Alcyone. In Greek mythology, Alcyone or Alkyone was a Thessalian princess and later on queen of Trachis. Alcyone was the daughter of King Aeolus of Aeolia, either by Enarete or Aegiale. She married Ceyx, son of Eosphorus. Alcyone and Ceyx were very happy together in Trachis, and according to Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, often sacrilegiously called each other Zeus and Hera. This angered Zeus, so while Ceyx was at sea, the god threw a thunderbolt at his ship. Soon after, Morpheus disguised as Ceyx appeared to Alcyone as an apparition to tell her of his fate, and she threw herself into the sea in her grief. Out of compassion, the gods changed them both into common kingfishers, or halcyon birds, named after her. 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 as a reason for it. On the contrary, it is mentioned that being 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 up onshore before her attempted suicide. The myth is also briefly referred to by Virgil, again without reference to Zeus's anger. Ovid and Hyginus both also make the metamorphosis the origin of the etymology for halcyon days, the seven days in winter when storms never occur. They state that these were originally the 14 days each year during which Alcyone 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. The phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time. Its proper meaning, however, is that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity; just as the days of calm and mild weather are set in the height of winter for the sake of the kingfishers' egglaying. The English poet Robert Graves, in his The Greek Myths, explained the origin of Alcyone's myth as follows: The legend of the halcyon's, or kingfisher's, nest can refer only to the birth of the new sacred king at the winter solstice, after the queen who represents his mother, the Moon-goddess, has conveyed the old king's corpse to a sepulchral island. But because the winter solstice does not always coincide with the same phase of the moon, every year' must be understood as every Great Year', of one hundred lunations, in the last of which solar and lunar time were roughly synchronized, and the sacred king's term ended. Homer connects the halcyon with Alcyone, a title of Meleager's wife Cleopatra, and with a daughter of Aeolus, guardian of the winds. Halcyon cannot therefore mean halcyon, sea-hound', as is usually supposed, but must stand for alcy-one, the queen who wards off evil'. This derivation is confirmed by the myth of Alcyone and Ceyx, and the manner of their punishment by Zeus and Hera. The seamew part of the legend need not be pressed, although this bird, which has a plaintive cry, was sacred to the Sea-goddess Aphrodite, or Leucothea, like the halcyon of Cyprus. It seems that late in the second millennium BC the sea-faring Aeolians, who had agreed to worship the pre-Hellenic Moon-goddess as their divine ancestress and protectress, became tributary to the Zeus-worshiping Achaeans, and were forced to accept the Olympian religion. Zeus', which according to Johannes Tzetzes, hitherto been a title born by petty kings, was henceforth reserved for the Father of Heaven alone. But in Crete, the ancient mystical tradition that Zeus was born and died annually lingered on into Christian times, and tombs of Zeus were shown at Cnossus, on Mount Ida, and on Mount Dicte, each a different cult-centre. Callimachus was scandalized, and in his Hymn to Zeus wrote: The Cretans are always liars. They have even built thy tomb, O Lord! But thou art not dead, for thou livest for ever.' This is quoted in Titus. Pliny, who describes the halcyon's alleged nest in detail, apparently the zoophyte called halcyoneum by Linnaeus, reports that the halcyon is rarely seen, and then only at the two solstices and at the setting of the Pleiades. This proves her to have originally been a manifestation of the Moon-goddess, who was alternately the Goddess of Life-in-Death at the winter solstice, and of Death-in-Life at the summer solstice; and who, every Great Year, early in November, when the Pleiades set, sent the sacred king his death summons. Still another Alcyone, daughter of Pleione by Atlas, was the leader of the seven Pleiades.
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