I enjoyed the stories about Phaethon. His desire to be recognized as a god was so great that, after traveling to see the Sun and being offered anything, he wanted only to prove his immortality. Despite his father's pleads, Phaethon boyishly and stubbornly continued to request that he ride his father's chariot for one day. His hubris, or better his childish ambition, appears to be leading to his ultimate demise. As he "rides", he destroys nearly everything in his path, and although Phaethon is the one who actually did these terrible things, it is the Sun who is responsible for his son.
The third and final part of the Phaethon trilogy begins with Phaethon being killed by Jupiter. But what was interesting about this final part was the aftermath. Those who devoted themselves to mourning the loss of Phaethon were punished. The sister’s were transformed into poplar trees, and Cycnus was transformed into the first swan (see quote below). Only the Sun was able to mourn and then return to work.
“Remembering the lightning bolt the god in his severity had hurled. He looked for standing water, and open lakes hating fire, choosing to live in floods rather than flames.”
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| (Image Information: Fall of Phaethon by Sebastiano Ricci in the early 18th Century; Web Source Wikimedia) |
Besides all the normal junk, Jupiter rapes, victim gets pregnant and gives birth to a son, and Juno gets mad (blah, blah, blah), the ending of this story was actually nice. For Jupiter to show mercy by stopping Arcas from killing Callisto (his mother) and immortalizing them as constellations was a nice twist at the end.
Again. Rape leads to baby, baby leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to death. But it is interesting to note that the infant is Bacchus and that Semele, the mortal, is fooled by Juno to walk into her own death.
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