¹ For extant testimonia and fragments of the Tereus v. TGFA Ff 581–95b. Discussion of the play's scope and content follows the communis opinio, e.g. G. Dobrov, ‘The Tragic and the Comic Tereus’, AJP 114 (1993), 189–234. That the Tereus was Ovid's primary source (the prevailing view since Welcker) is reasonably certain; v. the remarks of F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen: Kommentar, Buck VI–VII(Heidelberg, 1976), ad init. All subsequent references to Bomer pertain to this volume. Other works cited more than once will be referenced by authors′ names following initial citations.

² Larmour, D. H. J., ‘Tragic Contaminatio in Ovid's Metamorphoses: Procne and Medea; Philomela and Iphigeneia (6.424–674); Scylla and Phaedra (8.19–151)’, ICS 15 (1991), 132. Cf. especially 624ff. with Med 1021ff.Google Scholar

³ Cazzaniga, I., La saga di Itis nella tradizione letteraria e mitografica Greco-Romana (Varese, 1951), voL II, 57ff. Cf. Bomer ad 587f.: ‘Bei Sophokles ist eine [Überlieferung], nach Lage der Dinge, vielleicht vorhanden gewesen, aber heute kaum mehr nachzuweisen’.Google Scholar

⁴ Cazzaniga, 61. Although Procne outwardly reverses her transformation before the murder (603), she retains a Bacchic ferality (‘veluti Gangetica … tigris’, 636f.).

⁵ Ovid's application of contaminatio brought novelty to other episodes as well. The Medea episode (7. Iff.) focuses not on her filicide but on the metamorphic aspects of her myth, e.g. the rejuvenation of Aeson (159ff.) (Larmour, 132f.). Similarly, Pentheus (3.51ff.) supplicates not his ‘mater’ but his ‘matertera’ Autonoe (719). The reader of the Medea and Pentheus stories is surprised both by the suppression or adapation of such well-known tragic moments, and by their appearance in another narrative.

⁶ According to Halliday, W. R., Indo-Eurapean Folk-tales and Greek Legend (Cambridge, 1933), 100f., the names Procne and Philomela were probably invented by Sophocles for the Tereus, as pre-Sophoclean variants of the myth feature the proleptic names Aedon and Chelidon, respectively. A mistaken etymology for (‘lover of song’) might explain her later association with (‘songstress’) in Hellenistic and Latin authorsGoogle Scholar

⁷ Halliday, 88.

⁸ Similar is the doubled cry of the hoopoe, which represents Tereus′ ‘endless and unsuccessful search’ for Procne (Halliday, 93). Cf. Tzetzes on Hesiod, Op. 566.

⁹ On the variable quantity of v in" IrVV see R. Jebb (Cambridge, 1894) ad loc.

¹⁰ The scholiast to Aristophanes, Av. 212, in summarizing the Tereus reports Procne's lament as “IrV ”IrV. The fragments, however, do not reveal whether this cry was in the actual play.

¹¹ See Thompson, D'Arcy, A Glossary of Greek Birds (Oxford, 1937), s.v. ‘AHδΩ'N, for a full catalogue of Greek (and many Latin) references to the nightingale and her song.Google Scholar

¹² E.g. Propertius 3.10.10; Ovid, Am. 3.12.32.

¹³ I thank Dr S. Heyworth for this observation.

¹⁴ Perhaps Seneca, Ag. 67If. (‘cantat tristis aedon | Ityn in varios modulata sonos’), captures the tragic gemination as well.

¹⁵ Haywood, Cf. M. S., ‘Ceyx, Alcyone and Ovidian Wit (Metamorphoses 11, 544–567)’, Eranos 86 (1988), 172f., who argues that Ovid reverses the traditional call of the halcyon or kingfisher, ‘Ceyx! Ceyx!’, by making the drowning Ceyx call out the name of his wife Alcyone (544f., 562f., 566f.).Google Scholar

¹⁶ ‘mater! mater!’ might also clarify the ambiguity in the metamorphoses of the sisters (667ff.). In two of the Greek citations (Ag 1145, Phae. 70), the bird crying ‘Itys! Itys!’ is identified as . The evocation of these passages in Itys’ cry encourages the reader to follow Greek tradition and identify Procne with the nightingale.

¹⁷ My sincere thanks to Dr Stephen Hinds at the University of Washington for his insightful comments and advice, as well as to the editors for their practical criticism.