Ceyx- Greek FigureMortal"King of Trachis"
Also known as: Κήϋξ
Titles & Epithets
Symbols
Description
A storm splits his ship and the king of Trachis sinks beneath the waves. On shore, Alcyone sees his drowned face in a dream sent by Morpheus. The gods, moved by their devotion, transform both husband and wife into kingfishers riding calm winter seas.
Mythology & Lore
The Voyage and the Kingfishers
Ceyx was king of Trachis, son of Eosphorus the Morning Star. Ovid tells his story in the Metamorphoses. Troubled by portents, Ceyx resolved to sail to the oracle of Apollo at Claros. His wife Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus, begged him not to go. She knew her father's winds. Ceyx sailed anyway.
The storm broke the ship apart. Ceyx drowned calling Alcyone's name as the waves closed over him.
The god of sleep sent Morpheus to Alcyone in the shape of her drowned husband, his hair streaming with seawater, to tell her what the sea had done. At dawn she ran to the shore and found his body washing toward her on the tide. She leaped from the breakwater to reach him, and as she leaped she changed. Wings where her arms had been. When she touched his body, Ceyx changed too. Both became kingfishers.
Aristotle records in the Historia Animalium that for seven days each winter, the halcyon days, the seas grow calm so the birds can nest. The Greeks said Aeolus stilled his winds for his daughter's sake.