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.
At some point his father Tereus raped Itys' maternal aunt Philomela while escorting her to Thrace on her visit to her sister Procne.
Depending on the myth's version, either Philomela or Procne is turned into either the silent swallow or the singing nightingale[1][2][3][a] which continued to mourn her slain son in her new life.
[7] In some texts, Itys is called Itylus instead, another mythological bird who was killed by his mother Aëdon, who then transformed into a nightingale.
She argues that the element of the enraged wife killing her child in an act of revenge against her husband's actions was directly borrowed from Euripides and incorporated in his tragedy.