Cornix


Cornix is a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
There, she recounts how she was a princess, the daughter of Coronaeus. One day as she was walking by the seashore, Neptune saw her and attempted to seduce her. When his efforts failed he attempted rape, and Cornix fled, crying out to men and gods, and while no man heard her, "the virgin goddess feels pity for a virgin": Pallas Athena transformed her into a crow. She also cites her resentment that her place as Minerva's servant is being taken over by Nyctimene transformed into the owl, where the transformation was punitive.
John Gower took up the tale for use in his Confessio Amantis, with particular emphasis on her delight in her escape:

With fetheres blake as eny cole

Out of hise armes in a throwe

Sche flih before his yhe a Crowe;

Which was to hire a more delit,

To kepe hire maidenhede whit

Under the wede of fethers blake,

In Perles whyte than forsake

That no lif mai restore ayein.