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, inquired her errand, for he knew who she was. She answered, "Somnus, gentlest of the gods, tranquillizer of minds and soother of careworn hearts, Juno sends you her commands that you dispatch a dream to Halcyone, in the city of Trachinae, 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 at 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 genuine 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, that 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. "Here he lingered and cast off his tacklings and gave me his last kiss." While she reviews every moment, 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 shipwrecked 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 not life, Yet feebly seems to menace strife, Flung by the tossing tide on high,.
Then levelled with the wave "
Milton, in his Hymn for 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."
