narrative poem that went on to influence a great number of artists and authors in the western canon.
Etymology The proper name is derived from the ancient Greek noun (perknós), meaning "dark-spotted" and also used for a species of eagle. It descends from the Proto-Indo-European roots *per- and *perḱ- which denote variegation.
Family Princess Procne was born to Pandion I, king of Athens and the naiad nymph Zeuxippe. Her siblings included Philomela, Erechtheus, Butes,Apollodorus 3.14.8 and possibly Teuthras too.Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Thespeia She married King Tereus of Thrace and became the mother of Itys (or Itylus).
Mythology Tereus and Philomela
The princess Procne was given to wife to Tereus, a king of Thrace, in some versions because he assisted king Pandion in a war against the Laconians, so Pandion gave him a daughter in marriage.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.401-438 Yet neither Hera nor Hymen, the gods of marriage, or even the Graces attended the wedding feast or the bridechamber of the two newlyweds. The only goddesses who were present were the torch-bearing Furies, a bad omen for their union. Procne left her fatherland for her new husband's kingdom, and during their marriage she bore Tereus a son named Itys. As the years passed, the lonely Procne began to feel homesick, and asked her husband to fetch her her younger sister Philomela. Tereus agreed, and so he travelled to Athens in order to escort the young Philomela to her sister.
The moment he saw the young and beautiful Philomela in the court, Tereus conceived a great passion for her, and ardently made his request, presenting it solely as Procne's wish. Pandion was unsuspecting and Philomela excited about the prospect of seeing her elder sister again, so they agreed. Tereus' passion only grew and grew during the journey back home.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.439-485 In one version, Tereus lied about Procne having died, and asked Pandion for Philomela's hand in marriage.Hyginus, Fabulae 45 When they reached the Thracian shore, he dragged her into the woods (and, as Ovid introduced, a cabin) and violently raped her in spite of her protests and pleading.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.486-548 Philomela then, ashamed of becoming her own sister's rival, threatened Tereus to tell everyone, so he cut her tongue off, and put guards to prevent her from escaping. He then returned to Procne claiming that Philomela had died during the journey; Procne greatly mourned her sister.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.549-570
Procne finds out
Some time passed, in some authors as much as an entire year, and soon a Thracian festival in honour of Dionysus was held in the kingdom, during which it was customary for the Thracian women to gather gifts and send them to their queen.Libanius, Progymnasmata 18 Philomela, unable to speak or escape her prison, wove a beautiful tapestry or gown in which she included her cruel fate at the hands of Tereus, and sent it to Procne. Once Procne got hands on her tapestry, she disguised herself in bacchic attire, joined the festivities with the other women, and located the cabin in which Philomela was kept captive. She broke in quickly, snatched her sister, dressed her in the Bacchant attire instead, and sneaked her back into Tereus's palace without anyone seeing them.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.571-619
Although Philomela was unable to fully inform Procne of her woes due to no longer possessing a tongue, Procne nevertheless promised her sister to avenge the great injustice done to her. Just as she was pondering on a fitting way to enact revenge against her husband, her young son Itys entered the chamber in search of his mother. Procne, wanting revenge against Tereus and seeing their son as nothing but an extension of his father, slew him as he screamed in pain, with Philomela assisting her. Then the two women cut down Itys' dead body, boiled and cooked him in the palace's kitchens. Afterwards, Procne invited Tereus for a private dinner alone with her, with the excuse that according to an Athenian custom, the wife had to prepare dinner for her husband away from everyone else, so that no servants and guards loyal to Tereus would be present.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.619-652 The unsuspecting Tereus ate his own son without realising, and when he asked where the child was, Procne replied that Tereus had him in him. Philomela emerged then, and gleefully presented him with the bloody head of Itys.
Tereus eats by himself, seated in his tall ancestral chair, and fills his belly with his own child. And in the darkness of his understanding cries 'Fetch Itys here'. Procne cannot hide her cruel exultation, and now, eager to be, herself, the messenger of destruction, she cries 'You have him there, inside, the one you ask for.' He looks around and questions where the boy is. And then while he is calling out and seeking him, Philomela, springs forward, her hair wet with the dew of that frenzied murder, and hurls the bloodstained head of Itys in his father's face. Nor was there a time when she wished more strongly to have the power of speech, and to declare her exultation in fitting words.
Tereus's revenge Tereus was horrified to discover what he had actually eaten. He tried to open up his own chest, and bitterly described himself as his son's tomb. When the initial shock and grief wore off, the enraged Tereus grabbed his sword and began to hunt down his wife and her sister with the intention to kill them. The two women ran to escape him, but he eventually caught up to them. Several authors name Daulia, a town in Phocis, as the place where he reached them,Apollodorus 3.14.8; Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Daulis for which they were later called 'ladies of Daulia'.Plutarch, Questiones Convivales 727c The gods, taking notice at last, transformed all three into birds; the bellicose Tereus became a hoopoe, a bird with a distinctive feathery crown like a warrior's helmet and an elongated beak like a sword, and the women into a nightingale and a swallow.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.653-674
While Greek sources traditionally held that Procne became the melodious nightingale and Philomela the chittering swallow, Roman authors tended to swap the birds, so that Procne became the swallow, and Philomela the nightingale. This pattern is only broken by a Hellenistic Greek writer named Agatharchides, who refers to Philomela as a nightingale.Agatharchides, De Mare Erythraeo 7.34-35 Ovid, whose version went on to influence numerous artists during the medieval and early modern times, is actually neutral on the matter and does not name what bird each sister turned into. A late antiquity scholiast, Pseudo-Nonnus, names Zeus specifically as the god who put an end to the chase by transforming them all into birds.Pseudo-Nonnus, Commentary on Gregory of Nazianzus 39 As a bird, Procne continued to mourn the death of her child for all time.Tzetzes, Chiliades 7.43
Rarer versions
Gaius Julius Hyginus recorded a version in which Tereus asked Pandion to give him Philomela as a wife after falsely reporting to them that Procne had died. After raping Philomela, he gave her over to another king, Lynceus, as a slave. Lynceus' wife Lathusa however was a friend of Procne's, so she sent Philomela to her. Apollodorus' writing seems to hint to the same tradition, though his prose is incoherent.
The Byzantine scholar Eustathius of Thessalonica swapped the roles of the two sisters, so that Procne is the unmarried woman who was raped and mutilated by Tereus.For the comparison between Homer's version and Eusthathius's version of the myth, see: Notes to Book XIX (regarding line 605&c.) in Pope, Alexander. The Odyssey of Homer, translated by A. Pope, Volume V. (London: F. J. DuRoveray, 1806), 139–140. One author has Tereus succeed in murdering both Procne and Philomela before they are all transformed into birds, but hoopoes continued to chase swallows and nightingales.Conon, Narrations 31 In some rare and late versions, Itys too is spared and transformed into a bird, a pheasant, to be admired for its rich plummage.Servius, On Virgil's Eclogues 6.78 This element however is not present in Ovid and the majority of the other authors, in whose works Itys is unceremoniously eaten and remains dead.
Pausanias insisted that the entire story took place in Daulis, and not just the transformation of the protagonists.Pausanias 10.4.8 Thucydides reconciled this by reporting that Daulis, despite being situated in southern Greece, was populated by Thracians.Thucydides 2.29 Pausanias also reported that Tereus committed suicide in Megara, and afterwards the Megarians made offerings at his tomb, while the women made it to Athens and were transformed there as they cried.Pausanias 1.41.9 The Phocians claimed that swallows did not lay eggs or hatch in Phocis because Philomela was still terrified of Tereus.Pausanias 10.4.9
Aëdon A more or less identical tale is said of the Ephesian Aëdon ("nightingale", supplanting Procne), Chelidon ("swallow", supplanting Philomela) and Polytechnus (supplanting Tereus); in this version, which takes place in western Asia Minor rather than Thrace, Aëdon and Polytechnus challenge the gods by claiming they are happier than Zeus and Hera themselves. Hera sends Eris to sow strife between them, and the couple make a bet on who shall finish their work (a standing board for Polytechnus, embroidery for Aëdon) first. Aëdon wins with Hera's help so Polytechnus is obliged to find her a female slave. Thus he goes to her father, takes her sister Chelidon and rapes (but does not maim her, unlike Tereus) and then presents her as the prize, who is now then forced to serve her sister as Aëdon grinds her to work.
Once Aëdon accidentally overhears Chelidon lamenting her fate, the sister reveals to Aëdon what has happened, and the myth proceeds as above, with the difference that the two women manage to reach their father (who is called Pandareus here) who has his servants beat and tie up Polytechnus, and then smeared with honey and left to the mercy of insects. Aëdon, in pity, and still fond of their good memories together, scares the flies away from her husband, enraging her family. As her father, mother and brother try to attack her, the gods intervene at last and change them all into birds; Aëdon and Chelidon as per usual on account of their names' meaning, but Polytechnus becomes a woodpecker (or a pelican), Pandareus a sea-eagle, the mother a kingfisher, and it is the unnamed brother who becomes a hoopoe.Antoninus Liberalis, 11. Celoria uses the woodpecker interpretation.
Development Origins of the tale