Ceyx king of Trachis sailed against his wife Alcyone's prayers to consult Apollo's oracle — and drowned in a storm crying her name; Juno sent a dream of his death, and when his body washed ashore both were changed into halcyon birds, nesting on calm winter seas while Aeolus held the winds for seven days.1
The voyage
After Midas' golden touch, Ovid sings of love on the shore. Ceyx son of Lucifer reigned at Trachis without bloodshed, his face bright with his father's light; Alcyone daughter of Aeolus clung to him and begged him not to sail — the sea had taken her mother and her brothers. He would not stay; the ship put out for Claros and Apollo's oracle.2
The storm
Wind and lightning broke the vessel; Ceyx had no armour but his love, and as the waves closed over him he cried Alcyone! Alcyone! — glad only that she did not share his death. Apollodorus tells a different cause for their end: he called his wife Hera and she called him Zeus, and for that hubris the king of gods turned them into birds.3
The dream
Juno, pitying a wife who prayed at every altar for a husband already drowned, sent Iris to the cave of Sleep, and Morpheus stood over Alcyone in the likeness of Ceyx — pale, wet, with seawood in his hair — and told her to mourn. At dawn she ran to the shore still hoping; Hyginus instead has her leap into the sea when she learns of the wreck.4
Halcyon days
She saw his body borne in on the waves and flew to meet it — then felt her arms grow wings, her lips grow narrow, and Ceyx rise beside her as a bird. Together they nested on the winter sea while Aeolus restrained his winds for seven days each year, the halcyon days when sailors know a brief calm. Love, not pride, is Ovid's reason; the birds preserve their names in both tellings.5
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