Itys in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Itys

5 passages from 4 ancient authors that tell of Itys, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Itys was the son of King Tereus and his wife Procne, in Greek mythology. Philomela, the sister of Procne, visited their palace, where she was raped by... For the story in one place, read our article on Itys.

Aeschylus (1)

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1035–1177Fourth episode: Clytaemestra and Cassandra's first criesClytaemestra comes out and tells Cassandra to come inside, but Cassandra does not answer, and the Chorus tell her to obey. Clytaemestra gives up, and then Cassandra cries out to Apollo and begins to speak of the house of Atreus, its butchery and the murdered children, and of a bath and a net, while the Chorus do not understand her. She ends by lamenting the fall of Troy.

Sophocles (1)

Sophocles, Electra 86–153Parodos: Electra's lament and the ChorusElectra, alone in front of the palace, cries out to the light and the air that she mourns her father every night and every day, and calls on the gods below and the Erinyes to send her brother. The Chorus of Mycenaean women ask why she wastes away in grief for Agamemnon, and tell her that weeping will not bring him back from Hades. She answers that it would be foolish to forget a murdered parent, and compares herself to the nightingale mourning Itys and to Niobe weeping in her rocky tomb.

Ovid (2)

Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.542–674Procne's revengeTereus cuts out Philomela's tongue and keeps her shut in the hut, telling his wife that her sister is dead. Philomela weaves the story into a web and sends it to Procne, who, at the feast of Dionysus (Bacchus), frees her sister and brings her home. In her rage Procne kills her son Itys, and serves his flesh to Tereus at dinner, and then shows him the head. Tereus chases the two sisters with a sword, and the gods change all three into birds: Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow, and Tereus into a hoopoe.
Ovid, Heroides 15.1–220Heroides 15: Sappho to PhaonSappho writes to Phaon, who has left Lesbos for Sicily. She says grief has stopped her lyric songs, that she has lost interest in the Lesbian girls, and that she is not beautiful but famous. She recalls their love, her family troubles, and a nymph's advice to leap from the Leucadian cliff, and she asks him to return or at least to write.

Antoninus Liberalis (1)

Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 9.1–11.11The Emathides, the Minyades and AedonThe nine daughters of Pierus challenge the Muses and become birds. The daughters of Minyas refuse the rites of Dionysus, tear apart Hippasus and become a bat and owls. Aedon and her sister Chelidonis take revenge on Polytechnus by feeding him his son Itys, and Zeus turns the whole family into birds, among them the nightingale and the swallow.