66. Instead of quoting Ovid, I shall quote from Golding's translation of his Metamorphoses, as being more interesting to the English reader. (The whole story is also told by Dryden, whose version is easily accessible.) As the tale is told at great length, I quote only a few of the lines that most closely correspond to Chaucer. Compare—
'But fully bent
He [Ceyx] seemed neither for to leaue the iourney which he ment
To take by sea, nor yet to giue Alcyone leaue as tho
Companion of his perlous course by water for to go....
When toward night the wallowing waues began to waxen white,
And eke the heady eastern wind did blow with greater might....
And all the heauen with clouds as blacke as pitch was ouercast,
That neuer night was halfe so darke. There came a flaw [gust] at last,
That with his violence brake the Maste, and strake the Sterne away....