THE CONFLAGRATION OF PHAËTON
Now let us turn to the mythology of the Latins, as preserved in the
pages of Ovid, one of the greatest of the poets of ancient Rome.[1]
Here we have the burning of the world involved in the myth of
Phaëton, son of Phœbus--Apollo--the Sun--who drives the chariot
of his father; he can not control the horses of the Sun, they run
away with him; they come so near the earth as to set it on fire, and
Phaëton is at last killed by Jove, as he killed Typhon in the Greek
legends, to save heaven and earth from complete and common ruin.
This is the story of the conflagration as treated by a civilized
mind, explained by a myth, and decorated with the flowers and foliage
of poetry.
We shall see many things in the narrative of Ovid which strikingly
confirm our theory.
Phaëton, to prove that he is really the son of Phœbus, the Sun,
demands of his parent the right to drive his chariot for one day. The
sun-god reluctantly consents, not without many pleadings that the
infatuated and rash boy would give up his inconsiderate ambition.
Phaëton persists. The old man says:
"Even the ruler of vast Olympus, who hurls the ruthless bolts with
his terrific right hand, can not guide
[1. "The Metamorphoses," book xi, fable 1.]
{p. 155}
this chariot; and yet, what have we greater than Jupiter? The first
part of the road is steep, and such as the horses, though fresh in
the morning, can hardly climb. In the middle of the heaven it is high
aloft, whence it is often a source of fear, even to myself, to look
down upon the sea and the earth, and my breast trembles with fearful
apprehensions. The last stage is a steep descent, and requires a sure
command of the horses. . . . Besides, the heavens are carried round
with a constant rotation, and carrying with them the lofty stars, and
whirl them with rapid revolution. Against this I have to contend; and
that force which overcomes all other things does not overcome me, and
_I am carried in a contrary direction to the rapid world_."
Here we seem to have a glimpse of some higher and older learning,
mixed with the astronomical errors of the day: Ovid supposes the
rapid world to move, revolve, one way, while the sun appears to move
another.
But Phaëton insists on undertaking the dread task. The doors of
Aurora are opened, "her halls filled with roses"; the stars
disappear; the Hours yoke the horses, "filled with the _juice of
ambrosia_," the father anoints the face of his son with a hallowed
drug that he may the better endure the great heat; the reins are
handed him, and the fatal race begins. Phœbus has advised him
not to drive too high, or "thou wilt set on fire the signs of the
heavens"--the constellations;--nor too low, or he will consume the
earth.
"In the mean time the swift Pyroeis, and Eoüs and Æthon, the horses
of the sun, and Phlegon, the fourth, fill the air with neighings,
sending forth flames, and beat the barriers with their feet. . . .
They take the road . . . they cleave the resisting clouds, and,
raised aloft by their wings, they pass by the east winds that had
arisen from the same parts. But the weight" (of Phaëton) "was light,
and such as the horses of the sun could not feel; and the yoke was
deficient of its wonted weight. . . . Soon as
{p. 156}
the steeds had perceived this they rush on and leave the beaten
track, and run not in the order in which they did before. He himself
becomes alarmed, and knows not which way to turn the reins intrusted
to him; nor does he know where the way is, nor, if he did know, could
he control them. Then, for the first time, did the cold Triones grow
warm with sunbeams, and attempt, in vain, to be dipped in the sea
that was forbidden to them. And the Serpent, which is situate next to
the icy pole, being before torpid with cold, and formidable to no
one, grew warm, and regained new rage for the heat. And they say that
thou, Boötes, scoured off in a mighty bustle, although thou wert but
slow, and thy cart hindered thee. But when from the height of the
skies the unhappy Phaëton looked down upon the earth lying far, very
far beneath, he grew pale, and his knees shook with a sudden terror;
and, in a light so great, darkness overspread his eyes. And now he
could wish that he had never touched the horses of his father; and
now he is sorry that he knew his descent, and prevailed in his
request; now desiring to be called the son of Merops."
"What can he do? . . . He is stupefied; he neither lets go the reins,
nor is able to control them. In his fright, too, he sees strange
objects scattered everywhere in various parts of the heavens, and the
forms of huge wild beasts. There is a spot where the Scorpion bends
his arms into two curves, and, with his tail and claws bending on
either side, he extends his limbs through the space of two signs of
the zodiac. As soon as the youth beheld him, wet with the sweat of
black venom, and threatening wounds with the barbed point of his
tail, bereft of sense he let go the reins in a chill of horror."
Compare the course which Ovid tells us Phaëton pursued through the
constellations, past the Great Serpent and Boötes, and close to the
venomous Scorpion, with the orbit of Donati's comet in 1858, as given
in Schellen's great work.[1]
[1. "Spectrum Analysis," p. 391.]
{p. 157}
###
COURSE OF DONATI'S COMET
The path described by Ovid shows that the comet came from the north
part of the heavens; and this agrees with what we know of the Drift;
the markings indicate that it came from the north.
The horses now range at large; "they go through
{p. 158}
the air of an unknown region; . . . they rush on the stars fixed in
the sky"; they approach the earth.
"The moon, too, wonders that her brother's horses run _lower than her
own_, and the scorched clouds send forth smoke, As each region is
most elevated it is _caught by the flames_, and cleft, it makes _vast
chasms, its moisture being carried away_. The grass grows pale; the
trees, with their foliage, are _burned up_, and the dry, standing
corn affords fuel for its own destruction. But I am complaining of
trifling ills. _Great cities perish_, together with their
fortifications, and the flames _turn whole nations into ashes_;
woods, together with mountains, are on fire. Athos burns, and the
Cilician Taurus, and Tmolus, and Œta, and Ida, now dry but once
most famed for its springs, and Helicon, the resort of the virgin
Muses, and Hæmus, not yet called Œagrian. _Ætna burns intensely
with redoubled flames_, and Parnassus, with its two summits, and
Eryx, and Cynthus, and Orthrys, and Rhodope, at length to be
despoiled of its snows, and Mimas, and Dindyma, and Mycale, and
Cithæron, created for the sacred rites. Nor does its cold avail even
Scythia; Caucasus is on fire, and Ossa with Pindus, and Olympus,
greater than them both, and the lofty Alps, and the cloud-bearing
Apennines.
"Then, indeed, Phaëton _beholds the world see on fire on all sides_,
and he can not endure heat so great, and he inhales with his mouth
scorching air, as though from a deep furnace, and perceives his own
chariot to be on fire. And neither is he able now to bear the ashes
and _the emitted embers_; and on every side he is involved in a
_heated smoke_. Covered with _a pitchy darkness_, he knows not
whither he is going, nor where he is, and is hurried away at the
pleasure of the winged steeds. They believe that it was then that the
nations of _the Æthiopians contracted their black hue_, the blood
being attracted. into the surface of the body. Then was Libya"
(Sahara?) "made dry by the heat, the moisture being carried off; then
with disheveled hair the Nymphs _lamented the springs and the lakes_.
Bœotia bewails Dirce, Argos Amymone, and Ephyre the waters of
Pirene. Nor do rivers that
{p. 159}
have banks distant remain secure. Tanais smokes in the midst of its
waters, and the aged Peneus and Teuthrantian Caïcus and rapid
Ismenus. . . . The Babylonian Euphrates, too, was on fire, Orontes
was in flames, and the swift Thermodon and Ganges and Phasis and
Ister. Alpheus _boils_; the banks of Spercheus burn; and the gold
which Tagus carries with its stream melts in the flames. The
river-birds, too, which made famous the Mæonian banks with song, grew
hot in the middle of Caÿster. The Nile, affrighted, fled to the
remotest parts of the earth and concealed his head, which still lies
hid; his seven last mouths are empty, seven channels without any
streams. The same fate dries up the Ismarian rivers, Hebeus together
with Strymon, and the Hesperian streams, the Rhine, the Rhone, and
the Po, and the Tiber, to which was promised the sovereignty of the
world."
In other words, according to these Roman traditions here poetized,
the heat dried up the rivers of Europe, Asia, and Africa; in short,
of all the known world.
Ovid continues:
"All the ground bursts asunder, and through the chinks the light
penetrates into Tartarus, and startles the infernal king with his
spouse."
We have seen that during the Drift age the great clefts in the earth,
the fiords of the north of Europe and America, occurred, and we shall
see hereafter that, according to a Central American legend, the red
rocks boiled up through the earth at this time.
"The _ocean, too, is contracted_," says Ovid, "and that which lately
was sea is a surface of parched sand, and the mountains which the
deep sea has covered, start up and increase the number of the
scattered Cyclades" (a cluster of islands in the Ægean Sea,
surrounding Delos as though with a circle, whence their name); "the
fishes sink to the bottom, and the crooked dolphins do not care to
raise themselves on the surface into the air as usual. The bodies of
sea-calves float lifeless on their backs on
{p. 160}
the top of the water. The story, too, is that even Nereus himself and
Doris and their daughters _lay hid in the heated caverns_."
All this could scarcely have been imagined, and yet it agrees
precisely with what we can not but believe to have been the facts.
Here we have an explanation of how that vast body of vapor which
afterward constituted great snow-banks and ice-sheets and
river-torrents rose into the air. Science tells us that to make a
world-wrapping ice-sheet two miles thick, all the waters of the ocean
must have been evaporated;[1] to make one a mile thick would take one
half the waters of the globe; and here we find this Roman poet, who
is repeating the legends of his race, and who knew nothing about a
Drift age or an Ice age, telling us that the water _boiled_ in the
streams; that the bottom of the Mediterranean lay exposed, a bed of
dry sand; that the fish floated dead on the surface, or fled away to
the great depths of the ocean; and that even the sea-gods "hid in the
heated caverns."
Ovid continues:
"Three times had Neptune ventured with stern countenance to thrust
his arms out of the water; three times he was unable to endure the
scorching heat of the air."
This is no doubt a reminiscence of those human beings who sought
safety in the water, retreating downward into the deep as the heat
reduced its level, occasionally lifting up their heads to breathe the
torrid and tainted air.
"However, the genial Earth, _as she was surrounded by the sea_, amid
the waters of the main" (the ocean); "the springs dried up on every
side which had hidden themselves in the bowels of their cavernous
parent, burnt up, lifted up her all-productive face as far as her
neck, and
[1. "Science and Genesis," p. 125.]
{p. 161}
placed her hand to her forehead, and, shaking all things with a _vast
trembling_, she _sank down a little and retired below the spot where
she is wont_ to be."
Here we are reminded of the bridge Bifrost, spoken of in the last
chapter, which, as I have shown, was probably a prolongation of land
reaching from Atlantis to Europe, and which the Norse legends tell us
sank down under the feet of the forces of Muspelheim, in the day of
Ragnarok:
"And thus she spoke with a parched voice: 'O sovereign of the gods,
if thou approvest of this, if I have deserved it, why do thy
lightnings linger? Let me, if doomed to perish by the force of fire,
perish by thy flames; and alleviate my misfortune by being the author
of it. With difficulty, indeed, do I open my mouth for these very
words. Behold my scorched hair, and _such a quantity of ashes over my
eyes_' (the Drift-deposits), '_so much, too, over my features_. And
dost thou give this as my recompense? This as the reward of my
_fertility_ and my duty, in that I _endure wounds from the crooked
plow and harrows_, and am harassed all the year through, in that I
supply green leaves for the cattle, and corn, a wholesome food, for
mankind, and frankincense for yourselves.
"'But still, suppose I am deserving of destruction, why have the
waves deserved this? Why has thy brother' (Neptune) 'deserved it? Why
do the seas delivered to him by lot _decrease_, and why do they
_recede still farther from the sky?_ But if regard neither for thy
brother nor myself influences thee, still have consideration for thy
own skies; look around on either side, see how each pole is
_smoking_; if the fire shall injure them, _thy palace will fall in
ruins_. See! Atlas himself is struggling, and hardly can he bear the
glowing heavens on his shoulders.
"'If the sea, if the earth, if the palace of heaven, perish, we are
then jumbled into the old chaos again. Save it from the flames, if
aught still survives, and provide for the preservation of the
universe.'
{p. 162}
"Thus spoke the Earth; nor, indeed, could she any longer endure the
vapor, nor say more, and she withdrew her face within herself, _and
the caverns neighboring to the shades below_.
"But the omnipotent father, having called the gods above to witness,
and him, too, who had given the chariot to Phaëton, that unless he
gives assistance all things will perish in direful ruin, mounts aloft
to the highest eminence, from which he is wont to spread the clouds
over the spacious earth; and from which he moves his thunders, and
burls the brandished lightnings. _But then he had neither clouds that
he could draw over the earth, nor showers that he could pour down
from the sky_."
That is to say, so long as the great meteor shone in the air, and for
some time after, the heat was too intense to permit the formation of
either clouds or rain; these could only come with coolness and
condensation.
He thundered aloud, and darted the poised lightning from his right
ear, against the charioteer, and at the same moment deprived him both
of life and his seat, and by his ruthless fires restrained the
flames. The horses are affrighted, and, making a bound in the
opposite direction, they shake the yoke from their necks, and
disengage themselves from the torn harness. In one place lie the
reins, in another the axle-tree wrenched from the pole, in another
part are the spokes of the broken wheels, and _the fragments of the
chariot torn in pieces are scattered far and wide_. But Phaëton, the
flames consuming his _yellow_ hair, _is hurled headlong_, and is
borne in _a long track through the air_, as sometimes _a star is seen
to fall from the serene sky_, although it really has not fallen. Him
the great Eridanus receives in a part of the world far distant from
his country, and bathes his foaming face. The _Hesperian Naiads_
commit his body, smoking from the _three-forked_ flames, to the tomb,
and inscribe these verses on the stone: 'Here is Phaëton buried, the
driver of his father's chariot, which, if he did not manage, still he
miscarried in a great attempt.'
"But his wretched father" (the Sun) "_had hidden his_
{p. 163}
_face overcast with bitter sorrow_, and, if only we can believe it,
they say that _one day passed without the sun_. The flames" (of the
fires on the earth) "afforded light, and there was some advantage in
that disaster."
As there was no daily return of the sun to mark the time, that one
day of darkness was probably of long duration; it may have endured
for years.
Then follows Ovid's description of the mourning of Clymene and the
daughters of the Sun and the Naiads for the dead Phaëton. Cycnus,
king of Liguria, grieves for Phaëton until he is transformed into a
swan; reminding one of the Central American legend, (which I shall
give hereafter,) which states that in that day all men were turned
into _goslings_ or _geese_, a reminiscence, perhaps, of those who
saved themselves from the fire by taking refuge in the waters of the
seas:
"Cycnus becomes a new bird; but he trusts himself not to the heavens
or the air, as being mindful of the _fire unjustly sent from thence_.
He _frequents the pools and the wide lakes_, and, abhorring fire, he
chooses the streams, the very contrary of flames.
"Meanwhile, the father of Phaëton" (the Sun), "in _squalid garb_ and
destitute of his comeliness, _just as he is wont to be when he
suffers an eclipse of his disk_, abhors both the light, himself, and
the day; and gives his mind up to grief, and adds resentment to his
sorrow."
In other words, the poet is now describing the age of darkness,
which, as we have seen, must have followed the conflagration, when
the condensing vapor wrapped the world in a vast cloak of cloud.
The Sun refuses to go again on his daily journey; just as we shall
see hereafter, in the American legends, he refuses to stir until
threatened or coaxed into action.
{p. 164}
"All the deities," says Ovid, "stand around the Sun as he says such
things, and they entreat him, with suppliant voice, _not to determine
to bring darkness over the world_." At length they induce the enraged
and bereaved father to resume his task.
"But the omnipotent father" (Jupiter) "surveys the vast walls of
heaven, and carefully searches that no part, impaired by the violence
of the fire, may fall into ruin. After he has seen them to be secure
and in their own strength, he examines the earth, and the _works of
man_; yet a care for his own Arcadia is more particularly his object.
He _restores, too, the springs and the rivers_, that had not yet
dared to flow, _he gives grass to the earth, green leaves to the
trees_; and orders the injured forests again to be green."
The work of renovation has begun; the condensing moisture renews the
springs and rivers, the green mantle of verdure once more covers the
earth, and from the waste places the beaten and burned trees put
forth new sprouts.
The legend ends, like Ragnarok, in a beautiful picture of a
regenerated world.
Divest this poem of the myth of Phaëton, and we have a very faithful
tradition of the conflagration of the world caused by the comet.
The cause of the trouble is a something which takes place high in the
heavens; it rushes through space; it threatens the stars; it
traverses particular constellations; it is disastrous; it has yellow
hair; it is associated with great heat; it sets the world on fire it
dries up the seas; its remains are scattered over the earth; it
covers the earth with ashes; the sun ceases to appear; there is a
time when he is, as it were, in eclipse, darkened; after a while he
returns; verdure comes again upon the earth, the springs and rivers
reappear, the world is renewed. During this catastrophe man has
hidden himself, swanlike,
{p. 165}
in the waters; or the intelligent children of the earth betake
themselves to deep caverns for protection from the conflagration.
How completely does all this accord, in chronological order and in
its details, with the Scandinavian legend; and with what reason
teaches us must have been the consequences to the earth if a comet
had fallen upon it!
And the most ancient of the ancient world, the nation that stood
farthest back in historical time, the Egyptians, believed that this
legend of Phaëton really represented the contact of the earth with a
comet.
When Solon, the Greek lawgiver, visited Egypt, six hundred years
before the Christian era, he talked with the priests of Sais about
the Deluge of Deucalion. I quote the following from Plato
("Dialogues," xi, 517, _Timæus_):
"Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age, said, 'O
Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an
old man who is an Hellene.' Solon, hearing this, said, 'What do you
mean?' 'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are all young;
there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition,
nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you the
reason of this: there have been, and there will be again, many
destructions of mankind arising out of many causes. There is a story
which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaëthon, the
son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot,
because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father,
burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a
thunder-bolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but _really signifies
a declination of the bodies moving around the earth and in the
heavens, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth_
recurring at long intervals of time: when this happens, those who
live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable
to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore."'
{p. 166}