410Meanwhile Ceyx, troubled and anxious at heart because of his brother's portents and those that followed his brother's, prepares to go to the Clarian god to consult the holy oracles, the comfort of mankind; 413for the impious Phorbas and his Phlegyans were making the Delphic temple impassable. 415Yet first he makes you, most faithful Alcyone, aware of his plan; 416at once a chill seized her to the inmost bones, a pallor most like boxwood spread over her face, and her cheeks grew wet with streaming tears. 419Three times she tried to speak, three times she wet her face with weeping, and, with sobs interrupting her loving complaints, she said: 'What fault of mine, dearest, has turned your mind?
422Where is that care for me which used to come first? 423Can you now go away untroubled, leaving Alcyone behind? 424Now a long journey pleases you? 424Now I am dearer to you when I am absent? 425But, I suppose, the journey is by land, and I shall only grieve, not fear as well, and my cares will be free from dread. 427It is the seas that frighten me, and the grim face of the deep: just lately I saw shattered planks on the shore, and often I have read names on tombs without bodies. 430And do not let false confidence touch your mind because your father-in-law is the son of Hippotes, who keeps the strong winds in prison and, when he wishes, calms the seas!
433Once the winds are let loose and have taken hold of the seas, nothing is forbidden them, and every land and every sea is left unprotected. 435They harass the clouds of heaven too, and in their wild clashes strike out red fires. 437The better I know them (for I do know them, and as a little girl I often saw them in my father's house), the more I think they are to be feared. 439But if your resolve, dear husband, can be bent by no prayers, and you are too set on going, take me too along with you. 441Surely we shall be tossed together, and I shall fear only what I suffer: together we shall bear whatever comes, together we shall be borne over the broad seas.' 444By such words and tears of the daughter of Aeolus her starry husband is moved: for no less a fire burns in him.
446But he is unwilling either to give up his planned voyage over the sea or to bring Alcyone to share the danger, and he gave many answers to comfort her fearful heart. 449Not for that, though, does she approve his reason; 449he added to them this soothing word as well, with which alone he swayed his loving wife: 'Every delay is long to us indeed; but I swear to you by my father's fires, if only the fates send me back, that I shall return before the moon twice fills her disc.' 454When by these promises hope of his return was brought near, at once he orders the pine ship to be drawn out of the dockyard, launched on the sea and fitted with its tackle.
457Seeing it again, as if foreseeing the future, Alcyone shuddered and let fall the welling tears and gave him embraces, and at last, most wretched, with sorrowful lips she said 'Farewell' and collapsed with her whole body. 461But the young men, while Ceyx seeks delays, draw back the oars in double rows to their strong chests and cleave the sea with even strokes. 463She raised her moist eyes and, left behind, is the first to see her husband standing on the stern and making signs to her with waving hand, and she returns the signals; 466when the land drew farther away and her eyes could no longer recognise his face, while she can, she follows the fleeing ship with her gaze.
469When this too, carried off by the distance, could no longer be seen, still she watches the sails fluttering from the top of the mast; 471when she no longer sees even the sails, she anxiously seeks her empty bed and lays herself on the couch; 472the bed and the place renew Alcyone's tears and remind her what part of her is absent. 474They had left the harbour, and the breeze had stirred the rigging: the sailor turns the hanging oars to the ship's side, sets the yard-arms at the top of the mast, lets down the whole canvas from the mast and catches the coming breezes. 478The ship was cutting through less than half, or certainly not more than half, of the sea, and both lands were far away, when towards night the sea began to whiten with swelling waves and the headlong east wind to blow more strongly.
482'Lower the lofty yards at once,' the captain shouts, 'and lash the whole sail to the yards.' 484He gives orders: the opposing gales hinder the orders, and the roar of the sea lets no voice be heard. 486Yet of their own accord some hasten to draw in the oars, some to protect the sides, some to deny the sails to the winds. 488This man bails out the water and pours sea back into sea, this one snatches down the yards. 489While these things are done without order, the harsh storm grows, and from every side the fierce winds wage war and churn up the angry waters. 492The ship's captain himself is afraid, and he himself admits he does not know what state they are in, nor what to order or wish: so great is the mass of trouble, and so much stronger than his skill.
495For the men resound with shouting, the rigging with creaking, the heavy sea with the onrush of waves, the sky with thunder. 497The sea is lifted up in waves and seems to equal the sky and to touch the overhanging clouds with its spray; 499and now, when it churns up the tawny sand from the bottom, it is the same colour as the sand, now blacker than the Stygian wave; at times it is laid flat and whitens with roaring foam. 502The Trachinian ship herself too is driven by these changes, and now, raised high as from a mountain-top, she seems to look down into the valleys and deepest Acheron, now, when she has sunk and the curving sea stands round her, to look up at the highest heaven from the infernal gulf.
507Often, struck on her side by a wave, she gives a huge crash, and sounds no more lightly when battered than when an iron ram or a ballista at times shakes a shattered citadel. 510And as fierce lions, gathering strength from their charge, are wont to go breast-first against arms and levelled spears, so, whenever the wave had given itself to the rising winds, it went against the ship's defences and was far higher than they. 514And now the wedges loosen, and, stripped of its covering of wax, a crack gapes and offers a way to the deadly waters. 516See, heavy rains fall from the loosened clouds, and you would think the whole sky was coming down into the sea, and the swollen sea rising up into the regions of the sky.
519The sails are soaked with rain, and the waters of the sea mingle with the waters of heaven; 520the sky lacks its fires, and the blind night is weighed down by the darkness of the storm and by its own. 522Yet flashing lightning bolts scatter this darkness and give light: fires flare up with the fires of the lightning. 524Now too the wave leaps inside the hollow framework of the hull; 525and as a soldier, finer than all the rest, when he has often assaulted the walls of a defended city, at last achieves his hope and, fired by love of glory, alone among a thousand men still seizes the wall, so, when the waves have battered the high sides nine times, the onset of the tenth wave rushes in, rising more hugely; 531nor does it cease attacking the weary ship until it comes down, as it were, within the walls of the captured vessel.
533So part of the sea was still trying to invade the ship, part was already inside. 534All are in panic, no less than a city is wont to panic when some are undermining the wall outside and others hold the wall within. 537Skill fails and spirits sink, and as many deaths seem to rush and break in as there are waves coming. 539This one cannot hold back his tears, this one is stunned, that one calls those blessed whom funeral rites await; this one worships a god with vows and, raising his arms in vain to the sky he cannot see, begs for help; to that one come thoughts of brother and parent, to this one his home with his children, and whatever he has left behind.
544Alcyone moves Ceyx; on Ceyx's lips there is no one but Alcyone; 545and though he longs for her alone, yet he is glad she is absent. 546He would like, too, to look back towards the shores of his homeland and turn his last gaze towards his home, but he does not know where it is; 548with such a whirl the sea boils, and in the shadow drawn over it from pitch-black clouds the whole sky is hidden, and the face of night is doubled. 551The mast is broken by the onslaught of a rain-laden whirlwind, the rudder is broken too, and the wave, standing proudly over its spoils, like a victor, arches itself and looks down on the waves, and no less heavily than if someone had torn Athos or Pindus whole from their places and overturned them into the open sea, it falls headlong, and with weight and blow together sinks the ship to the depths; 557with it a great part of the men, overwhelmed by the heavy flood and never given back to the air, met their fate: others cling to pieces and broken parts of the ship: Ceyx himself holds fragments of the vessel with the hand that used to hold the sceptre, and calls on his father-in-law and his father, alas!
562in vain. 562But most often on the swimmer's lips is his wife Alcyone: he remembers her and repeats her name, he prays that the waves may carry his body before her eyes and that, lifeless, he may be buried by loving hands. 566While he swims, as often as the waves let him open his mouth, he names the absent Alcyone and murmurs it to the very waves. 568See, over the middle of the waves a black arch of water breaks, and the head is overwhelmed and sunk beneath the bursting wave. 570Lucifer was dim that morning, so that you could not have recognised him, and since he was not allowed to leave the sky, he covered his face with thick clouds.
573Meanwhile the daughter of Aeolus, unaware of such disasters, counts the nights, and now hastens to make the clothes he will put on, now those she herself will wear when he comes, and promises herself a return that will never be. 577She indeed brought pious incense to all the gods above, but before them all she worshipped at the temple of Juno, and came to the altars for a husband who no longer existed, and prayed that her husband might be safe and might return, and that he might prefer no other woman to her; 581but of so many prayers only this one could be granted to her. 583But the goddess cannot bear to be entreated any longer on behalf of one who is dead; 584and to keep the hands of mourning from her altars, she said: 'Iris, most faithful messenger of my voice, go swiftly to the sleep-bringing hall of Sleep and bid him send to Alcyone dreams in the likeness of dead Ceyx, telling the true story of what befell him.' 589She had spoken: Iris puts on her robes of a thousand colours and, marking the sky with her arching curve, seeks the dwelling of the king she was bidden to, hidden beneath a cloud.