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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.
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.
An allusion to Hyacinthus will also be recognized in Milton's Lycidas: "Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe." Ceyx was King of Thessaly, where he reigned in peace without violence or wrong. He was son of Hesperus, the Day-star, and the glow of his beauty reminded one of his father. Halcyone, the daughter of Aeolus, was his wife, and devotedly attached to him.
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.
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.
The genera Ceyx among Kingfishers, Criniger among Thrushes, Rhipidura among Flycatchers, Calornis among Starlings, and Erythrura among Finches, are all found in the Moluccas as well as in Borneo and Java but not a single species belonging to any one of them is found in Celebes.
When Halcyone saw these preparations she shuddered, as if with a presentiment of evil. With tears and sobs she said farewell, and then fell senseless to the ground. Ceyx would still have lingered, but now the young men grasped their oars and pulled vigorously through the waves, with long and measured strokes.
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.
An allusion to Hyacinthus will also be recognized in Milton's "Lycidas": "Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe." Ceyx was king of Thessaly, where he reigned in peace, without violence or wrong. He was son of Hesperus, the Day-star, and the glow of his beauty reminded one of his father. Halcyone, the daughter of Aeolus, was his wife, and devotedly attached to him.
"Peaceable and plentiful is the land," he said, "and all who come here may have peace and a chance to earn their food. Live where you will, O stranger, and take the unfurrowed fields by the seashore for pasture for your cattle." Peace came into Peleus's heart as he looked into the untroubled face of Ceyx, and as he looked over the bright valleys of the land he had come into.
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