Ceyx

Half-divine son of Eosphorus the morning star by an unnamed mortal mother; king of Trachis; husband of Alcyone daughter of Aeolus. The Ovidian Metamorphoses 11.410-748 supplies the major narrative — the storm-death en route to the oracle, Alcyone's dream of the drowning sent by Hera through Morpheus, the suicide-and-transformation that produces the halcyon-pair. The "halcyon days" (seven calm winter days when Alcyone broods her nest on the sea, kept windless by her father Aeolus) survive as the post-classical idiom for tranquil periods. The Apollodoran variant has the bird-transformation trigger as divine punishment for the couple's "Zeus and Hera" presumption rather than the post-mortem-pity reunion. Distinct from the other Ceyx figures in Greek myth (the Aetolian king Ceyx host of Heracles's sons, etc.).

Parentage

• Eosphorus

Domains

• kingship of trachis
• halcyon metamorphosis

Powers

• Be transformed with Alcyone into the halcyon birds

Relations

• host: Heracles

Sources

• Hesiod Catalogue of Women fr. 84; Apollodorus 1.7.4, 2.7.6; Sophocles Trachiniae (passim, set at his court); Ovid Metamorphoses 11.410-748 (the major narrative); Hyginus Fabulae 65; Aristotle Historia Animalium 5.8 (on the halcyon-days meteorology); Pliny Natural History 10.47
• Apollod. 1.7.4; Hes. cat. fr. 84