Phaethon
from Ovid's
Metamorphoses
Phaethon
http://homepages.infoseek.com/~reenamel/phaeton.htm
Tells Phaethon story, emphasizing how he was initially motivated by
an insult by another youth of noble lineage, Epaphos, who told him spitefully
that he should not pride himself on his divine origin for his father
was not Helius, but a mere mortal.
Phaethon in Bullfinch
http://www.showgate.com/bulfinch/fables/bull5.html
Detailed retelling of Ovid's story with links to text and images. Ends
with references to his sisters in mourning "turned into poplar trees,
from which their tears flowed and hardened into drops of amber."
Phaethon story on Rennaissance Casson
http://www.artsmia.org/mythology/slide9.html
Gives historical background of the story: "The Greek story of Phaeton
was probably based on older tales that explained eclipses or speculated
about the disasters that would result if the sun ever veered from
its regular path across the sky...It is most obviously a metaphor
for the limitless desires, but finite powers, of human beings. ...During
the Renaissance the story took on an entirely new significance....in order
to reconcile the classical past with Christian beliefs, Renaissance
scholars looked for Christian morals in classical myths whose original
meanings were no longer understood. For example, Phaeton's unsuccessful
efforts were equated with Lucifer's attempts to get too close to god. Moralizers
drew connections between Phaeton's demise and the Old Testament text of
Isaiah 14:12 - "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of
the morning." Scenes of Phaeton falling from his chariot were thus
very popular in Renaissance art."
Phaethon and the Chariot (for schools)
http://www.hipark.austin.isd.tenet.edu/home/mythology/phaeton.html
Version of Phaethon placing Phaethon in Ethiopia, indicating
his father is Apollo. Meets his father east of India at the end of the
world. Also tells the aftermath: "The horses ran home while pieces of
the wrecked chariot fell hissing into the sea. Quickly ... Vulcan, made
a new golden chariot for the sun. But Apollo was so sad over his son's
death that he refused to drive it. So the next day passed without sunlight.Zeus
and the other gods then came and pleaded with Apollo, begging him not to
leave the world in darkness. the sun god spoke bitterly of his son's death
at the hand of Zeus ... Apollo was finally persuaded to return to his rightful
duty. He bridled his fiery horses to the Sun chariot the next day and the
Sun once again traveled its correct course."
Phaethon and Cygnus
http://guistenal.newaygo.mi.us/~astro/text/tour/cyg.html
http://library.advanced.org/2595/tour/cyg.html
"Presents two endings to the story: 1)Cygnus plunged into
the river and dove like a swan looking for Phaethon. Apollo took pity on
him and Cygnus was placed among the stars; or 2) Cygnus wandered the banks
of the river singing a sad song. The gods then took pity on him and placed
him among the stars as a swan."
Greek Mythology Link: Helios and Phaethon
http://hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/Helius.html
Mentions some alternative versions of the story: This may be how Milky
Way was created. Phaethon may have secretly mounted the chariot rather
than asked permission to use it. He fell into the river Eridanus or the
river Po. He may have been borne too high above the earth and was afraid
of heights. The burning of the earth may have been the excuse Zeus was
seeking to send the Flood which killed everyone but Deucalion and Pyrrha.
The Path of a Comet and Phaethon's Ride
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/phaeth.html
Discussion of possible astronomical phenonemon giving rise to the myth
of Phaethon's ride and the scorching of the earth - the fall of a large
meteor or more likely, a close brush with a comet. A comparison to to other
myths: "One tale, recounted by Mendieta, Tezcatlipoca, defeating Quetzalcoatl
in ball-play (a game directly symbolic of the movements of the heavenly
orbs), cast him out of the land into the east, where he encountered the
sun and was burned." Also in regard to the ending of the age, the Sun
of Air: " .. "The Sun of Air," Ehcatonatiuh, closed with a furious wind,
which destroyed edifices, uprooted trees, and even moved the rocks... Quetzalcoatl
appeared in this third Sun, teaching the way of virtue and the arts
of life; but his doctrines failed to take root, so he departed toward the
east, promising to return another day. With his departure "the Sun of Air"
came to its end, and Tlatonatiuh, "the Sun of Fire," began, so called
because it was expected that the next destruction would be by fire."
References to extremely dry conditions 1000-1200 B.C. and portraits of
earth destruction in the Bible, dated to 1150 B.C., in Egyptian lore (Pharoah's
time), and a conjunction of five planets recording in China in 1148-1122
as related to earth calamities. Comets as dreaded omens in ancient texts.
Phaethon, Nimrod and the Bible
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/2bab051.htm#APPENDIX
The connection between Phaethon and Nimrod. Issues regarding Phaethon's
parents -
mother Aurora or Clymene, and father Merops, Orion or Phoebus. Relation
to other stories of fire-worship or light-giving. Excerpt: "The story
implies that that mother gave herself out to be Aurora, not in the physical
sense of that term, but in its mystical sense; as "The woman pregnant with
light;" and, consequently, her son was held up as the great "Light-bringer"
who was to enlighten the world,--"Lucifer, the son of the morning," who
was the pretended enlightener of the souls of men. The name Lucifer, in
Isaiah, is the very word from which Eleleus, one of the names of Bacchus,
evidently comes. It comes from "Helel," which signifies "to irradiate"
or "to bring light," and is equivalent to the name Tithon. Now we have
evidence that Lucifer, the son of Aurora, or the morning, was worshipped
in the very same character as Nimrod...."
Other Phaethon Links
http://www.phaethon.u-net.com/BAM/who.shtml
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=encyclopedia+Phaethon
http://www.angelfire.com/ct/isxios/helios.html
http://scholar.cc.emory.edu:80/scripts/APA/abstracts/zissos.html
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ovid.html
IMAGES
Above: Phoebus in command...
The Fall of Phaethon - painting by Peter Paul Rubens
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg45/gg45-70144.0.html
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?70144+0+0+gg45
closeups http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pdimage?70144+0+gg45
The Fall of Phaethon - drawing by Gaspare Diziani
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=56429+0+none
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?56429+0+0
Phaethon by Odilon Redon (pastel)
http://btr0xw.rz.uni-bayreuth.de/cjackson/redon/p-redon28.htm
http://www.hol.gr/cjackson/redon/p-redon28.htm
Apollo and Phaethon by Giovanni
http://metalab.unc.edu/cjackson/g/p-giovann1.htm
Phaethon Woodcut
http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/slides/a38.jpeg
Brooch: Phaethon 1880s (image atop page)
http://www1.shore.net/~antiquew/invmyth.htm
POETRY
"Look to the luminous egg-moon other,
Where is the truth of impersonal sun?
How goes the chariot, bright Phaethon,
How goes the mania, searing-wild clarity?"
copyright 1997 by Sally Clay
http://ddi.digital.net/~sally/z.poems/earlypoems.html
"As when the palsied universe aghast
Lay... mute and still,
When drove, so poets sing, the Sun-born youth
Devious through Heaven's affrighted signs his sire's
Ill-granted chariot. Him the Thunderer hurled
From the empyrean headlong to the gulf
Of thee half-parched Eridanus, where weep
Even now the sister trees their amber tears
O'er Phaeton untimely dead."
from Samor by Milman
"...I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and things that lustre have imbibed
In the sun's palace porch, where when unyoked
His chariot wheel stands midway on the wave.
Shake one and it awakens...."
from Gebir, Book 1, by Walter Savage Landor
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