Turns stars and planets in a different course:
I steer against their motions; nor am I
Borne back by all the currents of the sky;
But how could you resist the orbs that roll
In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole!'"
Phœbus pleaded with his son in vain. Phaeton undertook the aerial journey, and no sooner had he received the reins than he forgot the explicit directions of his father, and betrayed his ignorance of the manner of guiding the chariot. The flying coursers became sensible of the confusion of their driver, and immediately departed from the usual track. Too late Phaeton saw his rashness, and already heaven and earth were threatened with destruction as the penalty, when Jupiter, perceiving the disorder of the horses, struck the driver with a thunderbolt, and he fell headlong into the river Eridanus—
"At once from life, and from the chariot driven,
The ambitious boy fell thunderstruck from heaven."
In Ethiopian and Libyan mythology, it is asserted that the great heat produced by the sun's deviation from his usual course dried up the blood of the Ethiopians, and turned their skins black, and produced sterility and barrenness over the greater part of Libya. Evidently this fable alludes to some extraordinary heats at a remote period, and of which this confused tradition is all the account that has descended to later times.