page_title: Philomela
section_title: Variations on the myth
hierarchical_section_title: Philomela / The story of Philomela in myth / Variations on the myth
caption_attribution_description: English: Philomela and Procne showing Itys'head to Tereus. Engraving by Bauer for a 1703 edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VI, 621-647. Français&#160;: Philomèle et Procné montrent la tête d'Itys à Térée. Gravure de Bauer pour une édition de 1703 des Métamorphoses d'Ovide, livre VI, 621-647.
context_page_description: Philomela or Philomel is a minor figure in Greek mythology and is frequently invoked as a direct and figurative symbol in literary, artistic, and musical works in the Western canon.
  She is identified as being the "princess of Athens" and the younger of two daughters of Pandion I, King of Athens, and Zeuxippe. Her sister, Procne, was the wife of King Tereus of Thrace. While the myth has several variations, the general depiction is that Philomela, after being raped and mutilated by her sister's husband, Tereus, obtains her revenge and is transformed into a nightingale, a bird renowned for its song. Because of the violence associated with the myth, the song of the nightingale is often depicted or interpreted as a sorrowful lament. In nature, the female nightingale is actually mute and only the male of the species sings.
  Ovid and other writers have made the association that the etymology of her name was "lover of song", derived from the Greek φιλο- and μέλος instead of μῆλον. The name means "lover of fruit", "lover of apples", or "lover of sheep".
context_section_description: It is typical for myths from antiquity to have been altered over the passage of time or for competing variations of the myth to emerge. With the story of Philomela, most of the variations concern which sister became the nightingale or the swallow, and into what type of bird Tereus was transformed. Since Ovid's Metamorphoses, it has been generally accepted that Procne was transformed into a nightingale, and Philomela into a swallow. The description of Tereus as an "epops" has generally been translated as a hoopoe (scientific name: Upupa epops). Since many of the earlier sources are no longer extant, or remain only fragments, Ovid's version of the myth has been the most lasting and influenced most later works.
  Early Greek sources have it that Philomela was turned into a swallow, which has no song; Procne turns into a nightingale, singing a beautiful but sad song in remorse. Later sources, among them Ovid, Hyginus, and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, and in modern literature the English romantic poets like Keats write that although she was tongueless, Philomela was turned into a nightingale, and Procne into a swallow. Eustathius' version of the story has the sisters reversed, so that Philomela married Tereus and that Tereus lusted after Procne.
  It is salient to note that in taxonomy and binomial nomenclature, the genus name of the martins (the larger-bodied among swallow genera) is Progne, a Latinized form of Procne. Other related genera named after the myth include the Crag Martins Ptyonoprogne, and Saw-wings Psalidoprocne. Coincidentally, although most of the depictions of the nightingale and its song in art and literature are of female nightingales, the female of the species does not sing—it is the male of the species who sings its characteristic song.
  In an early account, Sophocles wrote that Tereus was turned into a large-beaked bird whom some scholars translate as a hawk while a number of retellings and other works (including Aristophanes' ancient comedy, The Birds) hold that Tereus was instead changed into a hoopoe. Various later translations of Ovid state that Tereus was transformed into other birds than the hawk and hoopoe, including references by Dryden and Gower to the lapwing.
  Several writers omit key details of the story. According to Pausanias, Tereus was so remorseful for his actions against Philomela and Itys (the nature of the actions is not described) that he kills himself. Then two birds appear as the women lament his death. Many later sources omit the Tereus' tongue-cutting mutilation of Philomela altogether.
  According to Thucydides, Tereus was not King of Thrace, but rather from the city of Daulia in Phocis, a city inhabited by Thracians. He cites in proof of this that poets who mention the nightingale refer to it as a "Daulian bird". It is thought that Thucydides commented on the myth in his famous work on the Peloponnesian War because Sophocles' play confused the mythical Tereus with contemporary ruler Teres I of Thrace.
caption: Philomela and Procne showing the severed head of Itys to his father Tereus, engraved by Baur for a 1703 edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book VI:621–647)
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