Memnon was the son of Aurora and Tithonus, and was dearly loved by his young and beautiful mother. He became a very brave man. When the Trojan war broke out, he came from the East to help the Trojans. At first he was successful, and he put the Greeks to flight; but when Achilles met him, a great struggle began. Long they fought and bravely; but at last Memnon fell.

Aurora, who had witnessed Memnon’s defeat, told his brothers, the Winds, to bear his body to his home in the far East. There in the evening Aurora came to weep over the body of her son. The Hours, the rosy sister goddesses, joined in her grief, and the shining Pleiades veiled their faces in sorrow.

Aurora still laments the untimely death of her son, and her tears you may find in the early morning as dewdrops upon the bending grass and flowers.