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The Death of Procris, by Piero di Cosimo (c. 1486–1510)

In Greek mythology, Procris was the daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea. She married Cephalus, the son of Deion. Procris had at least two sisters, Creusa and Orithyia.

The earliest version of Procris' story comes from Pherecydes. Cephalus remains away from home for eight years, because he wanted to test Procris. When he returns, he succeeds in seducing her while disguised. Although they are reconciled, Procris suspects that her husband has a lover, because he is often away hunting. A servant tells her that Cephalus called to Nephele (cloud) to come to him. Procris follows him the next time he goes hunting, and leaps out of the thicket where she is hiding when she hears him call out to Nephele again. He is startled, and throws a javelin at her, thinking that she is an animal, and kills her.

In Ovid's later account, the goddess of the dawn, Eos (Aurora to the Romans) seizes Cephalus while he is hunting, but although the two have a relationship for some time and have three children together, Cephalus begins to pine for Procris. A disgruntled Eos returns Cephalus to his wife, but offers to show Cephalus how easily Procris would be seduced by another stranger. He therefore goes home in disguise.

Apollodorus gives an entirely different characterization of Procris. He states that Procris was bribed with a golden crown to sleep with Pteleon, but was discovered in his bed by her husband. After fleeing to Minos, she helped cure him of his genital sickness, and was given a dog whom no quarry could escape and an infallible javelin. Apollodorus writes that she gave the dog and javelin to her husband, and they were reconciled. Hyginus (who states that the dog and javelin gifts from the goddess Artemis) and Antoninus, however, write that she disguised herself as a boy and seduced her husband, so that he too was guilty, and they were reconciled. While Apollodorus writes that her death was a hunting accident, Hyginus states that she suspected her husband of having a lover and was killed by him, just as in Ovid's account. As she lay dying in his arms, she told him "On our wedding vows, please never marry Aurora." Cephalus went into exile.

The story of the hunting of the Teumessian fox, which could never be caught, and which Zeus turned to stone along with Procris' dog when the dog hunted it, and the death of Procris were told in one of the lost early Greek epics of the "Cycle", most probably the Epigoni. Sophocles wrote a tragedy called Procris which has been lost.

Procris is also the name of the eldest daughter of Thespius and Megamede. She bore Heracles twin sons, Antileon and Hippeus.