Classic Poem

Ceyx and Alcyone

 In this meantime the Trachin king sore vexed in his thought
 With signs that both before and since his brother's death were wrought,
For counsel at the sacred spells, which are but toys to food
Fond fancies, and not counsellors in peril to do good,
Did make him ready to the God of Claros for to go.
For heathenish Phorbas and the folk of Phlegia had as tho
The way to Delphos stopped, that none could travel to or fro.
And ere he on his journey went, he made his faithful make,
Alcyone, privy to the thing. Immediately there struck
A chillness to her very bones, and pale was all her face
Like box, and down her heavy cheeks the tears did gush apace.
Three times about to speak, three times she washed her face with tears,
And stinting oft with sobs she thus complained in his ears:
 ‘What fault of mine, O husband dear, hath turned thy heart fro me?
 Where is that care of me that erst was wont to be in thee?
And canst thou, having left thy dear Alcyone, merry be?
Do journeys long delight thee now? Doth now mine absence please
Thee better than my presence doth? Think I that thou at ease
Shalt go by land? Shall I have cause but only for to mourn
And not to be afraid? And shall my care of thy return
Be void of fear? No, no. The sea me sore afraid doth make.
To think upon the sea doth cause my flesh for fear to quake.
I saw the broken ribs of ships alate upon the shore;
And oft on tombs I read their names whose bodies long before
The sea had swallowed. Let not fond vain hope seduce thy mind,
That Aeolus is thy father-in-law who holds the boistous wind
In prison, and can calm the seas at pleasure. When the winds
Are once let loose upon the sea, no order then them binds.
Then neither land hath privilege, nor sea exemption finds.
Yea, even the clouds of heaven they vex, and with their meeting stout
Enforce the fire with hideous noise to burst in flashes out.
The more that I do know them, for right well I know their power,
And saw them oft, a little wench, within my father's bower,
So much the more I think them to be feared. But if thy will
By no entreatance may be turned at home to tarry still,
But that thou needs wilt go, then me, dear husband, with thee take.
So shall the sea us equally together toss and shake.
So worser than I feel I shall be certain not to fear.
So shall we whatsoever haps together jointly bear.
So shall we on the broad main sea, together jointly sail.’
 These words and tears wherewith the imp of Aeolus did assail
 Her husband born of heavenly race, did make his heart relent,
For he loved her no less than she loved him. But fully bent
He seemed, neither for to leave the journey which he meant
To take by sea, nor yet to give Alcyone leave as tho
Companion of his parlous course by water for to go.
He many words of comfort spake her fear away to chase,
But nought he could persuade therein to make her like the case.
This last assuagement of her grief he added in the end,
Which was the only thing that made her loving heart to bend:
‘All tarriance will assuredly seem overlong to me;
And by my father's blazing beams I make my vow to thee
That at the furthest ere the time, if God thereto agree,
The moon do fill her circle twice, again I will here be.’
When in some hope of his return this promise had her set,
He willed a ship immediately from harbour to be fet,
And throughly rigged for to be that neither mast nor sail
Nor tackling, no, nor other thing should appertaining fail.
Which when Alcyone did behold, as one whose heart misgave
The haps at hand, she quaked again, and tears outgushing drave.
And straining Ceyx in her arms with pale and piteous look,
Poor wretched soul, her last farewell at length she sadly took,
And swounded flat upon the ground. Anon the watermen,
As Ceyx sought delays and was in doubt to turn again,
Set hand to oars, of which there were two rows on either side,
And all at once with equal stroke the swelling sea divide.
She lifting up her watery eyes beheld her husband stand
Upon the hatches, making signs by beckoning with his hand,
And she made signs to him again. And after that the land
Was far removed from the ship, and that the sight began
To be unable to discern the face of any man,
As long as e'er she could she looked upon the rowing keel,
And when she could no longer time for distance ken it well,
She looked still upon the sails that flasked with the wind
Upon the mast. And when she could the sails no longer find
She gat her to her empty bed with sad and sorry heart,
And laid her down. The chamber did renew afresh her smart,
And of her bed did bring to mind the dear departed part.
 From harbour now they quite were gone, and now a pleasant gale
 Did blow. The master made his men their oars aside to hale
And hoisted up the topsail on the highest of the mast,
And clapped on all his other sails because no wind should waste.
Scarce full th' one half, or sure not much above, the ship had run
Upon the sea, and every way the land did far them shun,
When toward night the wallowing waves began to waxen white,
And eke the heady eastern wind did blow with greater might.
Anon the master cried, ‘Strike the topsail, let the main
Sheet fly and fardel it to the yard.’ Thus spake he, but in vain;
For why, so hideous was the storm upon the sudden braid
That not a man was able there to hear what other said.
And loud the sea with meeting waves extremely raging roars.
Yet fell they to it of themselves. Some haled aside the oars,
Some fenced in the galley's sides, some down the sailcloths rend,
Some pump the water out, and sea to sea again do send.
Another hales the sailyards down. And while they did each thing
Disorderly, the storm increased, and from each quarter fling
The winds with deadly feud, and bounce the raging waves together.
The pilot being sore dismayed saith plain he knows not whither
To wend himself, nor what to do or bid, nor in what state
Things stood; so huge the mischief was, and did so overmate
All art. For why, of rattling ropes, of crying men and boys,
Of flushing waves and thundering air, confused was the noise.
The surges mounting up aloft did seem to mate the sky,
And with their sprinkling for to wet the clouds that hang on high.
One while the sea, when from the brink it raised the yellow sand,
Was like in colour to the same. Another while did stand
A colour on it blacker than the Lake of Styx. Anon
It lieth plain and loometh white with seething froth thereon;
And with the sea the Trachin ship aye alteration took.
One while as from a mountain's top it seemed down to look
To valleys and the depth of hell. Another while beset
With swelling surges round about which ne'er above it met,
It looked from the bottom of the whirlpool up aloft
As if it were from hell to heaven. A hideous flushing oft
The waves did make in beating full against the galley's side.
The galley being stricken gave as great a sound that tide,
As did sometime the battle-ram of steel, or now the gun
In making battery to a tower. And as fierce lions run
Full breast with all their force against the armed men that stand
In order bent to keep them off with weapons in their hand;
Even so as often as the waves by force of wind did rave,
So oft upon the netting of the ship they mainly drave,
And mounted far above the same. Anon off fell the hoops,
And having washed the pitch away, the sea made open loops
To let the deadly water in. Behold, the clouds did melt,
And showers large came pouring down. The seamen that them felt
Might think that all the heaven had fallen upon them that same time,
And that the swelling sea likewise above the heaven would climb.
The sails were throughly wet with showers, and with the heavenly rain
Was mixed the waters of the sea. No lights at all remain
Of sun or moon or stars in heaven. The darkness of the night
Augmented with the dreadful storm takes double power and might.
Howbeit, the flashing lightnings oft do put the same to flight,
And with their glancing now and then do give a sudden light.
The lightning sets the waves on fire. Above the netting skip
The waves, and with a violent force do light within the ship;
And as a soldier stouter than the rest of all his band
That oft assails a city's walls defended well by hand,
At length attains his hope, and for to purchase praise withal
Alone among a thousand men gets up upon the wall;
So when the lofty waves had long the galley's sides assayed,
At length the tenth wave rising up with huger force and braid,
Did never cease assaulting of the weary ship till that
Upon the hatches like a foe victoriously it gat.
A part thereof did still as yet assault the ship without,
And part had gotten in. The men all trembling ran about,
As in a city comes to pass when of the enemies some
Did down the walls without, and some already in are come.
All art and cunning was to seek. Their hearts and stomachs fail;
And look how many surges came their vessel to assail,
So many deaths did seem to charge and break upon them all.
One weeps, another stands amazed, the third them blessed doth call
Whom burial doth remain. To God another makes his vow,
And holding up his hands to heaven the which he sees not now
Doth pray in vain for help. The thought of this man is upon
His brother and his parents whom he clearly hath forgone.
Another calls his house and wife and children unto mind,
And every man in general the things he left behind.
Alcyone moveth Ceyx' heart. In Ceyx' mouth is none
But only one Alcyone. And though she were alone
The wight that he desired most, yet was he very glad
She was not there. To Trachinward to look desire he had
And homeward fain he would have turned his eyes which nevermore
Should see the land, but then he knew not which way was the shore
Nor where he was. The raging sea did roll about so fast,
And all the heaven with clouds as black as pitch was overcast
That never night was half so dark. There came a flaw at last
That with his violence broke the mast and struck the stern away.
A billow proudly pranking up as vaunting of his prey
By conquest gotten, walloweth whole and breaketh not asunder,
Beholding with a lofty look the water working under.
And look, as if a man should from the places where they grow
Rend down the mountains Athe and Pind, and whole them overthrow
Into the open sea, so soft the billow tumbling down
With weight and violent stroke did sink and in the bottom drown
The galley. And the most of them that were within the same
Went down therewith, and never up to open aier came,
But died strangled in the gulf. Another sort again
Caught pieces of the broken ship. The king himself was fain
A shiver of the sunken ship in that same hand to hold
In which he erst a royal mace had held of yellow gold.
His father and his father-in-law he calls upon (alas,
In vain!), but chiefly in his mouth his wife Alcyone was,
In heart was she, in tongue was she. He wished that his corse
To land where she might take it up the surges might enforce,
And that by her most loving hands he might be laid in grave.
In swimming still, as often as the surges leave him gave
To ope his lips, he harped still upon Alcyone's name,
And when he drowned in the waves he muttered still the same.
Behold, even full upon the wave a flake of water black
Did break, and underneath the sea the head of Ceyx strack.
That night the lightsome Lucifer for sorrow was so dim
As scarcely could a man discern or think it to be him.
And forasmuch as out of heaven he might not step aside,
With thick and darksome clouds that night his countenance he did hide.
 Alcyone of so great mischance not knowing aught as yet
 Did keep a reckoning of the nights that in the while did flit,
And hasted grments both for him and for herself likewise
To wear at his homecoming which she vainly did surmise.
To all the gods devoutly she did offer frankincense,
But most above them all the church of Juno she did cense.
And for her husband, who as then was none, she kneeled before
The altar, wishing health and soon arrival at the shore,
And that none other woman might before her be preferred.
Of all her prayers this one piece effectually was heard.
For Juno could not find in heart entreated for to be
For him that was already dead; but to th'intent that she
From dame Alcyone's deadly hands might keep her altars free,
She said: ‘Most faithful messenger of my commandments, O
Thou rainbow, to the sluggish House of Slumber swiftly go,
And bid him send a dream in shape of Ceyx to his wife
Alcyone, for to show her plain the losing of his life.’
Dame Iris takes her pall wherein a thousand colours were,
And bowing like a stringed bow upon a cloudy sphere
Immediately descended to the drowsy House of Sleep
Whose courts the clouds continually do closely overdreep.
 Among the dark Cimmerians is a hollow mountain found
 And in the hill a cave that far doth run within the ground,
The chamber and the dwelling-place where slothful Sleep doth couch.
The light of Phoebus' golden beams this place can never touch.
A foggy mist with dimness mixed streams upward from the ground,
And glimmering twilight evermore within the same is found.
No watchful bird with barbed bill and combed crown doth call
The morning forth with crowing out. There is no noise at all
Of waking dog, nor gaggling goose more waker than the hound,
To hinder sleep; of beast nor wild nor tame there is no sound.
No boughs are stirred with blasts of wind, no noise of tattling tongue
Of man or woman ever yet within that bower rung.
Dumb quiet dwelleth there. Yet from the roche's foot doth go
The river of forgetfulness, which runneth trickling so
Upon the little pebble stones which in the channel lie
That unto sleep a great deal more it doth provoke thereby.
Before the entry of the cave there grows of poppy store,
With seeded heads, and other weeds innumerable more,
Out of the milky juice of which the night doth gather sleeps,
And over all the shadowed earth with dankish dew them dreeps.
Because the creaking hinges of the door no noise should make,
There is no door in all the house, nor porter at the gate.
Amid the cave, of ebony a bedstead standeth high,
And on the same a bed of down with coverings black doth lie,
In which the drowsy God of Sleep his lither limbs doth rest.
About him, forging sundry shapes as many dreams lie prest
As ears of corn do stand in fields in harvest time, or leaves
Do grow on trees, or sea to shore of sandy cinder heaves.
As soon as Iris came within this house, and with her hand
Had put aside the dazzling dreams that in her way did stand,
The brightness of her robe through all the sacred house did shine.
The God of Sleep scarce able for to raise his heavy eyen,
A three or four times at the least did fall again to rest,
And with his nodding head did knock his chin against his breast.
At length he shaking of himself upon his elbow leant,
And though he knew for what she came, he asked her what she meant.
‘O Sleep,’ quoth she, ‘the rest of things, O gentlest of the gods,
Sweet Sleep, the peace of mind, with whom crook'd care is aye at odds,
Which cherishest men's weary limbs appalled with toiling sore,
And makest them as fresh to work and lusty as before,
Command a dream that in their kinds can everything express,
To Trachin, Hercles' town, himself this instant to address,
And let him lively counterfeit to Queen Alcyone
The image of her husband who is drowned in the sea
By shipwreck. Juno willeth so.’ Her message being told,
Dame Iris went her way; she could her eyes no longer hold
From sleep, but when she felt it come she fled that instant time,
And by the bow that brought her down to heaven again did climb.
 Among a thousand sons and more that father Slumber had,
 He called up Morph, the feigner of man's shape, a crafty lad.
None other could so cunningly express man's very face,
His gesture and his sound of voice, and manner of his pace,
Together with his wonted weed, and wonted phrase of talk;
But this same Morphy only in the shape of man doth walk.
There is another who the shapes of beast or bird doth take,
Or else appeareth unto men in likeness of a snake;
The gods do call him Icilos, and mortal folk him name
Phobetor. There is also yet a third who from these same
Works diversely, and Phantasos he highteth; into streams
This turns himself, and into stones, and earth, and timber beams,
And into every other thing that wanteth life. These three
Great kings and captains in the night are wonted for to see;
The meaner and inferior sort of others haunted be.
Sir Slumber overpassed the rest, and of the brothers all
To do dame Iris' message he did only Morphy call;
Which done, he waxing luskish straight laid down his drowsy head
And softly shrunk his lazy limbs within his sluggish bed.
 Away flew Morphy through the air—no flickering made his wings—
 And came anon to Trachin; there his feathers off he flings
And in the shape of Ceyx stands before Alcyone's bed,
Pale, wan, stark naked, and like a man that was but lately dead.
His beard seemed wet, and of his head the hair was dropping dry,
And leaning on her bed, with tears he seemed thus to cry:
‘Most wretched woman, knowest thou thy loving Ceyx now?
Or is my face by death disformed? Behold me well, and thou
Shalt know me; for thy husband thou thy husband's ghost shalt see.
No good thy prayers and thy vows have done at all to me,
For I am dead; in vain of my return no reckoning make.
The cloudy south amid the sea our ship did tardy take
And tossing it with violent blasts asunder did it shake,
And floods have filled my mouth which called in vain upon thy name.
No person whom thou may'st misdeem brings tidings of the same,
Thou hearest not thereof by false report of flying fame,
But I myself: I presently my shipwreck to thee show.
Arise therefore, and woeful tears upon thy spouse bestow,
Put mourning raiment on, and let me not to Limbo go
Unmourned for.’ In showing of this shipwreck Morphy so
Did feign the voice of Ceyx that she could none other deem
But that it should be his indeed. Moreover, he did seem
To weep in earnest, and his hands the very gesture had
Of Ceyx. Queen Alcyone did groan, and being sad
Did stir her arms, and thrust them forth his body to embrace.
Instead whereof she caught but air. The tears ran down her face.
She cried, ‘Tarry. Whither fliest? Together let us go.’
And all this while she was asleep. Both with her crying so
And flaighted with the image of her husband's ghastly sprite,
She started up, and sought about if find him there she might
(For why, her grooms awaking with the shriek had brought a light).
And when she nowhere could him find, she gan her face to smite,
And tore her nightclothes from her breast, and struck it fiercely, and
Not passing to untie her hair she rent it with her hand.
And when her nurse of this her grief desired to understand
The cause: ‘Alcyone is undone, undone and cast away
With Ceyx her dear spouse,’ she said. ‘Leave comforting, I pray.
By shipwreck he is perished, I have seen him, and I knew
His hands. When in departing I to hold him did pursue,
I caught a ghost, but such a ghost as well discern I might
To be my husband's. Natheless he had not to my sight
His wonted countenance, neither did his visage shine so bright
As heretofore it had been wont. I saw him, wretched wight,
Stark naked, pale, and with his hair still wet; even very here
I saw him stand.’ With that she looks if any print appear
Of footing whereas he did stand upon the floor behind.
‘This, this is it that I did fear in far forecasting mind
When fleeing me I thee desired thou shouldst not trust the wind,
But sith thou wentest to thy death, I would that I had gone
With thee. Ah, meet, it meet had been thou shouldst not go alone
Without me! So it should have come to pass that neither I
Had overlived thee, nor yet been forced twice to die.
Already absent in the waves now tossed have I be,
Already have I perished. And yet the sea hath thee
Without me. But the cruelness were greater far of me
Than of the sea if after thy decease I still would strive
In sorrow and in anguish still to pine away alive.
But neither will I strive in care to lengthen still my life,
Nor, wretched wight, abandon thee, but like a faithful wife
At leastwise now will come as thy companion. And the hearse
Shall join us though not in the selfsame coffin, yet in verse.
Although in tomb the bones of us together may not couch,
Yet in a graven epitaph my name thy name shall touch.’
Her sorrow would not suffer her to utter any more;
She sobbed and sighed at every word until her heart was sore.
 The morning came, and out she went right pensive to the shore
 To that same place in which she took her leave of him before.
While there she musing stood, and said: ‘He kissed me even here,
Here weighed he his anchors up, here loosed he from the pier,’
And while she called to mind the things there marked with her eyes,
In looking on the open sea, a great way off she spies
A certain thing much like a corse come hovering on the wave.
At first she doubted what it was. As tide it nearer drave,
Although it were a good way off, yet did it plainly show
To be a corse. And though that whose it was she did not know,
Yet for because it seemed a wreck, her heart thereat did rise;
And as it had some stranger been, with water in her eyes
She said: ‘Alas, poor wretch, whoe'er thou art, alas for her
That is thy wife, if any be!’ And as the waves did stir,
The body floated nearer land, the which the more that she
Beheld, the less began in her of stayed wit to be.
Anon it did arrive to shore. Then plainly she did see
And know it that it was her fere. She shrieked, ‘It is he.’
And therewithal her face, her hair, and garments she did tear,
And unto Ceyx stretching out her trembling hands with fear,
Said: ‘Com'st thou home in such a plight to me, O husband dear?
Return'st in such a wretched plight?’ There was a certain pier
That builded was by hand, of waves the first assaults to break,
And at the haven's mouth to cause the tide to enter weak.
She leapt thereon—a wonder sure it was she could do so—
She flew, and with her new-grown wings did beat the air as tho.
And on the waves a wretched bird she whisked to and fro,
And with her croaking neb then grown to slender bill and round,
Like one that wailed and mourned still she made a moaning sound.
Howbeit, as soon as she did touch his dumb and bloodless flesh,
And had embraced his loved limbs with wings made new and fresh,
And with her hardened neb had kissed him coldly though in vain,
Folk doubt if Ceyx feeling it to raise his head did strain,
Or whether that the waves did lift it up. But surely he
It felt: and through compassion of the gods both he and she
Were turned to birds. The love of them eke subject to their fate
Continued after; neither did the faithful bond abate
Of wedlock in them being birds, but stands in steadfast state.
They tread, and lay, and bring forth young, and now the halcyon sits
In wintertime upon her nest, which on the water flits
A sevennight, during all which time the sea is calm and still,
And every man may to and fro sail safely at his will,
For Aeolus for his offspring's sake the winds at home doth keep,
And will not let them go abroad for troubling of the deep.