8/20/2014 Alcyone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcyone 1/3
Herbert James Draper, Halcyone, 1915.
Alcyone and Ceyx marble bas
relief, originally at Parlington
Hall, Aberford, removed to
Lotherton Hall sometime after
1905.
Alcyone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Greek mythology, Alcyone (/lsani/; Greek:
, Halkyn) was the daughter of Aeolus, either by
Enarete or Aegiale. She married Ceyx, son of Eosphorus,
the Morning Star.
They were very happy together in Trachis, and according to
Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, often sacrilegiously called
each other "Zeus" and "Hera".
[1]
This angered Zeus, so
while Ceyx was at sea (going to consult an oracle according
to Ovid's account), the god threw a thunderbolt at his ship.
Soon after, Morpheus (god of dreams) disguised as Ceyx
appeared to Alcyone as an apparition to tell her of his fate,
and she threw herself into the sea in her grief. Out of
compassion, the gods changed them both into halcyon birds, named after
her.
Ovid
[2]
and Hyginus
[3]
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. Ovid also adds the detail of her seeing his body
washed up onshore before her attempted suicide.
Ovid and Hyginus both also make the metamorphosis the origin of the
etymology for "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
[4]
) during which
Alcyone (as a kingfisher) laid her eggs and made her nest on the beach
and during which her father Aeolus, god of the winds, restrained the winds and calmed the waves so she
could do so in safety. 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.
The myth is also briefly referred to by Virgil, again without reference to Zeus's anger.
[5]
Contents
1 Legacy
2 Notes
3 Other sources
4 External links
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Legacy
Various kinds of kingfishers are named after the couple, in reference to the metamorphosis myth:
The genus Ceyx (within the river kingfishers family) is named after him
The kingfisher family Halcyonidae (tree kingfishers) is named after his wife, as is the genus
Halcyon.
The belted kingfisher's Latin species name (Megaceryle alcyon) also references her name.
Their story features in The Book of the Duchess.
Their story is the basis for the opera Alcyone by the French composer Marin Marais
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.
TS 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."
Notes
1. ^ Hesiod, Catalogue of Women fr. 15; Apollodorus i. 7. 3 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?
doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022&layout=&loc=1.7.3) - 4 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?
doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022;layout=;query=section%3D%2335;loc=1.7.3))
2. ^ Ovid Metamorphoses XI, 410ff.-748 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?
doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028&layout=&loc=11.411) (also here
(http://www.tkline.freeserve.co.uk/Metamorph11.htm#_Toc64105704))
3. ^ Hyginus Fabulae 65 (http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#65)
4. ^ William Smith, ed. (1867). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
(http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ACL3129.0001.001/123). Volume 1. p. 108. "It was fabled, that during the
seven days before, and as many after, the shortest day of the year, while the bird , was breeding, there
always prevailed calms at sea."
5. ^ Virgil Georgics i. 399 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?
doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0058;layout=;query=card%3D%2314;loc=1.424) - "[At that time] not to the
sun's warmth then upon the shore / Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings"
Other sources
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed.
(1870). "
article name needed
". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
8/20/2014 Alcyone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Ceyx and
Alcyone.
External links
Images of Ceyx and Alcyone in the Warburg Institute
Iconographic Database
(http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/vpc/VPC_search/subcats.php?
cat_1=5&cat_2=102)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alcyone&oldid=620891353"
Categories: Aeolides Metamorphoses in Greek mythology Women in Greek mythology
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