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Alcyone and Ceyx

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File:Alcyone and Ceyx transformed into Halycons (cropped).jpg
Alcyone and Ceyx Transformed into Halcyons

In Greek mythology, Alcyone (or dubiously Halcyone)<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia)</ref> (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx) and Ceyx (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx) were a wife and husband who incurred the wrath of the god Zeus for their romantic hubris.

EtymologyEdit

Alkyóne comes from alkyón ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), which refers to a sea-bird with a mournful song<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or to a kingfisher bird in particular.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The meaning(s) of the words is uncertain because alkyón is considered to be of pre-Greek, non-Indo-European origin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, folk etymology related them to the háls ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "brine, sea, salt") and kyéo ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "I conceive"). Alkyóne originally is written with a smooth breathing mark, but this false origin beginning with a rough breathing mark (transliterated as the letter H) led to the common misspellings halkyón ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) and Halkyóne ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and thus the name of one of the kingfisher bird genus' in English Halcyon. It is also speculated that Alkyóne is derived from alké ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "prowess, battle, guard") and onéo ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, onínemi,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> "to help, to please").<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Kéyx as referring to a sea-bird appears to be related to kaúax ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which is a ravenous sea-bird ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, láros). These suggest that Kéyx may have been turned into either a sea mew or a tern.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

MythologyEdit

File:Herbert James Draper - Halcyone (1915).jpg
Herbert James Draper, Halcyone, 1915.

Alcyone was a Thessalian princess, the daughter of King Aeolus of Aeolia, either by Enarete<ref>Apollodorus, 1.7.3</ref> or Aegiale.<ref name=":0" /> She was the sister of Salmoneus, Athamas, Sisyphus, Cretheus, Perieres, Deioneus, Magnes, Calyce, Canace, Pisidice and Perimede.

Later on, Alcyone became the queen of Trachis after marrying King Ceyx. The latter was the son of Eosphorus (often translated as Lucifer).<ref>Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.271</ref> The couple were very happy together in Trachis.

According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, this couple often sacrilegiously called each other "Zeus" and "Hera".<ref>Hesiod, Ehoiai fr. 15; Apollodorus, 1.7.4</ref> This angered Zeus, so while Ceyx was at sea (in order to consult an oracle, according to Ovid), he killed Ceyx with a thunderbolt. Soon after, Morpheus, the god of dreams, disguised as Ceyx, appeared to Alcyone to tell her of her husband's fate. In her grief she threw herself into the sea. Out of compassion, the gods changed them both into "halcyon birds" (common kingfishers), named after her. Apollodorus says that Ceyx was turned into a gannet, and not a kingfisher.

Ovid<ref>Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.410 ff.-748 (also here Template:Webarchive)</ref> and Hyginus<ref name=":0">Hyginus, Fabulae 65</ref> both also recount the metamorphosis of the pair in and after Ceyx's loss in a terrible storm, though they both omit Ceyx and Alcyone calling each other "Zeus" and "Hera" (and Zeus's resulting anger) as a reason for it. On the contrary, it is mentioned that while still unaware of Ceyx's death in the shipwreck, Alcyone continued to pray at the altar of Hera for his safe return.<ref name="Roman, L. 2010">Roman, L., & Roman, M. (2010). Template:Google books</ref> Ovid also adds the detail of her seeing his body washed ashore before her attempted suicide. Pseudo-Probus, a scholiast on Virgil's Georgics, notes that Ovid followed Nicander's version of the tale, instead of Theodorus's starring another Alcyone.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Virgil in the Georgics also alludes to the myth—again without reference to Zeus's anger.<ref>Virgil, Georgics 1.399 - "[At that time] not to the sun's warmth then upon the shore / Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings"</ref>

It is possible that the earlier myth was a simpler version of the one by Nicander, where a woman named Alcyone mourned her unnamed husband; Ceyx was probably added later due to him being an important figure in mythology and poetry, and also having a wife whose name was Alcyone (as evidenced from the Hesiodic poem Wedding of Ceyx).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Halcyon daysEdit

Ovid and Hyginus both also make the metamorphosis the origin of the term "halcyon days", the seven days in winter when storms never occur. They state that these were originally the 14 days each year (seven days on either side of the shortest day of the year<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>) during which Alcyone (as a kingfisher) made her nest on the beach and laid her eggs while her father Aeolus, the god of the winds, helped her do so safely by restraining the winds and thus calming the waves.<ref name="Roman, L. 2010"/> The phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time. Its proper meaning, however, is that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity; just as the days of calm and mild weather are set in the height of winter for the sake of the kingfishers' egglaying according to the myth. Kingfishers however do not live by the sea, so Ovid's tale is not based on any actual observations of the species and in fact refers to a mythical bird only later identified with the kingfisher.

The expression {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Grc-transl) first occurs in Aristophanes' play The Birds 1594, then again in Aristotle, Philochorus, and Lucian.<ref>Liddell, Scott, Jones, Greek Lexicon, s.v. {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.</ref> In Latin it occurs as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Pliny the Elder, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (-nĭī) {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Columella and Varro, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Hyginus, and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Plautus and Frontinus.<ref>Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary.</ref>

LegacyEdit

  • Various kinds of kingfishers are named after the couple, in reference to the metamorphosis myth:
  • Their story features in The Book of the Duchess.
  • Their story is the basis for the opera Alcyone by the French composer Marin Marais and the cantata Alcyone by Maurice Ravel
  • A collection of Canada's celebrated nature poet, Archibald Lampman, Alcyone, his final set of poetry published posthumously in 1899, highlights both Lampman's apocalyptic and utopian visions of the future.
  • T. S. Eliot draws from this myth in The Dry Salvages: "And the ragged rock in the restless waters,/Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;/On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,/In navigable weather it is always a seamark/To lay a course by: but in the sombre season/Or the sudden fury, is what it always was."

GalleryEdit

  • Virgil Solis - Alcyone Juno.jpg

    Alcyone praying Juno, engraving by Virgil Solis for Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XI, 573-582

  • Virgil Solis - Ceyx Tempest.jpg

    Ceyx in the tempest, engraving by Virgil Solis for Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XI, 410-572

  • Virgil Solis - Ceyx-Morpheus Alcyone.jpg

    Ceyx/ Morpheus appears to Alcyone, engraving by Virgil Solis for Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XI, 650–749.

  • Johann Wilhelm Baur - Morpheus in the house of Ceyx, before Alcyone.jpg

    Ceyx/ Morpheus appears to Alcyone, engraving (or etching more likely) by Bauer for Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XI, 633–676.

  • Ceyx prenant conge d'alcyone.jpg

    Ceyx prenant congé d'Alcyone (15th century)

  • Alcyone ceyx.jpg

    Alcyone and Ceyx marble bas relief, originally at Parlington Hall, Aberford, removed to Lotherton Hall sometime after 1905.

See alsoEdit

CitationsEdit

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General and cited referencesEdit

External linksEdit

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