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Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica

Chapter 30: THE MARRIAGE OF CEYX
By Hesiod
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Classics of LiteratureMythology, Legends & FolklorePoetry

About This Book

A collection of archaic Greek poetry combines didactic and cosmogonic works that outline the origins and genealogy of the gods while offering practical and moral precepts related to farming, justice, and daily life. Fragmentary genealogies, heroic remnants, and a descriptive shield-poem supplement these with mythic narratives and episodic catalogues of women and heroes. A suite of hymns and shorter homerica — including epigrams, epic-cycle fragments, burlesque pieces, and a poetic contest — presents invocations and brief mythic accounts alongside playful parody and material connected to cult and ritual practice.

THE MARRIAGE OF CEYX

Fragment #1—Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Arg. i. 128: Hesiod in the “Marriage of Ceyx” says that he (Heracles) landed (from the Argo) to look for water and was left behind in Magnesia near the place called Aphetae because of his desertion there.

Fragment #2—Zenobius 1901, ii. 19: Hesiod used the proverb in the following way: Heracles is represented as having constantly visited the house of Ceyx of Trachis and spoken thus: ‘Of their own selves the good make for the feasts of good.’

Fragment #3—Scholiast on Homer, Il. xiv. 119: ‘And horse-driving Ceyx beholding...’

Fragment #4—Athenaeus, ii. p. 49b: Hesiod in the “Marriage of Ceyx”—for though grammar-school boys alienate it from the poet, yet I consider the poem ancient—calls the tables tripods.

Fragment #5—Gregory of Corinth, On Forms of Speech (Rhett. Gr. vii. 776): ‘But when they had done with desire for the equal-shared feast, even then they brought from the forest the mother of a mother (sc. wood), dry and parched, to be slain by her own children’ (sc. to be burnt in the flames).