The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ceyx, the son of Lucifer (the Morning Star), and King of Trachin, in Thessaly, was married to Alcyone, daughter to Æolus, god of the winds. Both the husband and the wife loved each other with an entire affection. Dœdalion, the elder brother of Ceyx, whom he succeeded, having been turned into a falcon by Apollo, and Chione, Dœdalion's daughter, slain by Diana, Ceyx prepares a ship to sail to Claros, there to consult the oracle of Apollo, and (as Ovid seems to intimate) to inquire how the anger of the Gods might be atoned.

These prodigies afflict the pious prince;
But, more perplexed with those that happened since,
He purposes to seek the Clarian God,
Avoiding Delphos, his more famed abode;
Since Phlegian robbers made unsafe the road.
Yet could not he from her he loved so well,
The fatal voyage, he resolved, conceal;
But when she saw her lord prepared to part,
A deadly cold ran shivering to her heart;

150

Her faded cheeks are changed to boxen hue,
And in her eyes the tears are ever new;
She thrice essayed to speak; her accents hung,
And, faltering, died unfinished on her tongue,
Or vanished into sighs; with long delay
Her voice returned; and found the wonted way.
“Tell me, my lord,” she said, “what fault unknown
Thy once beloved Alcyone has done?
Whither, ah whither is thy kindness gone!
Can Ceyx then sustain to leave his wife,
And unconcerned forsake the sweets of life?
What can thy mind to this long journey move,
Or need'st thou absence to renew thy love?
Yet, if thou goest by land, though grief possess
My soul even then, my fears will be the less.
But ah! be warned to shun the watery way,
The face is frightful of the stormy sea.
For late I saw adrift disjointed planks,
And empty tombs erected on the banks.
Nor let false hopes to trust betray thy mind,
Because my sire in caves constrains the wind,
Can with a breath their clamorous rage appease,
They fear his whistle, and forsake the seas:
Not so; for, once indulged, they sweep the main,
Deaf to the call, or, hearing, hear in vain;
But bent on mischief, bear the waves before,
And, not content with seas, insult the shore;
When ocean, air, and earth, at once engage,
And rooted forests fly before their rage;
At once the clashing clouds to battle move,
And lightnings run across the fields above:
I know them well, and marked their rude comport,
While yet a child, within my father's court;
In times of tempest they command alone,
And he but sits precarious on the throne;

151

The more I know, the more my fears augment,
And fears are oft prophetic of the event.
But if not fears, or reasons will prevail,
If fate has fixed thee obstinate to sail,
Go not without thy wife, but let me bear
My part of danger with an equal share,
And present what I suffer only fear;
Then o'er the bounding billows shall we fly,
Secure to live together, or to die.”

These reasons moved her starlike husband's heart,
But still he held his purpose to depart;
For as he loved her equal to his life,
He would not to the seas expose his wife;
Nor could be wrought his voyage to refrain,
But sought by arguments to soothe her pain:
Nor these availed; at length he lights on one,
With which so difficult a cause he won:—
“My love, so short an absence cease to fear,
For, by my father's holy flame I swear,
Before two moons their orb with light adorn,
If heaven allow me life, I will return.”

This promise of so short a stay prevails;
He soon equips the ship, supplies the sails,
And gives the word to launch; she trembling views
This pomp of death, and parting tears renews;
Last, with a kiss, she took a long farewell,
Sighed, with a sad presage, and swooning fell.
While Ceyx seeks delays, the lusty crew,
Raised on their banks, their oars in order drew
To their broad breasts,—the ship with fury flew.

152

The queen, recovered, rears her humid eyes,
And first her husband on the poop espies,
Shaking his hand at distance on the main;
She took the sign, and shook her hand again.
Still as the ground recedes, retracts her view
With sharpened sight, till she no longer knew
The much-loved face; that comfort lost, supplies
With less, and with the galley feeds her eyes;
The galley borne from view by rising gales,
She followed with her sight the flying sails;
When even the flying sails were seen no more,
Forsaken of all sight, she left the shore.
Then on her bridal bed her body throws,
And sought in sleep her wearied eyes to close;
Her husband's pillow, and the widowed part
Which once he pressed, renewed the former smart.

And now a breeze from shore began to blow;
The sailors ship their oars, and cease to row;
Then hoist their yards atrip, and all their sails
Let fall, to court the wind, and catch the gales.
By this the vessel half her course had run,
And as much rested till the rising sun;
Both shores were lost to sight, when at the close
Of day, a stiffer gale at east arose;
The sea grew white, the rolling waves from far,
Like heralds, first denounce the watery war.

This seen, the master soon began to cry,
“Strike, strike the top-sail; let the main sheet fly,
And furl your sails.” The winds repel the sound,
And in the speaker's mouth the speech is drowned.
Yet of their own accord, as danger taught,
Each in his way, officiously they wrought;
Some stow their oars, or stop the leaky sides;
Another, bolder yet, the yard bestrides,

153

And folds the sails; a fourth, with labour, laves
The intruding seas, and waves ejects on waves.

In this confusion while their work they ply,
The winds augment the winter of the sky,
And wage intestine wars; the suffering seas
Are tossed, and mingled as their tyrants please.
The master would command, but, in despair
Of safety, stands amazed with stupid care,
Nor what to bid, or what forbid, he knows,
The ungoverned tempest to such fury grows;
Vain is his force, and vainer is his skill,
With such a concourse comes the flood of ill;
The cries of men are mixed with rattling shrouds;
Seas dash on seas, and clouds encounter clouds;
At once from east to west, from pole to pole,
The forky lightnings flash, the roaring thunders roll.

Now waves on waves ascending scale the skies,
And, in the fires, above the water fries;
When yellow sands are sifted from below,
The glittering billows give a golden show;
And when the fouler bottom spews the black,
The Stygian dye the tainted waters take;
Then frothy white appear the flatted seas,
And change their colour, changing their disease.
Like various fits the Trachin vessel finds,
And now sublime she rides upon the winds;
As from a lofty summit looks from high,
And from the clouds beholds the nether sky;
Now from the depth of hell they lift their sight,
And at a distance see superior light;
The lashing billows make a loud report,
And beat her sides, as battering rams a fort;
Or as a lion, bounding in his way,
With force augmented bears against his prey,
Sidelong to seize; or, unappalled with fear,
Springs on the toils, and rushes on the spear;

154

So seas impelled by winds, with added power,
Assault the sides, and o'er the hatches tower.

The planks, their pitchy coverings washed away,
Now yield; and now a yawning breach display;
The roaring waters with a hostile tide
Rush through the ruins of her gaping side.
Meantime, in sheets of rain the sky descends,
And ocean, swelled with waters, upwards tends,
One rising, falling one; the heavens and sea
Meet at their confines, in the middle way;
The sails are drunk with showers, and drop with rain,
Sweet waters mingle with the briny main.
No star appears to lend his friendly light;
Darkness and tempest make a double night;
But flashing fires disclose the deep by turns,
And, while the lightnings blaze, the water burns.

Now all the waves their scattered force unite;
And, as a soldier, foremost in the fight,
Makes way for others, and, an host alone,
Still presses on, and, urging, gains the town;
So while the invading billows come abreast,
The hero tenth, advanced before the rest,
Sweeps all before him with impetuous sway,
And from the walls descends upon the prey;
Part following enter, part remain without,
With envy hear their fellows' conquering shout,
And mount on others' backs, in hope to share
The city, thus become the seat of war.

An universal cry resounds aloud,
The sailors run in heaps, a helpless crowd;
Art fails, and courage falls, no succour near;
As many waves, as many deaths appear.

155

One weeps, and yet despairs of late relief;
One cannot weep, his fears congeal his grief;
But, stupid, with dry eyes expects his fate.
One with loud shrieks laments his lost estate,
And calls those happy whom their funerals wait.
This wretch with prayers and vows the gods implores,
And even the skies he cannot see, adores.
That other on his friends his thoughts bestows,
His careful father, and his faithful spouse.
The covetous worldling in his anxious mind
Thinks only on the wealth he left behind.

All Ceyx his Alcyone employs,
For her he grieves, yet in her absence joys;
His wife he wishes, and would still be near,
Not her with him, but wishes him with her:
Now with last looks he seeks his native shore,
Which fate has destined him to see no more;
He sought, but in the dark tempestuous night
He knew not whither to direct his sight.
So whirl the seas, such darkness blinds the sky,
That the black night receives a deeper dye.

The giddy ship ran round; the tempest tore
Her mast, and over-board the rudder bore.
One billow mounts; and with a scornful brow,
Proud of her conquest gained, insults the waves below;
Nor lighter falls, than if some giant tore
Pindus and Athos, with the freight they bore,
And tossed on seas; pressed with the ponderous blow,
Down sinks the ship within the abyss below;
Down with the vessel sink into the main
The many, never more to rise again.
Some few on scattered planks with fruitless care
Lay hold, and swim; but, while they swim, despair.

156

Even he, who late a sceptre did command,
Now grasps a floating fragment in his hand;
And while he struggles on the stormy main,
Invokes his father, and his wife, in vain:
But yet his consort is his greatest care;
Alcyone he names amidst his prayer;
Names as a charm against the waves and wind,
Most in his mouth, and ever in his mind.
Tired with his toil, all hopes of safety past,
From prayers to wishes he descends at last,—
That his dead body, wafted to the sands,
Might have its burial from her friendly hands.
As oft as he can catch a gulp of air,
And peep above the seas, he names the fair;
And, even when plunged beneath, on her he raves,
Murmuring Alcyone below the waves:
At last a falling billow stops his breath,
Breaks o'er his head, and whelms him underneath.
Bright Lucifer unlike himself appears
That night, his heavenly form obscured with tears;
And since he was forbid to leave the skies,
He muffled with a cloud his mournful eyes.

Meantime Alcyone (his fate unknown)
Computes how many nights he had been gone;
Observes the waning moon with hourly view,
Numbers her age, and wishes for a new;
Against the promised time provides with care,
And hastens in the woof the robes he was to wear;
And for herself employs another loom,
New-dressed to meet her lord returning home,
Flattering her heart with joys that never were to come.

157

She fumed the temples with an odorous flame,
And oft before the sacred altars came,
To pray for him, who was an empty name;
All powers implored, but far above the rest,
To Juno she her pious vows addressed,
Her much-loved lord from perils to protect,
And safe o'er seas his voyage to direct;
Then prayed that she might still possess his heart,
And no pretending rival share a part.
This last petition heard, of all her prayer;
The rest, dispersed by winds, were lost in air.

But she, the goddess of the nuptial bed,
Tired with her vain devotions for the dead,
Resolved the tainted hand should be repelled,
Which incense offered, and her altar held:
Then Iris thus bespoke,—“Thou faithful maid,
By whom the queen's commands are well conveyed,
Haste to the house of Sleep, and bid the god,
Who rules the night by visions with a nod,
Prepare a dream, in figure and in form
Resembling him who perished in the storm:
This form before Alcyone present,
To make her certain of the sad event.”

Endued with robes of various hue she flies,
And flying draws an arch, a segment of the skies;
Then leaves her bending bow, and from the steep
Descends to search the silent house of Sleep.

Near the Cimmerians, in his dark abode,
Deep in a cavern, dwells the drowsy god;
Whose gloomy mansion nor the rising sun,
Nor setting, visits, nor the lightsome noon;
But lazy vapours round the region fly,
Perpetual twilight, and a doubtful sky;
No crowing cock does there his wings display,
Nor with his horny bill provoke the day;

158

Nor watchful dogs, nor the more wakeful geese,
Disturb with nightly noise the sacred peace;
Nor beast of nature, nor the tame, are nigh,
Nor trees with tempests rocked, nor human cry;
But safe repose, without an air of breath,
Dwells here, and a dumb quiet next to death.

An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow,
Arising upwards from the rock below,
The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps,
And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps;
Around its entry nodding poppies grow,
And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow;
Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains,
And passing sheds it on the silent plains:
No door there was the unguarded house to keep,
On creaking hinges turned, to break his sleep.

But in the gloomy court was raised a bed,
Stuffed with black plumes, and on an ebon stead;
Black was the covering too, where lay the god,
And slept supine, his limbs displayed abroad;
About his head fantastic visions fly,
Which various images of things supply,
And mock their forms; the leaves on trees not more,
Nor bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore.

The virgin, entering bright, indulged the day
To the brown cave, and brushed the dreams away;
The god, disturbed with this new glare of light
Cast sudden on his face, unsealed his sight,
And raised his tardy head, which sunk again,
And, sinking on his bosom, knocked his chin;

159

At length shook off himself, and asked the dame
(And asking yawned), for what intent she came?

To whom the goddess thus:—“O sacred Rest,
Sweet pleasing Sleep, of all the powers the best!
O peace of mind, repairer of decay,
Whose balms renew the limbs to labours of the day,
Care shuns thy soft approach, and sullen flies away!
Adorn a dream, expressing human form,
The shape of him who suffered in the storm,
And send it flitting to the Trachin court,
The wreck of wretched Ceyx to report:
Before his queen bid the pale spectre stand,
Who begs a vain relief at Juno's hand.”
She said, and scarce awake her eyes could keep,
Unable to support the fumes of sleep;
But fled, returning by the way she went,
And swerved along her bow with swift ascent.

The god, uneasy till he slept again,
Resolved at once to rid himself of pain;
And, though against his custom, called aloud,
Exciting Morpheus from the sleepy crowd;
Morpheus, of all his numerous train, expressed
The shape of man, and imitated best;
The walk, the words, the gesture could supply,
The habit mimic, and the mien belie;
Plays well, but all his action is confined;
Extending not beyond our human kind.
Another birds, and beasts, and dragons apes,
And dreadful images, and monster shapes:
This dæmon, Icelos, in heaven's high hall
The gods have named; but men Phobetor call:
A third is Phantasus, whose actions roll
On meaner thoughts, and things devoid of soul;
Earth, fruits, and flowers, he represents in dreams,
And solid rocks unmoved, and running streams.

160

These three to kings and chiefs their scenes display,
The rest before the ignoble commons play:
Of these the chosen Morpheus is dispatched;
Which done, the lazy monarch overwatched,
Down from his propping elbow drops his head,
Dissolved in sleep, and shrinks within his bed.

Darkling the dæmon glides, for flight prepared,
So soft that scarce his fanning wings are heard.
To Trachin, swift as thought, the flitting shade
Through air his momentary journey made:
Then lays aside the steerage of his wings,
Forsakes his proper form, assumes the king's;
And pale as death, despoiled of his array,
Into the queen's apartment takes his way,
And stands before the bed at dawn of day:
Unmoved his eyes, and wet his beard appears,
And shedding vain, but seeming real tears;
The briny water dropping from his hairs;
Then staring on her, with a ghastly look
And hollow voice, he thus the queen bespoke:

“Knowest thou not me? Not yet, unhappy wife?
Or are my features perished with my life?
Look once again, and for thy husband lost,
Lo! all that's left of him, thy husband's ghost!
Thy vows for my return were all in vain;
The stormy south o'ertook us in the main;
And never shalt thou see thy loving lord again.
Bear witness, heaven, I called on thee in death,
And, while I called, a billow stopped my breath.
Think not that flying fame reports my fate;
I, present I, appear, and my own wreck relate.
Rise, wretched widow, rise, nor undeplored
Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford;
But rise, prepared in black to mourn thy perished lord.”

161

Thus said the player god; and, adding art
Of voice and gesture, so performed his part,
She thought (so like her love the shade appears)
That Ceyx spake the words, and Ceyx shed the tears.
She groaned, her inward soul with grief opprest,
She sighed, she wept, and sleeping beat her breast:
Then stretched her arms to embrace his body bare,
Her clasping arms inclose but empty air:
At this, not yet awake, she cried, “Oh stay,
One is our fate, and common is our way!”
So dreadful was the dream, so loud she spoke,
That, starting sudden up, the slumber broke;
Then cast her eyes around, in hope to view
Her vanished lord, and find the vision true;
For now the maids, who waited her commands,
Ran in with lighted tapers in their hands.
Tired with the search, not finding what she seeks,
With cruel blows she pounds her blubbered cheeks;
Then from her beaten breast the linen tare,
And cut the golden caul that bound her hair.
Her nurse demands the cause; with louder cries
She prosecutes her griefs, and thus replies:

“No more Alcyone, she suffered death
With her loved lord, when Ceyx lost his breath:
No flattery, no false comfort, give me none,
My shipwrecked Ceyx is for ever gone;
I saw, I saw him manifest in view,
His voice, his figure, and his gestures knew:
His lustre lost, and every living grace,
Yet I retained the features of his face:
Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and dropping hair,
None but my Ceyx could appear so fair;

162

I would have strained him with a strict embrace,
But through my arms he slipt, and vanished from the place;
There, even just there he stood;”—and as she spoke,
Where last the spectre was, she cast her look;
Fain would she hope, and gazed upon the ground,
If any printed footsteps might be found;
Then sighed, and said—“This I too well foreknew,
And my prophetic fear presaged too true;
'Twas what I begged, when with a bleeding heart
I took my leave, and suffered thee to part,
Or I to go along, or thou to stay,
Never, ah never to divide our way!
Happier for me, that, all our hours assigned,
Together we had lived, even not in death disjoined!
So had my Ceyx still been living here,
Or with my Ceyx I had perished there;
Now I die absent, in the vast profound,
And me without myself the seas have drowned:
The storms were not so cruel; should I strive
To lengthen life, and such a grief survive!
But neither will I strive, nor wretched thee
In death forsake, but keep thee company.
If not one common sepulchre contains
Our bodies, or one urn our last remains,
Yet Ceyx and Alcyone shall join,
Their names remembered in one common line.”

No further voice her mighty grief affords,
For sighs come rushing in betwixt her words,
And stopt her tongue; but what her tongue denied,
Soft tears, and groans, and dumb complaints supplied.

163

'Twas morning; to the port she takes her way,
And stands upon the margin of the sea;
That place, that very spot of ground she sought,
Or thither by her destiny was brought,
Where last he stood; and while she sadly said,
“'Twas here he left me, lingering here, delayed
His parting kiss, and there his anchors weighed.”
Thus speaking, while her thoughts past actions trace,
And call to mind, admonished by the place,
Sharp at her utmost ken she cast her eyes,
And somewhat floating from afar descries;
It seemed a corpse adrift, to distant sight,
But at a distance who could judge aright?
It wafted nearer yet, and then she knew,
That what before she but surmised was true;
A corpse it was, but whose it was, unknown,
Yet moved, howe'er, she made the case her own;
Took the bad omen of a shipwrecked man,
As for a stranger wept, and thus began:

“Poor wretch, on stormy seas to lose thy life,
Unhappy thou, but more thy widowed wife!”
At this she paused; for now the flowing tide
Had brought the body nearer to the side:
The more she looks, the more her fears increase
At nearer sight, and she's herself the less:
Now driven ashore, and at her feet it lies;
She knows too much, in knowing whom she sees,—
Her husband's corpse; at this she loudly shrieks,
“'Tis he, 'tis he,” she cries, and tears her cheeks,
Her hair, her vest; and, stooping to the sands,
About his neck she casts her trembling hands.

“And is it thus, O dearer than my life,
Thus, thus return'st thou to thy longing wife!”

164

She said, and to the neighbouring mole she strode,
Raised there to break the incursions of the flood;
Headlong from hence to plunge herself she springs,
But shoots along supported on her wings;
A bird new-made about the banks she plies,
Not far from shore, and short excursions tries;
Nor seeks in air her humble flight to raise,
Content to skim the surface of the seas;
Her bill, though slender, sends a creaking noise,
And imitates a lamentable voice;
Now lighting where the bloodless body lies,
She with a funeral note renews her cries.
At all her stretch her little wings she spread,
And with her feathered arms embraced the dead;
Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove
To print a kiss, the last essay of love;
Whether the vital touch revived the dead,
Or that the moving waters raised his head
To meet the kiss, the vulgar doubt alone,
For sure a present miracle was shown.
The gods their shapes to winter-birds translate,
But both obnoxious to their former fate.
Their conjugal affection still is tied,
And still the mournful race is multiplied;
They bill, they tread; Alcyone compressed,
Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest,
A wintry queen: her sire at length is kind,
Calms every storm, and hushes every wind;
Prepares his empire for his daughter's ease,
And for his hatching nephews smooths the seas.