Prokne (mythology)
Prokne ( Greek Πρόκνη ) was a daughter of King Pandion of Athens and his wife, the Naiad Zeuxippe . Her siblings were the twins Erechtheus and Butes and the sister Philomela .
myth
The king of Thebes , Labdakos , with whom Pandion had an argument, broke into Attica . Pandion turned to Tereus , descendant of Ares and Thracian king , for help . Pandion gave his daughter Prokne to the victorious ally as his wife. The couple had a son who they named Itys .
(engraving by Antonio Tempesta , 16th century)
A few years later Prokne longed for her sister Philomela. Tereus went to Athens to pick up Philomela on a visit to Thrace . When they reached Thrace , Tereus kidnapped his wife's sister to a hidden shepherd's farm, raped her and locked her there. Philomela swore to her kidnapper to proclaim his guilt to the world. To make sure no one found out about his crime, he cut out her tongue.
When he returned to his wife Prokne, he tearfully told her that Philomela had died during the trip and that he had buried her himself.
Philomela could not ask anyone for help and could not escape alone. So she wove a robe into which she inserted secret symbols that she knew her sister could read. When she was done she gave the tissue to a servant who was to take it to Queen Prokne. Prokne unfolded the robe and read the secret signs that told her the terrible truth. From now on she only thought of revenge on her unfaithful husband. She freed her sister and took her to the palace. Here the two women killed little Itys, the son of Tereus, and served him to the king for dinner.
When he noticed what his wife had put in front of him for dinner, he became angry and pounced on his wife. She and her sister quickly fled. They ran so fast they literally grew wings. Procne turns into a nightingale and Philomela into a swallow ; Tereus, who was always following her, turned into a hoopoe .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 3,14,8,1
- ↑ Ovid , Metamorphoses 6,524-525; Hyginus , Fabulae 45; Libraries of Apollodorus 3,14,8,1
- ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 6,424-674; Pausanias 10,4,8
literature
- Otto Jessen : Procne . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.2, Leipzig 1909, Col. 3017-3025 ( digitized version ).
- Karl Kerényi : The Mythology of the Greeks. Volume 2: The Heroes Stories . dtv, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-423-01346-X , p. 227.
- Doerte Bischoff, Julie Freytag: Philomela and Prokne. In: Maria Moog-Grünewald (Ed.): Mythenrezeption. The ancient mythology in literature, music and art from the beginnings to the present (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 5). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-476-02032-1 , pp. 590-595.
Web links
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 6,424ff. in German translation
- Tereus in Greek Myth Index (English)