Alkyons (Trachis)
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Alkyone ( ancient Greek Ἀλκυόνη Alkyónē or Ἁλκυόνη Halkyónē ), daughter of Enarete and Aiolos or the wind god Aiolos of the same name , is a figure from Greek mythology .
myth
According to Ovid , Alkyone was in deep love with her husband Keyx (lat. Ceyx ), son of Hesperus . One day Keyx was forced to leave his wife to visit the oracle in Klaros . Alkyone warned her husband that - as the daughter of the wind god Aeolus - she knew the winds and above all their unpredictability. The circumstances that moved Keyx to sail to Klaros, however, were of such importance that he could not be dissuaded from his plan.
As feared, the storm came and the ship sank in the middle of the Mediterranean . Keyx was happy because he knew his wife was safe. When his strength left him, he sighed her name one last time before drowning.
Alkyone waited for her husband and prayed to the gods. The gods were moved by the prayers, for they were for someone who had already died. The dream god Morpheus was commissioned to bring the news of her husband's death to Alkyone. So he lay down in the shape of Keyx next to the sleeping alcyon and whispered to her that he was already dead. Alkyone didn't want to go on living now. The next morning she went down to the beach and saw her husband's dead body floating on the shore. Determined to kill herself, she threw herself off the cliff to drown herself in the sea. But instead of sinking into the sea, she flew in the direction of her dead husband: the gods were gracious and had turned her into a bird Halcyone (German kingfisher ). As she threw herself on her husband's dead body, she found that he too had become a bird.
Since she was the daughter of Aiolos, the latter granted seven days of calm during the Halcyon breeding season, in December, so that they would be able to build their nest. As soon as the offspring have hatched, the waves rise again and the sea becomes choppy. Hence the saying “ halcyon days ” for a quiet, beautiful interlude in the midst of turbulent times.
swell
- Ovid , Metamorphosen 11, 23. ( Translation by Reinhart Suchier )
literature
- Edmund W. Braun: Ceyx and Alcyone . In: Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte , Vol. 3, Munich 1954, Col. 403–405
- Angela Jöne: Farewell scenes of lovers in the Latin epic. Aschendorff, Münster 2017, ISBN 978-3-402-14459-6 , pp. 156-178
- Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Alkyone 3 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1.1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 250 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Konrad Wernicke : Alkyons . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Sp. 1579-1581.
- Harald Zusanek (Ed.): Studies on the bird cult. Volume 1: Troizen - Alkyone. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-631-55459-3 .
