[2] Her story is evidently a very old one, as it was referenced as early as Homer in his Odyssey, when Penelope speaks to her husband Odysseus in the lines: I lie upon my bed, and sharp cares, crowding close about my throbbing heart, disquiet me, as I mourn.

Even as when the daughter of Pandareus, the nightingale of the greenwood, sings sweetly, when spring is newly come, as she sits perched amid the thick leafage of the trees, and with many trilling notes pours forth her rich voice in wailing for her child, dear Itylus, whom she had one day slain with the sword unwittingly, Itylus, the son of king Zethus; even so my heart sways to and fro in doubt,Eustathius of Thessalonica and other scholiasts explain that Aëdon was envious of her sister-in-law, Amphion's wife Niobe, who had fourteen children (seven sons and seven daughters) opposed to her single one (or two, as some authors also mention a daughter named Neis).

[17] A Homeric scholiast attributed the story of Aëdon killing her son in her effort to murder Niobe's to Pherecydes, a historian who lived during the fifth century BC.

Aëdon thus occupies the same position as the goddess, but unlike Leto, she does not have the power to smite Niobe, and instead her efforts end in grief.

[21] It has been argued that Penelope chooses to mention Aëdon's story is because she is indirectly indicating her own desire to protect her son Telemachus, himself an only child who must hold his own against numerous male rivals and now as a grown-up acts independently of her like Itylus ignored his mother's orders, against danger.

Polytechnus was then making a chair, and Aëdon a piece of embroidery, and they agreed that whoever should finish the work first should receive from the other a female slave as the prize.

On his way home he raped her, dressed her in slave's attire, commanded her into silence, and gave her to his wife as the promised prize.

After some time Chelidon, believing herself unobserved, lamented her own fate, but she was overheard by Aëdon, and the two sisters conspired against Polytechnus for revenge.

[24] Aëdon then fled with Chelidon to her father, who, when Polytechnus came in pursuit of his wife, had him bound, smeared with honey, and exposed to the insects.

[25] All versions of the story provide an aetion for the nightingale's song, as the mournful Aëdon (and Procne) spends her new life lamenting the death of her child.

[29] Fontenrose noted the similarities of the Aëdon group with the Athamas group, namely the themes of polygamy, the birth and death of multiple children, the concealment or disguise of another woman, a rivalry of a wife and a mistress figure, and a woman killing her own child by mistake, which end in bird metamorphosis.

[36] Aëdon is traditionally the daughter of Pandareus, himself associated with Crete or the western coast of Asia Minor, while Procne's father is the Athenian Pandion.