Itys. In Greek mythology, Itylus or Itylos, was the son of Aedon, daughter of Pandareus of Ephesus and wife of King Zethus of Thebes.
Envious of Niobe, the wife of her husband's brother Amphion, who had six sons and six daughters, she formed the plan of killing the eldest of Niobe's sons, but by mistake slew her own son Itylus. Zeus relieved her grief by changing her into a nightingale, whose melancholy tunes are represented by the poet as Aëdon's lamentations about her child.
The mythic theme was an ancient one, for Homer's listeners were expected to know the allusion, when Penelope reveals to the still-disguised Odysseus her anguish of a night: I lie on my bed, and the sharp anxieties swarming thick and fast on my beating heart torment my sorrowing self. As when Pandareos' daughter, the greenwood nightingale perching in the deep of the forest foliage sings out her lovely sing when springtime is just begun, she varying the manifold strains of her voice, pours out the melody mourning Itylos, son of the lord Zethos, her own beloved child, whom she once killed with the bronze, when the madness was upon her; So my mind is divided, and starts one way, then another.
As one of only nine similes in the Odyssey that are longer than five lines, the thematic complexity of the image and its multiple points of contact with Penelope's situation has arrested the attention of many readers.Aedon acc
Envious of Niobe, the wife of her husband's brother Amphion, who had six sons and six daughters, she formed the plan of killing the eldest of Niobe's sons, but by mistake slew her own son Itylus. Zeus relieved her grief by changing her into a nightingale, whose melancholy tunes are represented by the poet as Aëdon's lamentations about her child.
The mythic theme was an ancient one, for Homer's listeners were expected to know the allusion, when Penelope reveals to the still-disguised Odysseus her anguish of a night: I lie on my bed, and the sharp anxieties swarming thick and fast on my beating heart torment my sorrowing self. As when Pandareos' daughter, the greenwood nightingale perching in the deep of the forest foliage sings out her lovely sing when springtime is just begun, she varying the manifold strains of her voice, pours out the melody mourning Itylos, son of the lord Zethos, her own beloved child, whom she once killed with the bronze, when the madness was upon her; So my mind is divided, and starts one way, then another.
As one of only nine similes in the Odyssey that are longer than five lines, the thematic complexity of the image and its multiple points of contact with Penelope's situation has arrested the attention of many readers.Aedon acc
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