Гректің ежелгі мифтері: Алкиона мен Кейкс трагедиясы

Ancient Greek mythological figures

In Greek mythology, Alcyone (or dubiously Halcyone) (/æ//l/'/s//aɪ//ə/,/n//i//, //h//æ//l/'/s//aɪ//ə/,/n//i/; Ἀλκυόνη) and Ceyx ('/s//iː//ɪ//k//s/; Κήϋξ) were a wife and husband who incurred the wrath of the god Zeus for their romantic hubris.

Alkyóne comes from alkyón (ἀλκυών), which refers to a sea bird with a mournful song or to a kingfisher bird in particular. The meaning(s) of the words is uncertain because alkyón is considered to be of pre Greek, non Indo European origin. However, folk etymology related them to the háls (ἅλς, "brine, sea, salt") and kyéo (κυέω, "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 (ἁλκυών) and Halkyóne (Ἁλκυόνη), and thus the name of one of the kingfisher bird genus' in English Halcyon. It is also speculated that Alkyóne is derived from alké (ἀλκή, "prowess, battle, guard") and onéo (ὀνέω, from ὀνίνεμι, onínemi, "to help, to please"). Kéyx as referring to a sea bird appears to be related to kaúax (καύαξ), which is a ravenous sea bird (λάρος, láros). These suggest that Kéyx may have been turned into either a sea mew or a tern.

Alcyone was a Thessalian princess, the daughter of King Aeolus of Aeolia, either by Enarete or Aegiale. The couple were very happy together in Trachis. According to Pseudo Apollodorus's account, this couple often sacrilegiously called each other "Zeus" and "Hera". 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 and Hyginus 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. 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. Virgil in the Georgics also alludes to the myth again without reference to Zeus's anger. 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).

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) 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. Aeolus controls the wind and the bird couple can nurture their young nestlings. In Latin it occurs as alcyonides dies in Pliny the Elder, alcyonei ( nĭī) diēs in Columella and Varro, alcyonia in Hyginus, and alcedonia in Plautus and Frontinus.