西方神话Phaethon.docxVIP

Phaethon---- Driving the Sun’s Chariot to Meet His Doom Phaethon’s father was the Sun. Once when he was talking big and boasting of his father Phoebus, a friend of his could endure it no longer and told him: “You are a fool who believes everything your mother tees you. You are swollen-headed because you imagine Phoebus is your father, when he isn’t really your father at all.” Phaethon’s face grew red with anger, but feeling of shame prevented him from doing anything. He went to his mother Clymene and told her how he had been insulted. “What will grieve you all the more, mother,” he said, “is that I, with my fierce noble nature, had to hold my tongue. What a shame it is that such things could be said and yet could not be proved wrong. But you, if I really am sprung from the blood of the gods, give me a sign of my great birth, give me my place in heaven. ” Then he threw his arms round his mother’s neck and begged her for his sake and of the future happiness of his sisters, to give him a proof that Phoebus really was their father. As for Clymene, it would be hard to say whether she was moved more by Phaethon’s appeal or by the anger she felt at the insult to herself. She raised up her arms to the sky and, looking towards the light of the sun, said: “By that star that flames there with quivering rays, the sun that hears us now and looks down on us, I swear to you, my child, that he whom you now look at, he, the lord of the world, the Sun, is your father. If what I say is false, then let him withdraw himself from my sight, and let this be the last time that my eyes behold him. But it is not difficult for you to find your father’s house. His dwelling place is on the fringes ofour land, at the sunrise. If you are brave enough, go there and he will own you to be his. As soon as his mother had said this, Phaethon leapt gladly to his feet, his mind brimful of heaven. He went through the country of the Ethiopians, whom he regarded as belonging to him, and the Indians who dw