Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Pandion, king of Athens, had two daughters, Procne and Philomela. He gave Procne in marriage to Tereus, a Thracian king (often of Daulis in Phocis in tragic geography), in return for wartime aid. Procne bore a son, Itys. Longing for her sister, Procne asked Tereus to fetch Philomela from Athens. Tereus, seized with desire for Philomela, raped her (in a lonely place or in Thrace), cut out her tongue so she could not accuse him, and hid her, telling Procne she was dead. Philomela wove her story into a peplos (or tapestry) and sent it to Procne. Procne read the weave, found her sister, and the two took revenge: they killed Itys, cooked him, and served him to Tereus. When Tereus discovered what he had eaten and pursued the sisters with a weapon, the gods changed them all into birds: typically Procne into a nightingale (forever crying for Itys), Philomela into a swallow, and Tereus into a hoopoe (or hawk). Apollodorus’s assignments and Pausanias’s local notices preserve the Greek core; Ovid’s long domestic and woodland scenes are later Roman narrative art. The myth is among the darkest Attic family tales: violation, silenced speech restored by craft, cannibal revenge, and avian metamorphosis.