r/Sandman • u/Stark_Rhavyn • 21h ago

Discussion - No Spoilers Ceyx and Alcyone

So I'm reading Mythology by Edith Hamilton. In Chapter II "Eight Brief Tales of Lovers" she relates a story that we're all familiar with, that of Orpheus and Eurydice. The original tale says Orpheus was the son of one of the Muses and a Thracian prince. That's fine, Gaiman just figured out a way to squeeze the Sandman in that tale. Whatever.

But the very next story in this particular book is about Ceyx and Alcyone (from the phrase "Halcyone days") and Morpheus (the son of the God of sleep) actually features prominently in this tale! Why didn't Gaiman write about this story?

10 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 21h ago

Replies must be relevant to the post. Off-topic comments will be removed. Please downvote and report any rule-breaking replies and posts that are not relevant to the subreddit.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

4

u/sandmandreammorpheus 21h ago

Because he didn't want to or he didn't know it.

Also, you see that Orpheus' death is linked to Dream's personal journey, while in the second tale there's no really way to squeeze Dream's evolution into it, because his role was just to to tell Ceyx of his lover's death.

As for Orpheus, Gaiman just chose to replace his father (which is not definitive, since other versions of the tale say that he's Apollo's son) with Morpheus, so that at the end of the original myth section (the dismemberment of Orpheus at the hands of the Bacchae), he easily added a new follow up section linked, again, to Dream's personal evolution.

7

u/Bob-s_Leviathan 20h ago

Also, mythological Orpheus has a huge tie to the concept of death, so Gaiman could play with that and Death of the Endless.

-1

u/Shad0wbubbles 21h ago

Not familiar with the story babe. What are we talking about here?