I will start this post with the copying and pasting of Emily Kearns’ OCD entry:
[Philomela,] daughter of Pandion and sister of Procne, transformed into a bird. The earliest version of the story (Od. 19. 518–23) makes the nightingale daughter of Pandareos, who killed her own son in a fit of madness. In the more familiar version, crystallized by Sophocles (1)'s lost play Tereus, the story began when Procne's husband Tereus raped Philomela and then attempted to guarantee her silence by cutting out her tongue. Philomela depicted her story in a piece of weaving which she sent to Procne, whereupon the latter took revenge by killing Itys, her son by Tereus, and serving him up to his father. Tereus pursued the two women to punish them, but was turned into a hoopoe, while Philomela became a swallow and Procne a nightingale (or vice versa).
Bibliography
Apollod. 3. 14. 8;
Ov.Met. 6. 424–674.
Burkert, HN 179–85;
Gantz, EGM 239–41;
L. Chazalon, Métis n.s. 1 (2003), 119–48.
Let us now address the subject in greater detail. Her first literary appearance is when Penelope is talking with the disguised Odysseus. Penelope tells Odysseus that she spends her nights mourning,
Just as the daughter of Pandareus,
The pale nightingale, sings sweetly
In the greening of spring, perched in the leaves,
And trills out her song of lament for her son,
Her beloved Itylus, whom she killed unwittingly,
Itylus, the son of Zethus her lord--
So too my heart is torn with dismay. (Od. 19.518-23 = lines 566-72 of Lombardo’s translation, featured here)
Next we have Apollodorus’ account (taken from the Loeb, with the footnotes included):
Pandion married Zeuxippe, his mother’s sister,1 and begat two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes. But war having broken out with Labdacus on a question of boundaries, he called in the help of Tereus, son of Ares, from Thrace, and having with his help brought the war to a successful close, he gave Tereus his own daughter Procne in marriage.2 Tereus had by her a son Itys, and having fallen in love with Philomela, he seduced her also saying that Procne was dead, for he concealed her in the country. Afterwards he married Philomela and bedded with her, and cut out her tongue. But by weaving characters in a robe she revealed thereby to Procne her own sorrows. And having sought out her sister, Procne killed her son Itys, boiled him, served him up for supper to the unwitting Tereus, and fled with her sister in haste. When Tereus was aware of what had happened, he snatched up an axe and pursued them. And being overtaken at Daulia in Phocis, they prayed the gods to be turned into birds, and Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow. And Tereus also was changed into a bird and became a hoopoe. (3.14.8)
2. [This note is too lengthy for the main body of the blog. I will post it as a reply. It offers a more detailed bibliography on the Philomela myth, but it cuts off abruptly.]
Finally, I summarize the narrative which Ovid gives us. It is probably the one with which we are most familiar. I have used A.D. Melville's translation to create the summary.
6.412-37. Tereus relieves the Athenians from a barbarian onslaught and Pandion gives his daughter Procne to him in marriage as thanks. Juno, Hymen, and the Graces do not respect the marriage. Their son Itys is born. 438-70. Procne asks Tereus to escort her sister, Philomela, to Thrace. Tereus agrees. At first sight, Tereus is seized by a savage desire for Philomela and is willing to commit any crime to satisfy his lust. 471-500. Tereus fantasizes about Philomela. Pandion lets Philomela go, but begs Tereus to protect her. 501-32 Tereus takes Philomela to Thrace via ship. Once there, he hides her in cabin in the woods and rapes her. 533-66. Philomela scolds Tereus. Angry, Tereus cuts out Philomela's tongue. He returns to Procne and tells her that Philomela is dead. 567-96. Locked in that cabin, Philomela weaves the story of her rape into a garment and has the garment sent to Procne. Procne understands the story and prepares for vengeance. 597-629. Dressed as a bacchant, Procne rescues her sister. Philomela is ashamed (thinks Procne will be mad at her). Procne hushes her up and plots revenge. She sees Itys and knows what to do, but is softened by his embrace. 630-59. Procne and Philomela kill Itys. They cook him and serve him to Tereus. Tereus asks where his son is. Philomela enters and throws Itys' head to Tereus. 660-74. Disgusted, Tereus chases Procne and Philomela. They change into birds (Ovid or Melville do not specify the species) and Tereus turns into a hoopoe.
Apollodorus. The Library, Volume II: Book 3.10-end. Epitome. Translated by James G. Frazer. Loeb Classical Library 122. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921.
Kearns, Emily. "Philomela." In The Oxford Classical Dictionary. : Oxford University Press, 2012. https://www-oxfordreference-com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199545568.001.0001/acref-9780199545568-e-5001.
For the tragic story of Procne and Philomela, and their transformation into birds, see Zenobius, Cent. iii. 14 (who, to a certain extent, agrees verbally with Apollodorus); Conon, Narrat. 31; Achilles Tatius, v. 3 and 5; J. Tzetzes, Chiliades, vii. 459 sqq.; Pausanias, i. 5. 4, i. 41. 8 sq., x. 4. 8 sq.; Eustathius, on Homer, Od. xix. 518, p. 1875; Hyginus, Fab. 45; Ovid, Metamorph. vi. 426–674; Servius, on Virgil, Ecl. vi. 78; Lactantius Placidus, on Statius, Theb. v. 120; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. G. H. Bode, vol. i. pp. 2 and 147 (First Vatican Mythographer, 8; Second Vatican Mythographer, 217). On this theme Sophocles composed a tragedy Tereus, from which most of the extant versions of the story are believed to be derived. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 221 sqq. However, the version of Hyginus differs from the rest in a number of particulars. For example, he represents Tereus as transformed into a hawk instead of into a hoopoe; but for this crying, Poo! poo! (ποῦ, ποῦ, “Where? Where?”). The later Roman mythographers somewhat absurdly inverted the transformation of the two sisters, making Procne the swallow and the tongueless Philomela the songstress nightingale. transformation he had the authority of Aeschylus (Suppliants, 60 sqq.). Tereus is commonly said to have been a Thracian, and the scene of the tragedy is sometimes laid in Thrace. Ovid, who adopts this account, appears to have associated the murder of Itys with the frenzied rites of the Bacchanals, for he says that the crime was perpetrated at the time when the Thracian women were celebrating the biennial festival (sacra trieterica) of Dionysus, and that the two women disguised themselves as Bacchanals. On the other hand, Thucydides (ii. 29) definitely affirms that Tereus dwelt in Daulia, a district of Phocis, and that the tragedy took place in that country; at the same time he tells us that the population of the district was then Thracian. In this he is followed by Strabo (ix. 3. 13, p. 423), Zenobius, Conon, Pausanias, and Nonnus (Dionys. iv. 320 sqq.). Thucydides supports his view by a reference to Greek poets, who called the nightingale the Daulian bird. The Megarians maintained that Tereus reigned at Pagae in Megaris, and they showed his grave in the form of a barrow, at which they sacrificed to him every year, using gravel in the sacrifice instead of barley groats (Pausanias, i. 41. 8 sq.). But no one who has seen the grey ruined walls and towers of Daulis, thickly mantled in ivy and holly-oak, on the summit of precipices that overhang a deep
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