thumb|right|The Death of Procris by [[Joachim Wtewael (circa 1595–1600)]]

In Greek mythology, Procris (, gen.: Πρόκριδος) was an Athenian princess, the third daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea. Homer mentions her in the Odyssey as one of the many dead spirits Odysseus saw in the Underworld. Sophocles 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.

Mythology

Pherecydes

The earliest version of Procris' story comes from Pherecydes of Athens. Cephalus remains away from home for eight years because he wants to test Procris' fidelity. When he returns, he seduces her while disguised. Although they reconcile eventually, 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

thumb|right|300px|[[The Death of Procris, by Piero di Cosimo (c. 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. No goddesses are mentioned in this earlier published work, a cautionary tale against credulity. After hunting, Cephalus calls for a breeze (Zephyr 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 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) 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). 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.

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. 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, 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.