♪ I’m Like a Bird, I’ll Only Fly Away ♪

The story of Alcyone and Ceyx tells us about a king called Ceyx who has to go to sea and leaves his grieving wife, Alcyone, waiting for him back home. When he is out at sea, Poseidon, or Aeolus, hits him with his winds and his water, leaving ‘one enormous green catastrophe’ behind and leaving Ceyx to repeat his beloved wife’s name over and over again: ‘Alcyone, Alcyone, my treasure, Alcyone.’ Then his body reaches his wife and she, grieving, prays to the gods that they can be together again. This is how, at the end, Alcyone and Ceyx, turned seabirds, fly away together to live the rest of their lives in love.

I think this story describes how strong the bond of love is. Ceyx, on one part, knows how dangerous his journey is and even though his wife begs him to ‘take [her] with [him] at least’ he declines, not wanting to expose her to these dangers for fear of losing her. Alcyone, on the other hand, also knows that he will die on this journey, but because she knows her father, Aeolus, will be very harsh on Ceyx, if only because he is his son-in-law. She offers to go with Ceyx because she thinks maybe the storms will be better and her father will be more careful because she is onboard with them, and fighting the storms she ‘fear[s] much less than to be left a widow’.

Down deep, Alcyone knows that her husband will die, but still she refuses to believe him when he appears to her in a dream and tells her that he is dead. Even though she knows what his fate will be, she prays to the gods to keep him safe and to bring him back to her, and she grieves like no one has when she realizes that he is dead. I think it is all these little signs of true love for each other that both Alcyone and Ceyx show that make the gods have pity for them and let them live the rest of their formerly unfulfilled lives together as sea birds.

I find the fact that the gods turned them into birds at the end, rather meaningful. For one, the pet name that Ceyx has for Alcyone is ‘my bird’, we see this when he appears to her in a dream and tells her he is dead. I think that is very cute, and is another reference to their love for each other. Also, I think that the bird represents freedom, peace of mind, and unity, which I think is perfect for Alcyone. She seems trapped in this same life as always, only now she has lost her husband, her soul mate, and her main reason to be here. This is a perfect ending for this story and these circumstances, which by the way are very common in a modern day setting.