longer distinguish his form from the rest. When the vessel itself could no more be
seen, she strained her eyes to catch the last glimmer of the sail, till that too
disappeared. Then, retiring to her chamber, she threw herself on her solitary couch.
Meanwhile they glide out of the harbor, and the breeze plays among the ropes. The
seamen draw in their oars, and hoist their sails. When half or less of their course was
passed, as night drew on, the sea began to whiten with swelling waves, and the east
wind to blow a gale. The master gave the word to take in sail, but the storm forbade
obedience, for such is the roar of the winds and waves his orders are unheard. The
men, of their own accord, busy themselves to secure the oars, to strengthen the ship,
to reef the sail. While they thus do what to each one seems best, the storm increases.
The shouting of the men, the rattling of the shrouds, and the dashing of the waves,
mingle with the roar of the thunder. The swelling sea seems lifted up to the heavens, to
scatter its foam among the clouds; then sinking away to the bottom assumes the color
of the shoal, - a Stygian blackness.
The vessel shares all these changes. It seems like a wild beast that rushes on
the spears of the hunters. Rain falls in torrents, as if the skies were coming down to
unite with the sea. When the lightning ceases for a moment, the night seems to add
its own darkness to that of the storm; then comes the flash, rending the darkness
asunder, and lighting up all with a glare. Skill fails, courage sinks, and death seems to
come on every wave. The men are stupefied with terror. The thought of parents, and
kindred, and pledges left at home, comes over their minds Ceyx thinks of Halcyone.
No name but hers is on his lips, and while he yearns for her, he yet rejoices in her
absence. Presently the mast is shattered by a stroke of lightning, the rudder broken,
and the triumphant surge curling over looks down upon the wreck, then falls, and
crushes it to fragments. Some of the seamen, stunned by the stroke, sink, and rise no
more; others cling to fragments of the wreck. Ceyx, with the hand that used to grasp
the sceptre, holds fast to a plank, calling for help, - alas, in vain, - upon his father and
his father- in-law. But oftenest on his lips was the name of Halcyone. To her his
thoughts cling. He prays that the waves may bear his body to her sight, and that it
may receive burial at her hands. At length the waters overwhelm him, and he sinks.
The Day-star looked dim that night. Since it could not leave the heavens, it shrouded
its face with clouds.
In the meanwhile Halcyone, ignorant of all these horrors, counted the days till her
husband's promised return. Now she gets ready the garments which he shall put on,
and now what she shall wear when he arrives. To all the gods she offers frequent
incense, but more than all to Juno. For her husband, who was no more, she prayed
incessantly; that he might be safe; that he might come home; that he might not, in his
absence, see any one that he would love better than her. But of all these prayers, the
last was the only one destined to be granted. The goddess, at length, could not bear
any longer to be pleaded with for one already dead, and to have hands raised to her
altars, that ought rather to be offering funeral rites. So, calling Iris, she said, "Iris, my
faithful messenger, go to the drowsy dwelling of Somnus, and tell him to send a vision
to Halcyone, in the form of Ceyx, to make known to her the event."
Iris puts on her robe of many colors, and tinging the sky with her bow, seeks the
palace of the King of Sleep Near the Cimmerian country, a mountain cave is the abode
of the dull god, Somnus. Here Phoebus dares not come, either rising, at midday or
setting. Clouds and shadows are exhaled from the ground, and the light glimmers
faintly. The bird of dawning, with crested head, never there calls aloud to Aurora, nor
watchful dog, nor more sagacious goose disturbs the silence. No wild beast, nor
cattle, nor branch moved with the wind, nor sound of human conversation, breaks the
stillness. Silence reigns there; but from the bottom of the rock the River Lethe flows,
and by its murmur invites to sleep. Poppies grow abundantly before the door of the
cave, and other herbs, from whose juices Night collects slumbers, which she scatters
over the darkened earth. There is no gate to the mansion, to creak on its hinges, nor
any watchman; but in the midst, a couch of black ebony, adorned with black plumes
and black curtains. There the god reclines, his limbs relaxed with sleep. Around him
lie dreams, resembling all various forms, as many as the harvest bears stalks, or the
forest leaves, or the seashore sandgrains.
As soon as the goddess entered and brushed away the dreams that hovered
around her, her brightness lit up all the cave. The god, scarce opening his eyes, and
ever and anon dropping his beard upon his breast, at last shook himself free from
himself, and leaning on his arm, enquired her errand, - for he knew who she was. She
answered, "Somnus, gentlest of the gods, tranquillizer of minds and soother of care-
worn hearts, Juno sends you her commands that you despatch a dream to Halcyone,
in the city of Trachine, representing her lost husband and all the events of the wreck."
Having delivered her message, Iris hasted away, for she could not longer endure
the stagnant air, and as she felt drowsiness creeping over her, she made her escape,
and returned by her bow the way she came. Then Somnus called one of his
numerous sons, - Morpheus, - the most expert in counterfeiting forms, and in imitating
the walk, the countenance, and mode of speaking, even the clothes and attitudes most
characteristic of each. But he only imitates men, leaving it to another to personate
birds, beasts, and serpents. Him they call Icelos; and Phantasos is a third, who turns
himself into rocks, waters, woods, and other things without life. These wait upon kings
and great personages in their sleeping hours, while others move among the common
people. Somnus chose, from all the brothers, Morpheus, to perform the command of
Iris; then laid his head on his pillow and yielded himself to grateful repose.
Morpheus flew, making no noise with his wings, and soon came to the
Haemonian city, where, laying aside his wings, he assumed the form of Ceyx. Under
that form, but pale like a dead man, naked, he stood before the couch of the wretched
wife. His beard seemed soaked with water, and water trickled from his drowned locks.
Leaning over the bed, tears streaming from his eyes, he said, "Do you recognize your
Ceyx, unhappy wife, or has death too much changed my visage? Behold me, know
me, your husband's shade, instead of himself. Your prayers, Halcyone, availed me
nothing. I am dead. No more deceive yourself with vain hopes of my return. The
stormy winds sunk my ship in the Aegean Sea, waves filled my mouth while it called
aloud on you. No uncertain messenger tells you this, no vague rumor brings it to your
ears. I come in person, a shipwrecked man, to tell you my fate Arise! give me tears,
give me lamentations, let me not go down to Tartarus unwept." To these words
Morpheus added the voice which seemed to be that of her husband he seemed to
pour forth g
enuine tears; his hands had the gestures of Ceyx.
Halcyone, weeping, groaned, and stretched out her arms in her sleep, striving to
embrace his body, but grasping only the air. "Stay!" she cried; "whither do you fly? let
us go together." Her own voice awakened her Starting up, she gazed eagerly around,
to see if he was still present, for the servants, alarmed by her cries, had brought a
light. When she found him not, she smote her breast and rent her garments. She
cares not to unbind her hair, but tears it wildly. Her nurse asks what is the cause of
her grief. "Halcyone is no more," she answers, "she perished with her Ceyx. Utter not
words of comfort, he is shipwrecked and dead. I have seen him, I have recognized
him. I stretched out my hands to seize him and detain him. His shade vanished, but it
was the true shade of my husband. Not with the accustomed features, not with the
beauty that was his, but pale, naked, and with his hair wet with sea-water, he
appeared to wretched me. Here, in this very spot, the sad vision stood," - and she
looked to find the mark of his footsteps. "This it was, this that my presaging mind
foreboded, when I implored him not to leave me, to trust himself to the waves. O, how
I wish, since thou wouldst go, thou hadst taken me with thee! It would have been far
better. Then I should have had no remnant of life to spend without thee, nor a
separate death to die. If I could bear to live and struggle to endure, I should be more
cruel to myself than the sea has been to me. But I will not struggle, I will not be
separated from thee, unhappy husband. This time, at least, I will keep thee company.
In death, if one tomb may not include us, one epitaph shall; if I may not lay my ashes
with thine, my name, at least, shall not be separated." Her grief forbade more words,
and these were broken with tears and sobs.
It was now morning. She went to the sea shore, and sought the spot where she
last saw him, on his departure. "While he lingered here, and cast off his tacklings, he
gave me his last kiss." While she reviews every object, and strives to recall every
incident, looking out over the sea, she descries an indistinct object floating in the
water. At first she was in doubt what it was, but by degrees the waves bore it nearer,
and it was plainly the body of a man. Though unknowing of whom, yet, as it was of
some ship-wrecked one, she was deeply moved, and gave it her tears, saying, "Alas!
unhappy one, and unhappy, if such there be, thy wife!" Borne by the waves, it came
nearer. As she more and more nearly views it, she trembles more and more. Now,
now it approaches the shore. Now marks that she recognizes appear. It is her
husband! Stretching out her trembling hands towards it, she exclaims, "O, dearest
husband, is it thus you return to me?"
There was built out from the shore a mole, constructed to break the assaults of
the sea, and stem its violent ingress. She leaped upon this barrier and (it was
wonderful she could do so,) she flew, and striking the air with wings produced on the
instant, skimmed along the surface of the water, an unhappy bird. As she flew, her
throat poured forth sounds full of grief, and like the voice of one lamenting. When she
touched the mute and bloodless body, she enfolded its beloved limbs with her new-
formed wings, and tried to give kisses with her horny beak. Whether Ceyx felt it, or
whether it was only the action of the waves, those who looked on doubted, but the
body seemed to raise its head. But indeed he did feel it, and by the pitying gods both
of them were changed into birds. They mate and have their young ones. For seven
placid days, in winter time, Halcyone broods over her nest, which floats upon the sea.
Then the way is safe to seamen. Aeolus guards the winds and keeps them from
disturbing the deep. The sea is given up, for the time, to his grandchildren.
The following lines from Byron's Bride of Abydos might seem borrowed from the
concluding part of this description, if it were not stated that the author derived the
suggestion from observing the motion of a floating corpse.
"As shaken on his restless pillow,
His head heaves with the heaving billow;
That hand, whose motion is nor life,
Yet feebly seems to menace strife,
Flung by the tossing tide on high,
Then levelled with the wave - "
Milton in his Hymn to the Nativity thus alludes to the fable of the Halcyon: -
"But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of light
His reign of peace upon the earth began;
The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kist
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave
Keats also in Endymion says, -
'O magic sleep! O comfortable bird
That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hushed and smooth."
Chapter X: Vertumnus And Pomona
The Hamadryads were Wood-nymphs. Pomona was of this class, and no one
excelled her in love of the garden and the culture of fruit. She cared not for forests and
rivers, but loved the cultivated country and trees that bear delicious apples. Her right
hand bore for its weapon not a javelin, but a pruning-knife. Armed with this, she
busied herself at one time to repress the too luxuriant growths, and curtail the
branches that straggled out of place; at another, to split the twig and insert therein a
graft, making the branch adopt a nursling not its own. She took care, too, that her
favorites should not suffer from drought, and led streams of water by them that the
thirsty roots might drink. This occupation was her pursuit, her passion; and she was
free from that which Venus inspires. She was not without fear of the country people,
and kept her orchard locked, and allowed not men to enter. The Fauns and Satyrs
would have given all they possessed to win her, and so would old Sylvanus, who looks
young for his years, and Pan, who wears a garland of pine leaves around his head.
But Vertumnus loved her best of all; yet he sped no better than the rest. O, how often,
in the disguise of a reaper, did he bring her corn in a basket, and looked the very
image of a reaper! With a hay band tied round him, one would think he had just come
from turning over the grass. Sometimes he would have an ox-goad in his hand, and
you would have said he had just unyoked his weary oxen. Now he bore a pruning-
hook, and personated a vine-dresser; and again with a ladder on his shoulder, he
seemed as if he was going to gather apples. Sometimes he trudged along as a
discharged soldier, and again he bore a fishing-rod as if going to fish. In this way, he
gained admission to her, again and again, and fed his passion with the sight of her.
One day he came in the guise of an old woman, her gray hair surmounted with a
cap, and a staff in her hand. She entered the garden and admired the fruit. "It does
you credit, my dear," she said, and kissed her, not exactly with an old woman's kiss.
She sat down on a bank, and looked up at the branches laden with fruit which hung
over her. Opposite was an elm entwined with a vine loaded with swelling grapes. She
praised the tree and its associated vin
e, equally. "But," said she, "if the tree stood
alone, and had no vine clinging to it, it would have nothing to attract or offer us but its
useless leaves. And equally the vine, if it were not twined round the elm, would lie
prostrate on the ground. Why will you not take a lesson from the tree and the vine,
and consent to unite yourself with some one? I wish you would. Helen herself had not
more numerous suitors, nor Penelope, the wife of shrewd Ulysses. Even while you
spurn them, they court you, - rural deities and others of every kind that frequent these
mountains. But if you are prudent and want to make a good alliance, and will let an old
woman advise you, - who loves you better than you have any idea of, - dismiss all the
rest and accept Vertumnus, on my recommendation. I know him as well as he knows
himself. He is not a wandering deity, but belongs to these mountains. Nor is he like
too many of the lovers nowadays, who love any one they happen to see; he loves you,
and you only. Add to this, he is young and handsome, and has the art of assuming
any shape he pleases, and can make himself just what you command him. Moreover,
he loves the same things that you do, delights in gardening, and handles your apples
with admiration. But now he cares nothing for fruits, nor flowers, nor any thing else,
but only yourself. Take pity on him, and fancy him speaking now with my mouth.
Remember that the gods punish cruelty, and that Venus hates a hard heart, and will
visit such offences sooner or later. To prove this, let me tell you a story, which is well
known in Cyprus to be a fact; and I hope it will have the effect to make you more
merciful.
"Iphis was a young man of humble parentage, who saw and loved Anaxarete, a
noble lady of the ancient family of Teucer. He struggled long with his passion, but
when he found he could not subdue it, he came a suppliant to her mansion. First he
told his passion to her nurse, and begged her as she loved her foster-child to favor his
suit. And then he tried to win her domestics to his side. Sometimes he committed his
Age of Fable or Beauties of Mythology Page 10