Editing Aëdon (section)

== Mythology ==
=== Thebes ===
Aëdon was the wife of [[Amphion and Zethus|Zethus]], king of Thebes, and accidentally she ended up killing her own son Itylus, when 'madness was upon her'.<ref name=":0" /> Her story is evidently a very old one, as it was referenced as early as [[Homer]] in his ''[[Odyssey]]'', when [[Penelope]] speaks to her husband [[Odysseus]] in the lines:

{{Blockquote|I lie upon my bed, and sharp cares, crowding close about my throbbing heart, disquiet me, as I mourn. Even as when the daughter of Pandareus, the nightingale of the greenwood, sings sweetly, when spring is newly come, as she sits perched amid the thick leafage of the trees, and with many trilling notes pours forth her rich voice in wailing for her child, dear Itylus, whom she had one day slain with the sword unwittingly, Itylus, the son of king Zethus; even so my heart sways to and fro in doubt,|title=[[Homer]], ''Odyssey'' lines 19.519-24; A.T. Murray's translation.}}

[[Eustathius of Thessalonica]] and other scholiasts explain that Aëdon was envious of her sister-in-law, Amphion's wife [[Niobe]], who had fourteen children (seven sons and seven daughters) opposed to her single one (or two, as some authors also mention a daughter named Neis).{{sfn|Fontenrose|1948|page=153}} Itylus however got along with his cousins, and often slept with them, in particular with [[Amaleus]], Amphion and Niobe's firstborn. One day, Aëdon instructed Itylus to sleep in the innermost position of the bed that night.{{sfn|Fontenrose|1948|page=129}} However Itylus forgot his mother's words, and so when Aëdon entered the bedroom with a knife at hand intending to kill Amaleus in his sleep, she killed her own son.<ref name="eu">[[Eustathius of Thessalonica]], ''On Homer's Odyssey'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZP4NAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA215 19.710]</ref>{{sfn|Hansen|2002|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ezDlXl7gP9oC&pg=PA303 303]}} Alternatively Aëdon could not tell who was which in the darkness.{{sfn|Levaniouk|2011|pages=328-353}} Another version states that she did manage to kill Amaleus as she wished, but then in fear of Niobe's reaction to the murder she knowingly killed her own child as well.<ref name="eu"/>{{sfn|Schmitz|1867|loc=s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DP%3Aentry+group%3D5%3Aentry%3Dpandareos-bio-1 Pandareos]}}

Aëdon mourned her only son greatly, and thus Zeus, the father of Amphion and Zethus, transformed her into a nightingale when Zethus began to hunt her down following Itylus's murder.<ref>[[Scholia]]st on the ''Odyssey'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=GBlgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA517 19.518]</ref> A Homeric scholiast attributed the story of Aëdon killing her son in her effort to murder Niobe's to [[Pherecydes of Athens|Pherecydes]], a historian who lived during the fifth century BC.{{sfn|Pimentel|Simoes Rodrigues|2019|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=DeayEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA201 201]}}{{sfn|Fowler|2000|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j0nRE4C2WBgC&pg=PA341 341]}} In this story Aëdon becomes Niobe's rival in the same way [[Leto]] does in the more known story concerning Niobe, both mothers of two children, boy and girl, who are threatened by Niobe's vast progeny. Aëdon thus occupies the same position as the goddess, but unlike Leto, she does not have the power to smite Niobe, and instead her efforts end in grief.{{sfn|Fontenrose|1948|page=153}}

In yet another version, Aëdon was married to [[Boreads|Zetes]], one of the sons of the north wind god [[Boreas (god)|Boreas]] (perhaps a mixing up of the names Zethus and Zetes, as Zetes is otherwise unrelated to the story). Aëdon began suspecting (perhaps correctly) that Zetes had fallen in love with a [[hamadryad]] nymph, and further suspected that their son Aëtylus knew and was helping his father carry out the affair and covering up for him.{{sfn|Fontenrose|1948|page=129}} In anger, Aëdon killed her son after he returned one day from hunting.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://mythandreligion.upatras.gr/english/m-r-wright-a-dictionary-of-classical-mythology/ | website = mythandreligion.upatras.gr | publisher = [[University of Patras]] | first = Rosemary M. | last = Wright | access-date = March 15, 2023 | title = A Dictionary of Classical Mythology: Summary of Transformations}}</ref> In pity, [[Aphrodite]] changed the mother into a nightingale, which to this day mourns for her child.<ref>[[Photios I of Constantinople]], ''[[Myriobiblon]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=HKUw3Ry7D0oC&pg=PA1583 Helladius Chrestomathia]</ref>

It has been argued that Penelope chooses to mention Aëdon's story is because she is indirectly indicating her own desire to protect her son [[Telemachus]], himself an only child who must hold his own against numerous male rivals and now as a grown-up acts independently of her like Itylus ignored his mother's orders, against danger.{{sfn|Alden|2017|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=IZk6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 136]}}

=== Asia Minor ===
[[File:Philomela Procne preparing to kill Itys.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Attic wine cup, circa 490 BC, depicting Philomela and Procne preparing to kill Itys. (Louvre, Paris)]]

According to a later tradition preserved in [[Antoninus Liberalis]],<ref name=":ant">[[Antoninus Liberalis]], [https://topostext.org/work/216#11 11] as cited in [[Boios|Boeus]]' ''Ornithogonia''</ref> Aëdon is instead the daughter of [[Pandareus]] and the wife of [[Polytechnus]], an artist from [[Colophon (city)|Colophon]]. The couple boasted that they loved each other more than [[Hera]] and [[Zeus]] did. Hera sent [[Eris (mythology)|Eris]] to cause trouble between the two of them. Polytechnus was then making a chair, and Aëdon a piece of [[embroidery]], and they agreed that whoever should finish the work first should receive from the other a female slave as the prize. Polytechnos was furious when Aëdon (with Hera's help) won.{{sfn|Fontenrose|1948|page=130}}

Obligated to find his wife a slave, he went to Aëdon's father, and pretending that his wife wished to see her sister [[Chelidon (mythology)|Chelidon]], he took her with him. On his way home he [[rape]]d her, dressed her in slave's attire, commanded her into silence, and gave her to his wife as the promised prize. After some time Chelidon, believing herself unobserved, lamented her own fate, but she was overheard by Aëdon, and the two sisters conspired against Polytechnus for revenge. They murdered Polytechnos' son [[Itys]] and served him up as a meal to his father.{{sfn|Celoria|1992|pages=11, 70-72}}

Aëdon then fled with Chelidon to her father, who, when Polytechnus came in pursuit of his wife, had him bound, smeared with honey, and exposed to the insects. Aëdon now took pity upon the sufferings of her husband, and when her relations were on the point of killing her for this weakness, Zeus changed Polytechnus into a [[woodpecker]], the brother of Aëdon into a whoop, her father into a sea-eagle, her mother into a kingfisher, Chelidon into a [[swallow]], and Aëdon herself into a [[nightingale]].{{sfn|Schmitz|1867|loc=s.v. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20131022005627/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0032.html Aedon]}}}}