Itylus

In Greek mythology, Itylus (Ancient Greek: Ἴτυλος, romanized: Ítulos) is the young son of Queen Aëdon and King Zethus of Thebes. Although the various versions of Itylus' tale vary greatly, they all share the theme of an only child being killed at the hands of its mother who was trying to get revenge against someone else.

In the earlier versions, Itylus was a prince of Thebes, whom his mother killed accidentally in his bed while aiming for another boy, the son of Niobe. By the fifth century BC, Itylus' name had shifted to Itys, and he was treated as the deliberate murder victim of both his mother Aëdon, later called Procne, and his aunt Chelidon, later known as Philomela, who kill him in order to avenge themselves against the boy's father's crimes.

All those tales however a similar ending, culminating in the metamorphosis of the mother into a nightingale, a songbird that continues to mourn the loss of her child.