Of the characters in Greek mythology called Phaethon, the best known was the
son of the Oceanid Clymene and the solar deity Apollo or Helios. Alternative,
less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Merope, of Helios and
Rhode or of Helios and Prote. In the prevailing account, Phaethon,
challenged by his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his
father was the sun god. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn
to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would
demonstrate his relationship with the sun. When the god promised to grant him
whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the sun chariot for a
day. Placed in charge of the chariot, he was unable to control the horses. The
earth was in danger of being burnt up and, to prevent this disaster, Zeus
killed him with a thunderbolt. The name "Phaethon", which means
"Shining One", was given also to Phaethon, to one of the horses of Eos,
the Sun, the constellation Auriga, and the planet Jupiter, while as an
adjective it was used to describe the sun and the moon. In some accounts the
planet referred to by this name is not Jupiter but Saturn.
In modern times, an asteroid whose orbit brings it close to the sun has been
named "3200 Phaethon" after the mythological Phaethon.
The French form of the name "Phaethon" is "Phaéton". This form of the word is
applied to a kind of carriage. An order, family, and genus of birds
bear the name Phaethon in their taxonomic nomenclature, the tropicbirds.
Plato's Timaeus In Plato's Timaeus, Critias tells the
story of Atlantis as recounted to Solon by an Egyptian priest, who prefaced the
story by saying: There have ac, and will be again, many
destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been
brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by
innumerable other causes. There is a story that even you [Greeks] have
preserved, that once upon a time, Phaethon, the son of Helios,
having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to
drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth,
and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a
myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens
around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth,
which recurs after long intervals. Ovid
In the version of the myth told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Phaethon ascends
into heaven, the home of his suspected father. His mother Clymene had boasted
that his father was the Sun-God or Phoebus. Phaethon went to his father who
swore by the river Styx to give Phaethon anything he would ask for in order to
prove his divine sonship. Phaethon wanted to drive the chariot of the sun
for a day. Phoebus tried to talk him out of it by telling him that not even
Jupiter would dare to drive it, as the chariot was fiery hot and the horses
breathed out flames. He said: "The first part of the track is steep,
and one that my fresh horses at dawn can hardly climb. In mid-heaven it is
highest, where to look down on earth and sea often alarms even me, and makes my
heart tremble with awesome fear. The last part of the track is downwards and
needs sure control. Then even Tethys herself, who receives me in her
submissive waves, is accustomed to fear that I might dive headlong. Moreover the
rushing sky is constantly turning, and drags along the remote stars, and whirls
them in rapid orbits. I move the opposite way, and its momentum does not
overcome me as it does all other things, and I ride contrary to its swift
rotation. Suppose you are given the chariot. What will you do? Will you be
able to counter the turning poles so that the swiftness of the skies does not
carry you away? Perhaps you conceive in imagination that there are groves there
and cities of the gods and temples with rich gifts. The way runs through ambush,
and apparitions of wild beasts! Even if you keep your course, and do not steer
awry, you must still avoid the horns of Taurus the Bull, Sagittarius the
Haemonian Archer, raging Leo and the Lion's jaw, Scorpio's cruel pincers
sweeping out to encircle you from one side, and Cancer's crab-claws reaching
out from the other. You will not easily rule those proud horses, breathing out
through mouth and nostrils the fires burning in their chests. They scarcely
tolerate my control when their fierce spirits are hot, and their necks resist
the reins. Beware my boy, that I am not the source of a gift fatal to you, while
something can still be done to set right your request!"
Phaethon was adamant. When the day came, the fierce horses that drew the chariot
felt that it was empty because of the lack of the sun-god's weight, and went
out of control. Terrified, Phaethon dropped the reins. The horses veered
from their course, scorching the earth, burning the vegetation, bringing the
blood of the Ethiopians to the surface of their skin and so turning it black,
changing much of Africa into desert, drying up rivers and lakes and shrinking
the sea. Earth cried out to Jupiter, who was forced to intervene by striking
Phaethon with a lightning bolt. Like a falling star, Phaethon plunged blazing
into the river Eridanos. The epitaph on his tomb was quite to the
point: Here Phaethon lies who in the sun-god's
chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more
greatly he dared. Phoebus, stricken with grief at his
son's death, at first refused to resume his work of driving his chariot, but at
the appeal of the other gods, including Jupiter, returned to his task.
Suetonius In The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius
attributes to the emperor Tiberius the following repeated remark about the
future emperor Gaius Caligula: "That to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin
of himself and of all men, and that he was raising a viper for the Roman people
and a Phaethon for the world". Clement of Alexandria
According to Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata, "...in the time of
Crotopus occurred the burning of Phaethon, and the deluges of Deucalion.
Other ancient writers Fragments of Euripides' tragedy on this
subject suggest that, in his account, Phaethon survives. In reconstructing the
lost play and discussing the fragments, James Diggle has discussed the treatment
of the Phaethon myth. In the True History by the satirical
Greek writer Lucian, Phaëthon is king of the sun and is at war with the moon.
= Post-classical works= Dante refers to the episode in both the
Inferno and Paradiso Canto XVII of his Divine Comedy.
William Shakespeare uses the story of Phaethon as an allegory in his play
Richard II. John Marston includes reference to
Phaeton in 'The Malcontent' whereby Mendoza's monologue describes the
'...sparkling glances, ardent as those flames that singed the world by heedless
Phaeton!' - Act 1, Scene 5 Jean-Baptiste Lully wrote a musical
tragedy Phaéton, in which he referred indirectly to the fate of Nicolas
Fouquet whose ambitions to imitate the King Louis XIV—The Sun King—brought on
his downfall. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote a symphonic
poem entitled Phaéton. Niccolò Jommelli wrote an opera Fetonte
to an Italian-language libretto by Mattia Verazi using various sources,
principally Ovid, for the myth of Phaeton. First performed at the Ducal
Theatre, Ludwigsburg in February, 1768, where Duke Karl-Eugen of Württemberg
maintained an opera troupe. In Otakar Theer's symbolist tragedy
Faëthón, the hero epitomizes man's revolt against the world order and
against human destiny. The tragedy was adapted in 1962 into a celebrated
eponymous radio play by Miloslav Jareš and Jaromír Ptáček.
In 2012, former Disco Inferno frontman Ian Crause adapted the story of Phaethon
as The Song of Phaethon for his first musical release in over a decade. Crause
used the story as an analogy for Britain's entry into the Second Gulf
War. See also
Cycnus Icarus
Bellerophon References
20. 'Harvest of Stars' External links
The translation and reconstruction of Euripides' "Phaethon" made by Vlanes is
now available as ebook on Amazon: [1] George Stubbs's 'The Fall of Phaeton' at
the Lady Lever Art Gallery Comet Phaethon's Ride, by Bob Kobres
Theoi Project: Phaethon, Greek demigod child of the sun
Theoi Project: Phaethon, Greek god of the star Jupiter