Editing Procris (section)

===Ovid===
[[Image:Piero di Cosimo 013.jpg|thumb|right|300px|''[[The Death of Procris]]'', by [[Piero di Cosimo]] (c.&nbsp;1486–1510)]]

====Early version====
[[Ovid]] tells the end of the story a bit differently in the third of his books on ''The Art of Love.''<ref name="May">Ovid. Transl. J. Lewis May. [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ovid/lboo/lboo60.htm ''The Art of Love''], sacred-texts.com</ref><ref name="Kline">Ovid. Transl. [[A. S. Kline]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070703070529/http://www.gutenberg.com/eBooks/TonyKline_Collection/Html/ArtofLoveBkIII.htm ''The Art of Love''], The Gutenberg Museum Mainz</ref> No goddesses are mentioned in this earlier published work, a [[cautionary tale]] against [[credulity]]. After hunting, Cephalus calls for a breeze ([[Zephyrus|Zephyr]]<ref name="May"/> or [[Aura (mythology)|Aura]]<ref name="Kline"/>) to cool him as he lies in the shade.

Overhearing a comment to Procris, a [[busybody]] reports what he heard to Procris, who grew pale with terror that her husband loved another, and hastened in fury to the valley, then crept silently to the forest where Cephalus hunted. When she saw him flop on the grass to cool himself and call, to Zephyr to come relieve him, Procris realized that what she had taken to be the name of a lover was merely a name for the air and nothing more. Joyfully she rose to fling herself into his arms, but hearing a rustling of foliage, Cephalus shot an arrow at what he thought would be a wild beast in the brush. Dying, the woman laments that the breeze by whose name she was deceived would now carry away her spirit, and her husband weeps, holding her in his arms.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

====Late version====
In Ovid's later account, the goddess of the dawn, [[Eos]] ([[Aurora (mythology)|Aurora]] to the Romans) seizes Cephalus while he is hunting, but Cephalus begins to pine for Procris. A disgruntled Eos returns Cephalus to his wife, but offers to show Cephalus how easily Procris would be seduced by another stranger. He therefore goes home in disguise. He pushes Procris to "hesitate" by promising her money before claiming that she is unfaithful. Procris flees to take up the pursuits of Diana, and is later persuaded to return to her husband, bringing him a magical spear and a hunting dog as gifts. Ovid emphasizes that Cephalus (who is the narrator of the events) dares not say how he acquired the dog and the javelin from Procris, hinting that Cephalus himself was seduced and tricked in the same manner as he did Procris, like in the versions Antoninus Liberalis and Hyginus related.<ref>{{cite book | first1 = Sara | last1 = Mack | title = [[Ovid]] | page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=zmqdbLroH4oC&pg=PA132 132] | publisher = [[Yale University Press]] | date = 1968 | isbn = 0-300-04295-7}}</ref> The transformation scene centers on the dog, which always catches its quarry, and the uncatchable fox; Jupiter turns them into stone.

The tale resumes with a similar ending to that of Pherecydes, as Procris is informed of her husband's calling out to "Aura", the Latin word for breeze, which sounds similar to Eos' Roman equivalent Aurora. Cephalus kills her by accident when she stirs in the bushes nearby, upset at his beseeching of "beloved Aura" to "come into his lap and give relief to his heat". Procris dies in his arms after begging him not to let Aura take her place as his wife. He explains to her that it was 'only the breeze' and she seems to die at ease.<ref>Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 7.690-862</ref>