What this project is about.
This one is from Book 11.
How long it took to read this (aloud): 10 mins 52s
What it’s “about”: Ceyx is begged not to set sail to Delphi (roads too bandit-y). He sails. There’s a big ass storm, he and everyone else dies. The pining wife irritates Juno so much that a dream of closure is arranged…
Words I didn’t know: none
Quotable quotes:
When Alcyone saw his readiness
(As though her love held darkness of the future)
Her body trembled and tears came again
As she enfolded him she said, “Good-bye,”
Then her mind swayed into unconsciousness.
Though Ceyx made causes for delay, his oarsmen
Churned harbour waters into oar-sprayed foam.
AND
The captain
Saw darkness only and ship’s bearings lost,
And less than useless orders given from his lips.
Destroying winds were masters of the ship,
Thundering above men’s voices, rolling chains,
Waves mounting decks and crashing through the hull.
AND
rom sand sea-floor to spray, the sea churned upward
In yellow waters, then to black waves rising
As dark as night in channels of the Styx.
Over it all white sheets of foam broke through,
Where the ship, like a toy ship, wheeled, swayed and shuddered.
The ship on waves swung high as tallest mountain
Rising from valleys, even the abyss of Acheron,
Then sunk where blackest waters swirled around her,
Where one looks up to heaven from deepest hell.
ABD
Then decks began
To crack, pitch, wax, and ropes gave way, boards broken,
Sides gaping while Death’s sea poured in the hold.
Rain fell in curtains from black clouds, you’d think
The very heavens had joined the sea, or that
The sea flooded night skies that swayed above it.
And
And as a soldier, quicker than his fellows,
Attempts to scale the wall of a sieged city,
Leaps up at last, to be the first in glory,
One man above the thousand men behind him —
So a ninth wave came scaling ship’s side, after it
The tenth, nor spares the ship, then leaps within.
AND
However brave some were, saw in the waters
As many deaths as waves come down upon them.
One sailor could not stop his tears from flowing,
Another lost his voice, another prayed
To die, to be consumed on funeral pyres;
One lifted helpless hands to unseen Heaven
For mercy of the gods; one called upon
His brother and his father, another spoke
Of home, his hearth, his children — and all of them
Remembered the fair world they left behind.
AND
At last Juno could hear such prayers no more —
Sad prayers of innocent hopes for one who died —
Nor could her altar bear funeral worship
Of pitiful clinging hands and falling tears.
She ordered Ins to her side and whispered,
“My dear, my faithful friend, who runs all errands,
METAMORPHOSES [ 315 ] BOOK XI
Go to that heavy-eyed place where Sleep is bedded,
Tell him to send Ceyx’ ghostly image in a dream
To Alcyone — let her know of his death —
And go at once.” Iris slipped on her cloak,
And in that thin embrace of shining colours
She was a rainbow fleeting through the skies
To find the hidden chambers where Sleep reigned.
How it lands to my eco-sensibility: The sea will have its meals.
Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : xx
What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx
To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx
Further research questions: xx
Anything else: xx
marchudson.net 
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