This page tells the story of one of the dreams that Morpheus created.

Note that the Greeks and Romans sometimes had different names for the same gods. The following story is an abbreviated version of a story by the Roman author Ovid, so the Latin names of the gods are used (Somnus instead of Hypnos, for example).

Our story starts happily with a couple who are deeply in love with one another: King Ceyx (son of Lucifer, the light-bearer) and Alcyone (daughter of Aeolus, god of the winds). Although they are in love, various matters cause Ceyx to become troubled and he decides to seek the advice of an oracle even though this means a long journey across the seas. Alcyone is filled with fear when she hears of his plans and warns him that she knows better than anyone how dangerous the winds can be. Ceyx is moved but sets sail anyway while Alcyone waves a tearful goodbye to him from the shore. The very same night a fierce storm breaks over the sea and the waters close over Ceyx and his crew.

Alcyone is unaware of her husband's death and spends her days weaving a robe for him and praying to the goddess Juno for his safety. Juno is touched by her prayers and sends her messenger, Iris, to ask Somnus, the god of sleep, to send a dream to Alcyone that will inform her of her husband's fate. Somnus's home is at the bottom of a deep valley, always in shadow, but Iris's multicolored cloak leaves a rainbow path though the sky as she descends into the valley. Iris manages to wake Somnus and gives him the message from Juno - Somnus wakes his son Morpheus and passes on Juno's orders.

Morpheus flies silently through the night to Alcyone's bed. He is able to assume the form of any and every human being and uses this power now to take on the appearance of the drowned Ceyx, naked and dripping wet. "Poor wife", he says, "do you not know your husband, or is my face changed in death? Give me your tears - let me not go down to the shadowy land unmourned." Alcyone wakes with the conviction that her husband is dead.

In the morning she goes down to the shore to the very spot where she had waved farewell to her husband. As she gazes seaward she can see something floating in the distance, coming closer with the tide - it is the body of her husband. She wades into the water towards it but instead of sinking she begins to rise over the waves for she has been transformed by the gods into a bird. As she approaches the body of her husband he too is transformed into a bird and the couple is reunited, their love unchanged.

Every year there are seven days on end when the sea lies still and calm: no breath of wind stirs the waters. These are days when Alcyone broods over her nest as it floats on the sea, so we call these days 'Alcyone days' or, using an alternate spelling, 'Halcyon days'.

Want to know more about Morpheus? In the text below, don't forget that the god of sleep was called Hypnos by the Greeks and Somnus by the Romans.

Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, was the greatest of the children of Hypnos, the god of sleep, and Nyx, goddess of the night. While his father was the god of sleep, dreams were left to Morpheus and his siblings. Dad it seems was not the most active of deities, spending most of his time lying on a couch in a cave by the river Oblivion with his half-brother Thanatos, the god of Death: