in fabulous history, was a daughter of Pandion king of Athens, and sister to Procne, who had married Tereus king of Thrace. Procne separated from Philomela, to whom she was much attached, spent her time in great melancholy till she prevailed upon her husband to go to Athens and bring her sister to Thrace. Tereus obeyed; but he had no sooner obtained Pandion's permission to conduct Philomela to Thrace, than he fell in love with her, and resolved to gratify his passion. He dismissed the guards whom the suspicions of Pandion had appointed to watch him; offered violence to Philomela; and afterwards cut out her tongue, that she might not discover his barbarity, and the indignities she had suffered. He confined her in a lonely castle; and having taken every precaution to prevent a discovery, he returned to Thrace, and told Procne that Philomela had died by the way, and that he had paid the last offices to her remains. At this sad intelligence Procne put on mourning for the loss of Philomela; but a year had scarcely elapsed before she was secretly informed that her sister was not dead. Philomela, in her captivity, described on a piece of tapestry her misfortunes and the brutality of Tereus, and privately conveyed it to Procne. She was going to celebrate the orgies of Bacchus when she received it, but she disguised Philomela's resentment; and as during those festivals she was permitted to rove about the country, she hastened to deliver her sister Philomela from her confinement, and concerted with her on the best measures of punishing the cruelty of Tereus. She murdered her son Itylus, then in the sixth year of his age, and served him up as food before her husband during the festival. Tereus, in the midst of his repast, called for Itylus; but Procne immediately informed him that he was then feasting on his flesh, when Philomela, by throwing on the table the head of Itylus, convinced the monarch of the cruelty of the scene. He drew his sword to punish Procne and Philomela; but as he was going to stab them to the heart, he was changed into a hoopoe, Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow, and Itylus into a pheasant. This tragedy happened at Daulis in Phocis; but Pausanias and Strabo, who mention the whole of the story, are silent about the transformation; and the former observes, that Tereus, after this bloody repast, fled to Megara, where he laid violent hands on himself. The inhabitants of the place raised a monument to his memory, where they offered yearly sacrifices, and placed small pebbles instead of barley. It was on this monument that the birds called hoopoes were first seen; hence Philopœmen.

Homela the fable of his metamorphosis. Procne and Philomela died through excessive grief and melancholy; and as the nightingale's and the swallow's voice is peculiarly plaintive and mournful, the poets have embellished the fable by supposing that the two unfortunate sisters were changed into birds.