Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Procris (, ''gen''.: Πρόκριδος) was an

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

princess, the third daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea.

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

mentions her in the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

'' as one of the many dead spirits

Odysseus In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus ( ; , ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; ), is a legendary Greeks, Greek king of Homeric Ithaca, Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, epic poem, the ''Odyssey''. Od ...

saw in the

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

wrote a tragedy called ''Procris'' that has been lost, as has a version contained in the Greek Cycle, but at least six different accounts of her story still exist.

Family

Procris's sisters were Creusa, Oreithyia, Chthonia, Protogeneia, Pandora and Merope while her brothers were Cecrops, Pandorus, Metion, and possibly Orneus, Thespius, Eupalamus and Sicyon. She married Cephalus, the son of King Deioneus of

Phocis Phocis (; ; ) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gu ...

Mythology

Pherecydes

The earliest version of Procris' story comes from Pherecydes of Athens. Cephalus remains away from home for eight years because he wanted to test Procris. When he returns, he seduces her while disguised. Although reconciled, Procris suspects that her husband has a lover because he is often away hunting. A servant tells her that Cephalus called to Nephele (a cloud) to come to him. Procris follows him the next time he goes hunting and leaps out of the thicket when she hears him call out to Nephele again. He is startled and thinking that she is a wild animal, shoots her with an arrow and kills her.

Ovid

Early version

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

tells the end of the story a bit differently in the third of his books on ''The Art of Love.''Ovid. Transl. J. Lewis May
''The Art of Love''
sacred-texts.comOvid. Transl. A. S. Kline
''The Art of Love''
The Gutenberg Museum Mainz No goddesses are mentioned in this earlier published work, a cautionary tale against credulity. After hunting, Cephalus calls for a breeze ( Zephyr or Aura) 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.

Late version

In Ovid's later account, the goddess of the dawn,

Eos In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Eos (; Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic Greek, Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic Greek, Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric Greek, Doric ''Āṓs'') is the go ...

(

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

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. 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.

Apollodorus, Hyginus, and Antoninus

The '' Bibliotheca'' gives an entirely different characterization of Procris. It states that Procris was bribed with a golden crown to sleep with Pteleon, but was discovered in his bed by her husband. She is described as fleeing to King Minos, who had been cursed by his wife

Pasiphaë In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë (; , derived from πᾶσι (dative plural) "for all" and φάος/φῶς ''phaos/phos'' "light") was a queen of Crete. The daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse (mythology), Perse, Pasiphaë is notable a ...

to ejaculate scorpions, serpents and centipedes that killed his mistresses from the inside. Procris was said to have helped cure the king of his genital sickness with a circean herb. She was given a dog no quarry could escape and an infallible javelin. The ''Bibliotheca'' states that she gave the dog and javelin to Cephalus and they were reconciled. Hyginus (who states that the dog and javelin are gifts from the goddess

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

) and Antoninus Liberalis, however, write that she disguised herself as a boy and seduced her husband, so that he too was guilty, and they were reconciled. According to the latter, Minos' unexplained disease not only killed his mistresses, but also prevented him and Pasiphaë from having any children (Pasiphaë herself was not otherwise harmed, being an immortal daughter of

Helios In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; ; Homeric Greek: ) is the god who personification, personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") an ...

). Procris then inserted a goat's bladder in a woman, told Minos to ejaculate there, and after that she sent him to his wife; the couple was thus able to conceive, and Minos gave his spear and his dog as gratitude gifts to her. Unlike the other versions, Hyginus omits Cephalus' abduction by Eos; instead he rejects her when she propositions him, and she replies that she does not want him to break his marital vows unless Procris has. She then disguises him as a stranger who successfully seduces Procris. When they lie together in bed, Eos removes the enchantment from him, and Procris, realizing she has been deceived by Eos, flees in shame. After their reunion, Procris follows Cephalus in secret out of fear of Eos. Hyginus, ''Fabulae'
189
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The dog and the fox

The name of the dog is Laelaps. The story of the hunting of the Teumessian fox, which could never be caught, and that Zeus turned to stone along with Procris' dog when the dog hunted it, and the death of Procris were told in one of the lost early Greek epics of the Cycle, most probably the '' Epigoni''.

Medieval tradition

Procris' story is included in '' De Mulieribus Claris'', a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in 136162. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature.

Notes

References

* Antoninus Liberalis, ''The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis'' translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992)
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Apollodorus, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Diodorus Siculus, ''The Library of History'' translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8
Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site
* Diodorus Siculus, ''Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2''. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888-1890
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, ''Lives'' with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 1
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Publius Ovidius Naso, ''The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria)'' translated by A.S. Kline
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Stephanus of Byzantium, ''Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt,'' edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
*

Suida The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

, ''Suda Encyclopedia'' translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
{{Authority control Princesses in Greek mythology Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid Mythological people from Attica Love stories Mythological hunters Metamorphoses characters Characters in the Odyssey Retinue of Artemis Hunting accident deaths