Explanation.

According to the testimony of several of the ancient writers, Ceyx was the king of Trachyn, and was a prince of great knowledge and experience; and many had recourse to him to atone for the murders which they had committed, whether through imprudence or otherwise. Pausanias says that Eurystheus having summoned Ceyx to deliver up to him the children of Hercules, that prince, who was not able to maintain a war against so powerful a king, sent the youths to Theseus, who took them into his protection.

To recover from the melancholy consequent upon the death of his brother Dædalion and his niece Chione, he went to Claros to consult the oracle of Apollo, and was shipwrecked on his return; on which, his wife, Halcyone, was so afflicted, that she died of grief, or else threw herself into the sea, as Hyginus informs us. It was said that they were changed into the birds which we call kingfishers, a story which, probably, has no other foundation than the name of Halcyone, which signifies that bird; which by the ancients was considered to be the symbol of conjugal affection.

Apollodorus, however, does not give us so favourable an idea of the virtue of these persons as Ovid has done. According to him, it was their pride which proved the cause of their destruction. Jupiter enraged at Ceyx, because he had assumed his name as Halcyone had done that of Juno, changed them both into birds, he becoming a cormorant, and she a kingfisher. This story is remarkable for the beautiful and affecting manner in which it is told.

FABLE VIII. [XI.749-795]

The Nymph Hesperia flying from Æsacus, who is enamoured of her, is bitten by a serpent, and instantly dies from the effects of the wound. He is so afflicted at her death, that he throws himself into the sea, and is transformed into a didapper.

Some old man[58] observes them as they fly over the widely extended seas, and commends their love, preserved to the end {of their existence}. One, close by, or the same, if chance so orders it, says, “This one, too, which you see, as it cuts through the sea, and having its legs drawn up,” pointing at a didapper, with its wide throat, “was the son of a king. And, if you want to come down to him in one lengthened series, his ancestors are Ilus, and Assaracus, and Ganymede,[59] snatched away by Jupiter, and the aged Laomedon, and Priam, to whom were allotted the last days of Troy. He himself was the brother of Hector, and had he not experienced a strange fate in his early youth, perhaps he would have had a name not inferior to {that} of Hector; although the daughter of Dymas bore this {last}. Alexirhoë, the daughter of the two-horned Granicus,[60] is said secretly to have brought forth Æsacus, under shady Ida.

“He loathed the cities, and distant from the splendid court, frequented the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor went but rarely among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast either churlish, or impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter of Cebrenus,[61] on the banks of her sire, who has been often sought by him throughout all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over her shoulders, in the sun. The Nymph, {thus} seen, takes to flight, just as the frightened hind from the tawny wolf; and {as} the water-duck, surprised at a distance, having left her {wonted} stream, from the hawk. Her the Trojan hero pursues, and, swift with love, closely follows her, made swift by fear. Behold! a snake, lurking in the grass, with its barbed sting, wounds her foot as she flies, and leaves its venom in her body. With her flight is her life cut short. Frantic, he embraces her breathless, and cries aloud,-- “I grieve, I grieve that {ever} I pursued {thee}. But I did not apprehend this; nor was it of so much value to me to conquer. We two have proved the destruction of wretched thee. The wound was given by the serpent; by me was the occasion given. I should be more guilty than he, did I not give the consolation for thy fate by my own death.” {Thus} he said; and from a rock which the hoarse waves had undermined, he hurled himself into the sea. Tethys, pitying him as he fell, received him softly, and covered him with feathers as he swam through the sea; and the power of obtaining the death he sought was not granted to him. The lover is vexed that, against his will, he is obliged to live on, and that opposition is made to his spirit, desirous to depart from its wretched abode. And, as he has assumed newformed wings on his shoulders, he flies aloft, and again he throws his body in the waves: his feathers break the fall. Æsacus is enraged; and headlong he plunges into the deep,[62] and incessantly tries the way of destruction. Love caused his leanness; the spaces between the joints of his legs are long; his neck remains long, {and} his head is far away from his body. He loves the sea, and has his name because he plunges[63] in it.

[Footnote 58: Some old man.--Ver. 749-50. ‘Hos aliquis senior--spectat;’ these words are translated by Clarke, ‘Some old blade spies them.’]

[Footnote 59: Ganymede.--Ver. 756. Ovid need not have inserted Assaracus and Ganymede, as they were only the brothers of Ilus, and the three were the sons of Tros. Ilus was the father of Laomedon, whose son was Priam, the father of Æsacus.]

[Footnote 60: Granicus.--Ver. 763. The Granicus was a river of Mysia, near which Alexander the Great defeated Darius with immense slaughter.]

[Footnote 61: Cebrenus.--Ver. 769. The Cebrenus was a little stream of Phrygia, not far from Troy.]

[Footnote 62: Plunges into the deep.--Ver. 791-2. ‘Inque profundum Pronus abit,’ Clarke renders, ‘Goes plumb down into the deep.’ Certainly this is nearer to its French origin, ‘a plomb,’ than the present form, ‘plump down;’ but, like many other instances in his translation, it decidedly does not help us, as he professes to do, to ‘the attainment of the elegancy of this great Poet.’]

[Footnote 63: Because he plunges.--Ver. 795. He accounts for the Latin name of the diver, or didapper, ‘mergus,’ by saying that it was so called, ‘a mergendo,’ from its diving, which doubtless was the origin of the name, though not taking its rise in the fiction here related by the Poet.]