Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 1 (Greek and Roman).djvu/212

70 on the strength of the "unwritten law." After this the Athenians, essaying to follow the divine example, established a criminal court on the same spot and designated it Areopagos, "Hill of Ares." The two sisters of Agraulos, Herse and Pandrosos, were both united in wedlock to Hermes, by whom the one became the mother of the beautiful Kephalos and the other bore Keryx, the forefather of a great Athenian family.

The Daughters of Pandion.—When war broke out between Athens and Thebes over the question of the marchlands, Pandion asked Tereus, son of Ares, to come from Thrace to help him. By means of his assistance he won the war and as a reward gave him his daughter Prokne, but after a few years of married life the love of Tereus cooled and a passion for his wife's sister, Philomele, mastered him. He told his sister-in-law that Prokne was dead and professed so warm a love for her that she consented to become his wife. But it was not long before she discovered his trickery, wherefore, lest she tell her story to the world, Tereus cut out her tongue and confined her in a solitary place. Notwithstanding his precautions, she wove a message into a garment and sent it to her sister. After a long search Prokne found Philomele, and together they devised a revolting revenge on Tereus, in pursuance of which Prokne, inviting him to a banquet, set before him the flesh of their own son Itys. The sisters then made haste to fly from the land, but Tereus overtook them in Phokis, and as they piteously prayed the gods for escape from their ruthless pursuer, they were all changed into birds, Prokne becoming a nightingale, Philomele, a swallow, and Tereus a hoopoe. The ancient Athenians, accordingly, used to say that the sweet plaintive song of the nightingale was the wail of Prokne for her unhappy Itys. The resemblance between this story and that of the Boiotian Aëdon and Itylos needs no pointing out. In reference to a similar story Pausanias remarks, with the naἴveté of a child: "That a man should be turned into a bird is to me incredible."