Phaethon
Phaethon was a little boy who lived alone with his
mother. He started going to
school, and the other children
teased him because he didn't have any father. So when he got home
he asked his mother, "Mom, who is my father?" At first his mother
didn't want to tell him, but then she said, "Your father is the sun
god,Helios. He lives up in the
sky and drives the chariot of the sun."
Phaethon was like, "Really? Cool ! Wow, wait till I tell the other
kids!"
But when he told them, the other kids made fun of him. "Yeah, right,"
they said. "You just don't know who your dad is and you're making
this up. You expect us to believe your dad is a god?"
Phaethon sulked for a while and then he decided to show those mean
kids what was what. He took a little food
in a leather bag and he
walked and he walked and he walked until he got to the end of the
earth and he found where the gods were and got to Helios.
He said, "Lord Helios, are you really my dad?" And Helios said, "Yes,
I am." Phaethon said "Well if you are really my dad then let me drive
the chariot of the sun one time. That will show everyone at school
and they'll stop making fun of me." Well, Helios really didn't want
to do that. Phaethon was only a little boy, and he was only half a
god, and he certainly wasn't strong enough to handle those wild horses
of the chariot of the sun! But Phaethon begged and cried and sulked
and teased and after a long time Helios gave in and said "Okay, you
can drive them, but just this once. And you must be very very careful."
Phaethon promised to be very careful. He was very happy that he was
going to get to prove that he was really Helios' son.
So Helios showed him how to do it, and Phaethon got up on the chariot
and took the reins of the horses
and off they went. At first it went fine, and Phaethon waved at all
his friends down on the ground and was very pleased with himself.
But then the horses, feeling that it was only a little boy holding
the reins, began to run away! Phaethon could not hold them back, though
he pulled as hard as he could pull. The horses went too far up into
the sky, so that the sun
was too far from the earth. It got dark, and cold, and plants
began to die. Everyone was very scared.
Then the horses went the other way, too close to the earth. That was
even worse! It got too hot everywhere, and everything began to burn
up. Finally Helios, who had been watching
in horror, went to Zeus and said, "Lord
Zeus, I made a mistake. I let my little boy Phaethon drive the chariot
of the sun, and he is too little. Now the whole earth is going to
burn up. Please throw a thunderbolt at him and knock him out of the
chariot before things get any worse." He said this, even though he
loved his little boy and didn't want to hurt him, but he had to.
So Zeus knocked Phaethon out of the chariot,
and he fell to earth and died. But Helios
was able to catch the horses then, and made the sun go back in its
usual way.
To find out more about the story of Phaethon, check out these books on Amazon.com or at your library:
D'aulaire's
Book of Greek Myths, by Edgar and Ingri D'Aulaire.
Euripides: Phaethon, edited by James Diggle and others (2004). The main ancient source for the story is a fragmentary play by Euripides; this is a discussion of that play, with commentary on the myth, by specialists for specialists.
Greek ideas
about the Sun
Theseus
Hercules
Medusa
The Trojan War
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