Itys

Attic wine cup, circa 490 BC, depicting Philomela and Procne preparing to kill Itys. (Louvre, Paris)

In Greek mythology, Itys (Ancient Greek: Ἴτυς, romanizedÍtus) is a minor mythological character, the son of Tereus, a king of Thrace, by his Athenian wife Procne. Itys was murdered by his own mother and served to be consumed during dinner by his father, as part of a revenge plan against Tereus for assaulting and raping Philomela, Procne's sister. His immediate family were all transformed into birds afterwards, and in some versions Itys too joins them in the avian kingdom. Itys' story survives in several accounts, the most extensive and famous among them being Ovid's Metamorphoses. His myth had been known since at least the sixth century BC.