Alcyone in Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

Ἀλκυόνη), or HALCY'ONE. 1. A Pleiad, a daughter of Atlas and Pleione, by whom Poseidon begot Aethusa, Hyrieus and Hyperenor. (Apollod. 3.10.1; Hygin. Praef. Fab. p. 11, ed. Staveren; Ov. Ep. 19.133.) To these children Pausanias (2.30.7) adds two others, Hyperes and Anthas. 2. A daughter of Aeolus and Enarete or Aegiale. She was married to Ceÿx, and lived so happy with him, that they were presumptuous enough to call each other Zeus and Hera, for which Zeus metamorphosed them into birds, ἀλκυών and κήυξ. (Apollod. 1.7.3, &c.; Hyg. Fab. 65.) Hyginus relates that Ceÿx perished in a shipwreck, that Alcyone for grief threw herself into the sea, and that the gods, out of compassion, changed the two into birds. It was fabled, that during the seven days before, and as many after, the shortest day of the year, while the bird ἀλκυών was breeding, there always prevailed calms at sea. An embellished form of the same story is given by Ovid. (Met. 11.410, &c.; comp. Verg. G. 1.399.) 3. A surname of Cleopatra, the wife of Meleager, who died with grief at her husband being killed by Apollo. (Hom. Il. 9.562; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 776; Hyg. Fab. 174.) - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, William Smith, Ed.