Book XI
A group of Ciconian women catches sight of Orpheus in the forest. Caught up in a Bacchanalian fervor and remembering that he has rejected them, the women rail against him. The poet is not killed by the spear one woman throws, so another maenad tries a stone but also misses. When the festival madness grows louder, the women become ruthless, killing Orpheus with stones. They desecrate his body, even beheading him after they claim the tools of the workmen scared away by their mania. The women throw Orpheus’s head and lyre into the Hebrus; it travels to Methymna, where Apollo saves it from a snake and allows the poet to enter the underworld and reunite with Eurydice.
Bacchus is angered by the maenads’ behavior and changes them all into trees. However, Bacchus is not fully satisfied with this revenge; he leaves Thrace and goes to Phrygia with his satyrs and Bacchants. They encounter Midas, who had been taught the god’s rites by Orpheus, and a ten-day feast ensues. Midas reunites Bacchus with the old man who was once his foster father, and, in gratitude, Bacchus promises to give the king anything he wants. Midas responds that he wants everything he touches to turn to gold.
While Midas amasses great wealth with this dubious gift, the king cannot eat or drink anymore. He wants Bacchus to take the powers back, and the god advises him to cleanse his head in a spring. The king abandons his old materialism and worships Pan in the forest. Pan challenges Apollo’s pipe-playing skills, and when Pan is defeated by the god, Midas disagrees with the verdict. For his contrarianism, Apollo gives Midas donkey ears, though he is usually able to hide them. The servant who helps him, though, speaks his secret into a hole in the ground, so the wind whispers of Midas’s shame throughout the world.
After revenging himself on Midas, Apollo travels to Troy, where Laomedon is building the newfound city’s walls. Seeing that the project needs divine help, Apollo and Neptune disguise themselves as humans and make a deal with the king; they will build the walls for a set sum of gold. When the work is completed, though, Laomedon does not pay them. Neptune punishes him by flooding the Trojan shores and offering the king’s daughter, Hesione, to a sea monster. She is rescued by Hercules, but his reward is denied, so he leads a campaign against the Trojans. Troy is defeated, and Hercules’s man Telamon wins Hesione’s hand. Telamon’s brother, Peleus, has already married the goddess Thetis.
As a young goddess, Thetis is told she will one day conceive a great hero who will best even his father. Though Jupiter lusts after Thetis, he cannot allow another to be stronger than he is, so he tells his grandson Peleus to pursue her. When Peleus rejects his wooing, he tries to rape her. She escapes by changing form and assuming a variety of animal shapes. When Peleus prays to the gods for advice, Proteus tells him to squeeze her to make her return to her usual form. Peleus succeeds in his tactic, which impresses Thetis, though she knows a god helped him. She agrees to marry him, and the goddess bears Achilles.
Though Peleus has been successful in many areas of his life, he was banished from his homeland for killing his half-brother, Phocus. He takes shelter in Trachis, ruled by Ceyx, son of the morning star, Lucifer. Peleus tells of his legacy but not of his fratricide, and Ceyx welcomes him, as he would even a more humble stranger. The...
(This entire section contains 1304 words.)
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king weeps, and Peleus inquires about Ceyx’s grief. He tells of the death and transformation of his brother, Daedalion, into a hawk. Daedalion’s daughter, Chione, had been desired by Apollo and Mercury, who both sexually assaulted her. Nine months later, she bore twins, one conceived by each god. Autolycus, Mercury’s son, is known for his manipulation and cleverness, while Philammon, Apollo’s child, is a skilled singer and musician. When Chione claimed a place of honor above even Diana for having borne two sons from two different gods, Diana shot her tongue with an arrow. Her uncle, Ceyx, found her and held her as she died; Daedalion could not heal from her death and tried repeatedly to jump onto her funeral pyre. Apollo took pity on him, changing him into a hawk.
During Ceyx’s tale, Peleus’s herdsman enters to report that his cattle have been killed by a giant wolf. The beast also mauled some of the servants. Peleus assumes this is a punishment for killing his half-brother. Ceyx orders his men to ready themselves to hunt the wolf, but his queen, Alcyone, begs him not to go. When Peleus goes out with Ceyx’s men, he pleads to the sea nymph Psamathe, mother of Phocus, to end her revenge against him. Thetis joins her husband’s pleas, which are not enough alone to sway the nymph. Psamathe transforms the wolf into marble, but Peleus is not allowed to settle and must continue to wander.
Ceyx is still upset about his brother’s fate and seeks comfort in the oracle at Claros. It will take a treacherous sea voyage to reach the oracle, though, and Alcyone begs her husband not to embark. She tells him he cannot count on being safe just because she is a daughter of Aeolus; she knows how destructive winds can be. If he insists on going, he should at least take her with him. Ceyx denies both requests and sets off on his voyage. The expedition is—as Alcyone predicted—ravaged by tumultuous weather; the king is killed along with the other sailors. As his death approaches, Ceyx prays that his body will eventually be found by his wife so that he can have a proper burial and she will have closure.
Alcyone prays for her husband without knowing he is already dead, which angers Juno because the queen is rendered unclean by her husband’s lack of burial. Juno sends Iris to Somnus and asks the spirit to bring a dream to the queen. Morpheus goes to Alcyone in the disguise of Ceyx and reports that he has died. Alcyone is convinced she has seen her husband in her room, but when the servants enter with torches, there is no one there but the queen. She knows now that her husband is dead and mourns that she must live without him. The next morning, the queen goes out to the shore and spots an object approaching the shore, which turns out to be Ceyx’s body. After his burial, Alcyone attempts to leap to her death; the gods take pity on her and transform both her and Ceyx into birds so that they may live on in other forms.
An old man watches the birds who were once Ceyx and Alcyone fly overhead. Staring at the sky, he spots another bird and explains that it was once Aesacus, the half-brother of the Trojan hero Hector. The boy was a product of a union between King Priam of Troy and a nymph named Alexirhoe; Aesacus craved nature, shunned the palace’s wealth, and loved Hesperia, a nymph and daughter of a river god. When he chased her, she ran away and was bitten by an adder, which killed her with its poison. Aesacus regretted chasing her and called himself the nymph’s murderer. The boy jumped from a crag to end his own life, but Tethys changed him into a diver; even in bird form, Aesacus tries to find a way to end his life, slamming his body into the water and living up to his name.
