Editing Philomela (section)

===Variations on the myth===
[[File:Bauer - Tereus Philomela Procne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Philomela and Procne showing the severed head of Itys to his father Tereus, engraved by Baur for a 1703 edition of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' (Book VI:621–647)]]
It is typical for myths from antiquity to have been altered over the passage of time or for competing variations of the myth to emerge.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Magoulick|first=Mary|title=What is Myth?|url=http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~mmagouli/defmyth.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807181158/http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~mmagouli/defmyth.htm|archive-date=7 August 2007|access-date=9 January 2013|website=faculty.de.gcsu.edu}}</ref><ref>Honko, Lauri. "The Problem of Defining Myth" in Dundes, Alan (editor) ''Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 41–52.</ref> With the story of Philomela, most of the variations concern which sister became the nightingale or the swallow, and into what type of bird Tereus was transformed. In Greek texts like Achilles Tatius and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, Philomela is transformed into a swallow and Procne into a nightingale, but in Latin texts Philomela is the nightingale and Procne is the swallow.<ref name="BibliothecaFrazer" /> The description of Tereus as an "epops" has generally been translated as a hoopoe (scientific name: ''Upupa epops'').<ref name="ArrowsmithAristophanes">Arrowsmith, William (editor). ''Aristophanes: Three Comedies: The Birds, The Clouds, The Wasps''. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969), 14, 109.</ref><ref name="DeLucaDeconstrTereus">DeLuca, Kenneth (Hampden-Sydney College). "Deconstructing Tereus: An Introduction to Aristophanes' Birds" (paper prepared for the American Political Science Association Convention Chicago 2007). Found online [http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/1/1/7/2/pages211725/p211725-1.php here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721025548/http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/1/1/7/2/pages211725/p211725-1.php |date=21 July 2015 }}. Retrieved 9 January 2013.</ref> Since many of the earlier sources are no longer extant, or remain only in fragments, Ovid's version of the myth has been the most lasting and influential upon later works.

Early Greek sources have it that Philomela was turned into a swallow, which has no song; Procne was turned into a nightingale, singing a beautiful but sad song in remorse.<ref name="BibliothecaFrazer" /> Later sources, among them [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] and in modern literature the English romantic poets like [[John Keats|Keats]] write that although she was tongueless, Philomela was turned into a nightingale, and Procne into a swallow.<ref name="BibliothecaFrazer" /><ref name="FieldsKeatsTongueless">Fields, Beverly. "Keats and the Tongueless Nightingale: Some Unheard Melodies in 'The Eve of Saint Agnes'". ''Wordsworth Circle'' 19 (1983), 246–250.</ref> [[Eustathius of Thessalonica|Eustathius]]' version of the story has the sisters reversed, so that Philomela married Tereus and that Tereus lusted after Procne.<ref>For the comparison between Homer's version and Eusthathius' version of the myth, see: [https://books.google.com/books?id=SyAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA139 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.</ref>

It is salient to note that in [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomy]] and [[binomial nomenclature]], the [[genus]] name of the martins (the larger-bodied among swallow genera) is ''[[Progne]]'', a Latinized form of Procne. Other related genera named after the myth include the Crag Martins ''[[Ptyonoprogne]]'', and Saw-wings ''[[Psalidoprocne]]''. Coincidentally, although most of the depictions of the nightingale and its song in art and literature are of female nightingales, the female of the species does not sing—it is the male of the species who sings its characteristic song.<ref name="birdsong1" /><ref name="birdsong2" />

In an early account, [[Sophocles]] wrote that Tereus was turned into a large-beaked bird whom some scholars translate as a [[hawk]]<ref name="FitzgeraldSophTereus" /><ref>Halmamann, Carolin. "Sophoclean Fragments" in Ormand, Kirk (editor). ''A Companion to Sophocles''. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 175.</ref><ref name="Hyginus">compare with the "hawk" in Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus ). ''Fabulae'', 45. Hyginus based his interpretation on [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aesch._Supp._60&lang=original Aesch.Supp.60] from 
Smyth, Herbert Weir (translator); Aeschylus. ''Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, PhD in two volumes.'' in ''Volume 2. Suppliant Women.'' (Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926).</ref> while a number of retellings and other works (including [[Aristophanes]]' ancient comedy ''[[The Birds (play)|The Birds]]'') hold that Tereus was instead changed into a hoopoe.<ref name="ArrowsmithAristophanes" /><ref name="DeLucaDeconstrTereus" /> Various later translations of Ovid state that Tereus was transformed into other birds than the hawk and hoopoe, including references by Dryden and Gower to the [[lapwing]].<ref name="OvidDrydenGarth1717" /><ref>Gower, John. ''Confessio Amantis'' Book V, Lines 6041–6046, refer to a "lappewincke" or "lappewinge"</ref>

Several writers omit key details of the story. According to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], Tereus was so remorseful for his actions against Philomela and Itys (the nature of the actions is not described) that he kills himself. Then two birds appear as the women lament his death.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'', 1:41 sections 8 and 9.</ref> Many later sources omit Tereus' tongue-cutting mutilation of Philomela altogether.<ref>According to Delany, Chaucer barely mentions it and the Chretien de Troyes omits the "grotesquerie" entirely. Delany, Sheila. ''The Naked Text: Chaucer's Legend of Good Women''. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 216–217, and ''passim''.</ref>

According to [[Thucydides]], Tereus was not King of Thrace, but rather from [[Daulia]] in [[Phocis]], a city inhabited by Thracians. Thucydides cites as proof of this that poets who mention the nightingale refer to it as a "Daulian bird".<ref>[[Thucydides]]. ''[[History of the Peloponnesian War]]''. 2.29. In the version translated by [[Thomas Hobbes]] (London: Bohn, 1843). (found online [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.2.29&lang=original here] – retrieved 23 November 2012).</ref> It is thought that Thucydides commented on the myth in his famous work on the [[Peloponnesian War]] because Sophocles' play confused the mythical Tereus with contemporary ruler [[Teres I]] of Thrace.<ref>Webster, Thomas B. L. ''An Introduction to Sophocles'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), 3, 7.</ref>

In a variation of the myth set in [[Asia Minor]], Philomela is called [[Chelidon (mythology)|Chelidon]] ("swallow") and her sister [[Aëdon]] ("nightingale").<ref>[[Antoninus Liberalis]], ''Metamorphoses '' [https://topostext.org/work/216#11 11]</ref>