When hapless Phaëton looked down upon the earth, now spreading in vast extent beneath him, he grew pale, and his knees shook with terror. He lost his self-command, and knew not whether to draw tight the reins or throw them loose; he forgot the names of the horses. But when he beheld the monstrous forms scattered over the surface of heaven—the Scorpion extending two great arms, his tail, and his crooked claws over the space of two signs of the Zodiac—when the boy beheld him, reeking with poison and menacing with fangs, his courage failed, and the reins fell from his hands. The horses, unrestrained, went off into unknown regions of the sky, in among the stars, hurling the chariot over pathless places, now up in high heaven, now down almost to the earth. The Moon saw with astonishment her brother’s chariot running beneath her own. The clouds began to smoke, the forest-clad mountains burned—Athos and Taurus and Timolus and Œti; Ida, once celebrated for fountains; the Muses’ Mountain, Helicon and Hæmus; Ætna, with fires within and without, and Parnassus, with his two peaks, and Rhodope, forced at last to part with his snowy crown. The cold climate was no protection to Scythia; Caucasus burned, and Ossa and Pindus, and, greater than both, Olympus,—the Alps high in air, and the Apennines crowned with clouds.
Phaëton beheld the world on fire, and felt the heat intolerable. Then, too, it is said, the people of Ethiopia became black because the blood was called by the heat so suddenly to the surface; and the Libyan Desert was dried up to the condition in which it remains to this day. The nymphs of the fountains, with dishevelled hair, mourned their waters, nor were the rivers safe beneath their banks; Tanaïs smoked, and Caïcus, Xanthus and Mæander; Babylonian Euphrates and Ganges, Tagus with golden sands, and Caÿster where the swans resort. Nile fled away and hid his head in the desert, and there it still remains, concealed. Where he used to discharge his waters through seven mouths into the sea, seven dry channels alone remained. The earth cracked open and through the chinks light broke into Tartarus, and frightened the king of shadows and his queen. The sea shrank up. Even Nereus and his wife Doris, with the Nereïds, their daughters, sought the deepest caves for refuge.
Thrice Neptune essayed to raise his head above the surface, and thrice he was driven back by the heat. Earth, surrounded as she was by waters, yet with head and shoulders bare, screening her face with her hand, looked up to heaven, and with husky voice prayed Zeus, if it were his will that she should perish by fire, to end her agony at once by his thunderbolts, or else to consider his own heaven, how both the poles were smoking that sustained his palace, and that all must fall if they were destroyed.
Earth, overcome with heat and thirst, could say no more. Then Zeus, calling the gods to witness that all was lost unless some speedy remedy were applied, thundered, brandished a lightning-bolt in his right hand, launched it against the charioteer, and struck him at the same moment from his seat and from existence. Phaëton with his hair on fire, fell headlong like a shooting star which marks the heavens with its brightness as it falls, and Eridanus, the great river, received him and cooled his burning frame. His sisters, the Heliades, as they lamented his fate, were turned into poplar trees, on the banks of the river, and their tears, which continued to flow, became amber as they dropped into the stream.
THE STORY OF ODYSSEUS AND THE OXEN OF THE SUN
(Greek: From the “Odyssey”)
When Odysseus (called also Ulysses) one of the heroes of the Trojan war, was returning to his home in Ithaca, he had many adventures and suffered many hardships which caused him to be years making the voyage from Troy to Ithaca. One of these adventures was his visit to the Isle of the Sun, about which he had been warned by the goddess Circè. Odysseus himself tells how the ship in which he and his comrades were embarked entered the great deep and reached the Isle Æacea, where the Morning, child of Dawn, abides and holds her dances, and the Sun goes up from the earth. There they landed, and drew their galley up on the beach. After disembarking, they all lay down to sleep beside the sea and waited for the holy Moon to rise.
As soon as Circè, for this was the island where this goddess dwelt, heard that Odysseus and his comrades were there, she quickly attired herself and came down to the beach with her maids who followed, bringing bread and store of meats and generous wines. Then the wise goddess, standing in their midst, spake to them and said, “Take food and wine, and hold a feast to-day, and with the dawn of morning you shall sail away. I will show you the way, and point out to you all its dangers, so that you may not come to any harm through following false counsels, either on the land or on the water.” The confiding minds of Odysseus and his men were easily swayed by her counsels. So all that day they sat and banqueted upon the abundant meats and generous wines. And when the sun went down and darkness came, the crew lay down to sleep beside the moorings of the ship, and Circè, taking the hand of Odysseus, led him apart, made him sit down, and sitting before him made him tell all that he had seen.
Then she addressed him, saying, “Thus far all is well; now needfully attend to what I say, and may some deity help you to remember it.” She told him first about the Sirens’ haunt, which it would be difficult for him to pass, and then about the horrible rocks where Scylla and Charybdis dwelt, giving him instructions how to meet these dangers; then continuing she said, “In your voyage you will reach the Isle Trinacria, where in pastures belonging to the Sun many beeves and fatling sheep of his are fed—seven herds of oxen, and as many flocks of sheep, and fifty in each flock and herd. They never increase and they never die, and they are tended by two shepherdesses, goddesses with redundant locks. One is named Lampetia, the other Phaëthusa. If your desire be to return to Ithaca, your home, only leave these flocks and herds unharmed, and you and all your men will return, though after many toils. But if you rashly harm them, I foretell destruction to your ship and all its crew; and if you should escape, yet your return will be late and in sorrow, with all your comrades lost.”
As she finished speaking, the Morning on her golden throne looked forth; the glorious goddess went her way into the isle, and Odysseus went to his ship and bade the men embark and cast the hawsers loose. Straightway they all went on board, and duly manned the benches, smiting the hoary waters with their oars. Then Circè, amber-haired, the mighty goddess of the musical voice, sent a fair wind behind the dark-prowed ship, which gayly bore them company and filled the sails.