The Death Of Phaethon

The horses darted forward to their long race, and their first few leaps brought them above the highest mountains. Before the eyes of the youth the whole extent of land and sea lay outstretched.

The deer already had left their shelters and gone up on the heights. All nature seemed to awake. The quiet woods resounded with the songs of the birds, which seemed to greet the rising sun. Glittering dewdrops hung on the leaves and flowers and shone like diamonds with the light of Helios. Hares and rabbits left their hiding-places and came forth for food. Bees flew humming from flower to flower, gathering their precious sweets. The shepherd led forth his bleating flocks into the green pastures, the farmer plodded off into the fields with his rural tools. Smoke began to rise from the cottage chimneys.

Only the owls and other night-birds, unable to bear the light of the sun, flew back to their lonely hiding-places, and a few timid flowers closed their petals, but the sun-flowers turned their faces with joy toward the rising sun. Phaethon was entranced by the sight of the glorious beauty of awakening nature.

The horses soon perceived that they were not held by the powerful hands of Helios; they also felt that they were not drawing their accustomed burden, and as a ship that does not carry the necessary ballast is tossed about by the waves, so the chariot was jolted through the air, rising and falling as if it were empty.

The horses strayed from their path. Phaethon tried to rein them in. He did not know the way and was not strong enough to curb the restive steeds. They ran this way and that, to right and left, under the uncertain guidance of their new driver.

On they flew. They were near the middle of the sky where the road was steepest. Phaethon looked down from the tremendous height upon the earth. He became dizzy; his hands trembled and his knees knocked together. He let the reins go loose; the horses darted forward like arrows. He pulled them back, and they plunged and stood on their hind feet. He wanted to speak to them, but he did not know their names.

Overcome at last by fear, he threw the reins down on the backs of the horses and clung to the chariot. Having no guidance whatever the horses now started on a wild race. They approached the earth and turned everything into a desert; woods and meadows, cities and villages were burnt to ashes. The rivers were dried up and the sea was boiling.

Again the chariot was borne up to an immeasurable height and the earth was relieved of the terrible heat. But now the firmament was in danger of being destroyed by fire. Curses and prayers rose to heaven from the suffering people on earth, and cries of fright resounded through Olympos.

Zeus heard the sighs and wailings and cries, and to save the world from destruction he hurled his thunder-bolt at the unfortunate Phaethon, who fell from the dizzy heights to earth. With tears and lamentations his mother searched for the body of her wayward son. She found him near the mouth of a great river which had been burned dry.

There she buried him, and the sisters of the unfortunate youth shed bitter tears over his grave. They could not bear to go away from the tomb and leave him lying there alone, so they remained kneeling and motionless until Zeus took pity on them and changed them into weeping willows. Even then they kept on weeping, but their tears were dried by the sun and carried away by the streams into the great sea, where they became jewels of amber.

Kyknos, too, a friend of Phaethon's, mourned his loss and could not be comforted; so Zeus, in kindness, changed him into a swan. Helios, in his fatherly grief, refused to drive the chariot of the Sun any longer, and the earth was left in darkness for a whole day. But the gods entreated him to take the reins again and men prayed for light, and from that time on the Sun has kept its true course through the heavens, under his wise guidance.