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In Greek mythology, Itys (Ancient Greek: Ἴτυς, romanized: Ítus) is a minor mythological Thracian character, the son of Tereus, a king of Thrace, by his Athenian wife Procne. Itys was murdered by his own mother and aunt and served to be consumed during dinner by his father, as part of a revenge plan against Tereus for assaulting and raping the maiden Philomela, Procne's sister.

Following those events, Itys' immediate family were all transformed into birds afterwards, and in some versions he too joins them in the avian kingdom. Itys' story survives in several accounts, the most extensive and famous among them being Ovid's Metamorphoses. His myth had been known since at least the sixth century BC, though myths that would eventually shape the standard tale go back even further.

Family

Itys was the son of Procne, a princess of Athens, and Tereus, a Thracian king, thus nephew to Philomela. Through his father he was a grandson of the god of war Ares.

Mythology

Standard tale

Itys was born and raised in Thrace following his parents' ill-omened marriage. When he was still a child, his father Tereus raped Itys' maternal aunt Philomela while escorting her to Thrace on her way to visit her sister Procne. Tereus cut Philomela's tongue so she could never be able to tell anyone her story, and abandoned her away from his palace.^[2] Philomela however managed to weave a tapestry or robe with her story and sent it to her sister. After receiving it, Procne rescued her sister and planned revenge. In rage she slew Itys, seeing him as but an image of his father, boiled him and served him as a meal to Tereus.^[3]

After Tereus finished his meal, the two sisters presented him with the disembodied head of Itys. Once he realised what had happened, Tereus hunted down the two sisters, who prayed to the gods. All three were transformed into birds. Depending on the myth's version, either Philomela or Procne is turned into either the silent swallow or the singing nightingale^[4]^[a] which continued to mourn her slain son in her new life. "Itys" was also the name for the plaintive cry of the nightingale.^[5]^[6]

Other versions

Pausanias on the other hand writes that Tereus was so remorseful for his actions against Philomela and Itys's fate at the hands of the women (the nature of which is not described in clear detail) that he killed himself.^[7] Eustathius's version of the story has the sisters reversed, so that Philomela married Tereus and became the mother of Itys.^[8]

In some versions, Itys himself was transformed into a bird like the rest of his family, specifically a pheasant, to be admired for its fine plumage.^[9]^[5]^[10] This element is not present in Ovid and most authors, who instead have Itys unceremoniously killed and eaten.

In some texts, Itys is called Itylus instead, another mythological bird who was killed by his mother Aëdon, who then transformed into a nightingale. In one variation of the myth, Procne is called Aëdon and his father Polytechnus.^[11]

Development

The fullest surviving account of Itys' tale comes to us via the Roman poet Ovid and his narrative poem the Metamorphoses; however, the myth itself is much older, and Ovid's telling was largely influenced by Sophocles's now lost tragedy Tereus. Scholar Jenny Marsh theorized that Sophocles must have borrowed certain elements of the plot from Euripides's drama Medea.

She argues that the element of the enraged wife killing her child in an act of revenge against her husband's actions was directly borrowed from Euripides and incorporated into his tragedy. If accurate, that would mean that the infanticide of Itys did not appear in the myth of Procne and Philomela until Sophocles.^[12] Tellingly, the chorus in Medea state that they know only of one woman sans Medea herself that killed her children (Ino) without taking Procne into account.^[13]

Notes

^ Versions vary on which sister became which bird.

References

^ Louvre G 147.
^ Conon, Narrations 31
^ pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.14.8
^ Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.338-6.674
^ ^a ^b Willi, Andreas (Basle), “Itys”, in Brill’s New Pauly, Antiquity volumes edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by Manfred Landfester, English Edition by Francis G. Gentry. Consulted online on 11 January 2023.
^ Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1144; scholia on Aristophanes's Aves 212
^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.41.8-9
^ For the comparison between Homer's version and Eusthathius' 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.
^ Servius, On Virgil's Eclogues 6.78
^ Milliken, Edward J. (1858). The Irish Metropolitan Magazine. Vol. III. Dublin: College-green. p. 150.
^ Antoninus Liberalis 11
^ Marsh, Jenny (2000). "Vases and Tragic Drama". In Rutter; N.K.; Sparkes, B.A. (eds.). Word and Image in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. pp. 121–123, 133–134.
^ Euripides, Medea 1282-1284

Bibliography

Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Apollodorus (1921). The Library. Loeb Classical Library 121. Vol. I: Books 1-3.9. Translated by James G. Frazer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Euripides (1994). Cyclops. Alcestis. Medea. Loeb Classical Library 12. Translated by David Kovacs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii; recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Ovid (1916). Metamorphoses. Loeb Classical Library 42. Vol. I: Books 1-8. Translated by Frank Justus Miller, revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pausanias (1918). Description of Greece. Loeb Classical Library 93. Vol. I: Books 1-2 (Attica and Corinth). Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.