Phaeton, the son of the nymph Clymene, was very proud of his mother's beauty, and used to boast of it greatly to his playmates. Tired of the boy's bragging and conceit, one of his friends said to him one day:

"You're very willing to talk about your mother, but I notice you never speak of your father. Are you ashamed of him?"

"No, I'm not," replied Phaethon, trying to look unabashed.

"Well, then, tell us about him. If he were anything great, you would be willing enough to brag about him."

And because Phaethon kept quiet, all of his playmates began to jeer at him, cruelly enough.

"You don't know your father. You've never seen him," they cried.

Phaethon would not cry before them, but there were tears of shame and anger in his eyes as he told the story to his mother.

"Never mind, my boy," she said soothingly, "To-morrow you shall tell them the name of your father, and that will stop their taunts. Come, let me whisper it to you."

When Phaethon heard what she had to tell him, his eyes shone with joy and pride, and he could scarce wait for morning to carry his news to his mocking friends. He was first at the meeting-place, but he would say nothing until all his playmates were gathered. Then he said, quietly, but O, so proudly:

"My father is Apollo, the sun-god!"

For a moment there was silence; then came a burst of laughter from the group crowded about Phaethon.

"A likely story! Who ever heard anything so ridiculous? It's quite plain that your mother is ashamed of your father, and is trying to throw you off the track."

Again Phaethon ran home, his cheeks burning, his eyes flashing, and again he told his mother all that had passed.

"It's too late to do anything about it to-day," said Clymene, "but to- morrow you shall go yourself to your father's palace, before he sets out on his trip across the sky; and if he is pleased with you, he will give you some proof that you are really his son."

Long before daylight the next morning Phaethon set out, and with his mother's directions in mind, walked straight east until he came to the dazzling palace of the sun. Had he not been a bold youth, he would have been frightened and turned back; but he was determined to prove his boasts, and passed on into the palace. At last, on a great golden throne, he saw his father—surely a more glorious father than ever boy had before. So glorious was he that Phaethon dared not approach him closely, as the light about the throne was blinding. When Apollo recognized him, however, he took off the crown of rays from about his head and called to Phaethon to approach fearlessly.

As the boy stood before the throne, he was a son of whom no father, even Apollo, needed to be ashamed; and as he hurried into his story, the sun- god smiled at the signs of his impetuous temper.

"You're willing to own me for your son, aren't you?" finished Phaethon.

"To be sure I am," replied the sun-god; "and that your mates may never have chance to doubt it more, I swear by the terrible Styx [Footnote: The Styx was one of the great rivers of Hades. The oath by the Styx was regarded as so binding that even a god could not break it without being punished severely for his perjury. Any god who broke his oath was obliged to drink of the black waters of the Styx which kept him in utter unconsciousness for a year; and after his return to consciousness he was banished for nine years from Olympus.] to give you any proof you ask."

It did not take Phaethon long to decide—he had made up his mind on the way; and his words fairly tumbled over each other as he cried eagerly:

"Then I'll drive the sun-chariot for a day!"

Apollo was horrified, for he knew that he alone of the gods could manage the fiery steeds; and if great Jupiter himself could not do it, what would happen if they were placed in the power of this slight boy? He begged Phaethon to release him from his promise, but—

"You promised, you promised!" repeated the boy. "You swore by the Styx, and you CAN'T break your word."

This was true, as Apollo knew well; and at length, with a sigh, he turned and called to his servants, the Hours, who stood ready to attend him on his journey:

"Harness my steeds, and make sure that everything is right about the chariot."

While this was being done, Apollo explained carefully to his son the dangers of the way, hoping yet to turn him from his purpose.

"The path runs steeply upward at first," he said, "and with all their strength the horses can scarce drag the chariot. During the middle of the day the course is high, high in the heavens, and it will sicken you and make you dizzy if you look down. But the latter part of the drive is most dangerous, for it slopes rapidly down, and if the horses are not tightly reined in, horses, chariot and driver will fall headlong into the sea."

Nothing frightened Phaethon.

"You see," he explained, "it's not as if I didn't know how to drive. I've often driven my grandfather's horses, and they are wild and strong."

By this time the magnificent golden chariot and the six horses of white fire were ready, and after one last plea to his son, Apollo permitted him to mount the seat. He anointed the boy's face with a cooling lotion, that the heat might not scorch him, and placed the crown of beams about his head.

"And now," he said, "you must be off. Already the people on earth are wondering why the sun does not rise. Do remember, my boy, not to use the whip, and to choose a path across the heavens which is neither too high nor too low."

With but scant attention to his father's advice, Phaethon gave the word to his steeds and dashed out of the gates which Aurora opened for him. And thus began a day which the gods on Olympus and the people on earth never forgot.

[Illustration: IN VAIN PHAETHON PULLED AT THE REINS.]

The horses easily perceived that some other hand than their master's held the lines, and they promptly became unmanageable. In vain Phaethon pulled at the reins; in vain he called the steeds by name. Up the sky they dashed, and then, first to the south, then to the north, they took their zigzag course across the heavens. What a sight it must have presented from below, this sun reeling crazily about the sky! Worst of all, however, the horses did not keep at the same distance from the earth. First they went down, down, until they almost touched the mountain tops. Trees, grass, wheat, flowers, all were scorched and blackened; and one great tract in Africa was so parched that nothing has since been able to grow upon it. Rivers were dried up, the snow on the mountain tops was melted, and, strangest of all, the people in the country over which the sun-chariot was passing were burned black. [Footnote: In this way the ancients explained the great desert of Sahara, and the dark color of the people of Africa.] Then, rising, the horses dragged the chariot so far from the earth that intense, bitter cold killed off much of the vegetation which the fierce heat had spared.

Poor Phaethon could do nothing but clutch the seat and shut his eyes. He dared not look down, lest he lose his balance and fall; he dared not look about him, for there were, in all parts of the heavens, the most terrifying animals—a great scorpion, a lion, two bears, a huge crab. [Footnote: These terrifying animals which Phaethon saw in the sky were the groups of stars, the constellations to which the ancients gave the names of animals etc. We know the Big Dipper, or Great Bear, for we may see it in the north any clear night.] Vainly he repented of his rashness; sadly he wondered in what way his death would come.

It came suddenly—so suddenly that poor Phaethon did not feel the pain of it. For Jupiter, when he saw the sun rocking about the heavens, did not stop to inquire who the unknown charioteer was; he knew it was not Apollo, and he knew the earth was being ruined—that was enough. Seizing one of his biggest thunderbolts, he hurled it with all his might, and Phaethon fell, flaming, from his lofty seat into the Eridanus River; while the horses, whom no thunderbolt could harm, trotted quietly back to their stalls. Clymene bewailed her son's death bitterly, and his companions, grieved that their taunts should have driven their comrade to his destruction, helped her to erect over his grave a stone on which were these words:

"Lies buried here young Phaethon, who sought
To guide his father's chariot of flame.
What though he failed? No death ignoble his
Who fared to meet it with such lofty aim."

Most of the Greek myths had meanings; they were not simply fairy stories. And while we have no means now of finding the meanings of some of them, many of them are so clear that we can understand exactly what the Greeks meant to teach by them. By far the most numerous are the so- called "nature myths"—myths which they invented to explain the happenings which they saw constantly about them in the natural world. Of these nature myths the story of Phaethon is one.

The ancients believed that drought was caused by the sun's coming too close to the earth; but how could Apollo, experienced driver of the sun- chariot, ever be so careless as to drive close enough to the earth to burn it? It was easy enough to imagine that the chariot, when it did such damage, was being driven by some reckless person who knew not how to guide it. But then arose the necessity of explaining Apollo's willingness to trust such a reckless person with so great a task; and what more likely than that the inexperienced charioteer was Apollo's beloved son, who had induced his father to grant his rash request? Gradually details were added, until the story took the form in which we have it.

As the drought of summer is often brought to a close by a storm which is accompanied by thunder and lightning, and which hides the light of the sun, so in the story Phaethon's ruinous drive is brought to an end by the thunderbolt of Jupiter; while the horses, trotting back home before their time, leave the world in comparative darkness.

It must not be supposed that some one just sat down one day and said, "I will tell a story which shall explain drought and the ending of drought." This story, like all the others, grew up gradually. Perhaps, one day, in time of drought, some one said to his neighbor, "The chariot of Apollo is coming too close to the earth," and perhaps his neighbor replied, "Some one who knows not how to guide the white horses is driving it." Such language might in time easily become the common language for describing times of drought; and so, at length, would grow up, out of what was at first merely a description, in figurative language, of a natural happening, a story, in dramatic form.