Procris

Procris was an Athenian princess, the daughter of King Erechtheus, and the wife of the hunter Cephalus. Her story ends in tragedy: in the best-known version, told by Ovid, she followed her husband into the woods out of jealousy and was killed by his javelin when he mistook her for an animal. Procris is also the owner of two marvellous gifts, the hound Laelaps and a javelin that never missed.

Family of Procris

Procris was the daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, and Praxithea. Her brothers were Cecrops, Pandorus and Metion, and her sisters Creusa, Chthonia and Orithyia, who was carried off by Boreas (Apollodorus, Library 3.15.1). Creusa married Xuthus, and Procris married Cephalus, son of Deion (Library 3.15.1). In another tradition Cephalus was the son of Hermes and Herse, the daughter of Cecrops, and Dawn loved him and carried him off (Library 3.14.3). Ovid’s Cephalus says that Erechtheus himself gave him Procris as his wife and that the two loved each other (Metamorphoses 7.697–698).

Procris and Cephalus

The Test of Procris

The ancient authors tell the story with different details. In Apollodorus, Procris, bribed with a golden crown, admitted Pteleon to her bed. Cephalus caught her, and she fled to Crete (Library 3.15.1). In Ovid’s version, two months after the wedding, Dawn (Aurora) seized Cephalus from Mount Hymettus. He said that he still loved Procris, and the goddess sent him home angrily, saying that he would soon wish he had not kept her. Doubting his wife, he returned in disguise to Athens, found her sorrowful and faithful, and wore down her resistance by offering her gifts for a night. When she weakened, he revealed himself, and Procris, shamed, fled into the mountains and served Diana as a huntress (Metamorphoses 7.700–746).

The Gifts: Laelaps and the Javelin

The sources agree that Procris received a hound that never failed to catch its quarry and a javelin that never missed, but they disagree about who gave them. In Apollodorus, Procris went to Minos, king of Crete, who desired her. She protected herself from the curse that made his lovers die by giving him a drink of a root and, in return for sharing his bed, received a swift dog and a dart that flew true. Afraid of Minos’ wife, she returned to Athens and was reconciled with Cephalus (Library 3.15.1). In Ovid, Cephalus asked pardon, and Procris forgave him and gave him the hound and the javelin, which she had been given by Diana (Cynthia) (Metamorphoses 7.747–756). Pausanias also says that the hound was given to Procris by Artemis (Pausanias 9.19.1). The hound is named Laelaps in Ovid (Metamorphoses 7.771).

Laelaps and the Teumessian Fox

The hound was drawn into another myth. A huge vixen, known as the Teumessian fox, was ravaging the Cadmea, and every month the Thebans exposed the son of one of the citizens to it (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.6–7). Amphitryon asked Cephalus to join the hunt with the dog which Procris had brought from Crete; the dog was destined to catch whatever it pursued. When the vixen was chased by the dog, Zeus turned both of them to stone (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.7). In Ovid, Cephalus tells the same story, and ends it with the sight of two marble figures in the middle of the plain (Metamorphoses 7.762–793). Pausanias mentions that the fox, about to be caught by the hound which Artemis gave to Procris, was turned to stone, as was the hound (Pausanias 9.19.1). Amphitryon paid Cephalus with a share of the spoils of the Taphian war (Library 2.4.7).

The Death of Procris

In Apollodorus, Procris was reconciled with Cephalus, and went hunting with him because she was fond of the chase. As she was following game in a thicket, Cephalus, not knowing she was there, threw his dart and killed her. He was tried at the Areopagus and condemned to perpetual exile (Library 3.15.1).

Ovid gives a longer account in the words of Cephalus himself. When he was hunting, he used to call upon the breeze (aura) to cool him. Someone overheard him calling “Aura, come” and told Procris that he was calling a nymph, which she believed. The next morning she hid in the undergrowth to see for herself. When he called again and the leaves rustled, he thought it was a wild beast and threw his javelin, which struck her in the chest. She died in his arms, asking him not to let Aura take her place in their marriage bed, and Cephalus explained the mistake to her only at the end (Metamorphoses 7.796–862). Pausanias says that Procris’ story was told by everyone: how she had married Cephalus before Clymene, and how her husband killed her (Pausanias 10.29.6). He adds that Cephalus, exiled from Athens for killing Procris, lived at Thebes until he helped Amphitryon against the Teleboans, and then became the first to settle the island later called Cephallenia after him (Pausanias 1.37.6).

Procris also appears among the dead. Odysseus sees her in the underworld beside Phaedra and Ariadne (Odyssey 11.321), and Virgil places her with Phaedra and Eriphyle in the Fields of Mourning, among those who died for love (Aeneid 6.445).

Procris Sources

Homer, Odyssey 11.321; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.6–7, 3.14.3, 3.15.1; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.690–862; Pausanias 1.37.6, 9.19.1, 10.29.6; Virgil, Aeneid 6.445.

See Also: Erechtheus, Praxithea, Cephalus, Eos, Orithyia, Creusa, Minos, Artemis, Amphitryon