The story of Phaeton, (son of Apollo under the name of Phoebus) is as
follows: Venus becoming enamoured of Phaeton, entrusted him with the care
of one of her temples. This distinguished favour of the Goddess rendered
him vain and aspiring; and when told, to check his pride, that he was not
the son of Phoebus, Phaeton resolved to know his true origin; and at the
instigation of his mother, he visited the palace of the sun, to beg that
Phoebus, if he really were his father, would give him proofs of his
paternal tenderness, and convince the world of his legitimacy. Phoebus
swore by the Styx that he would grant him whatever he required; and Phaeton
demanded of him to drive his chariot (that of the sun) for one day. In vain
Phoebus represented the impropriety of his request, and {44} the dangers to
which it would expose him; the oath must be complied with. When Phaeton
received the reins from his father, he immediately betrayed his ignorance
and incapacity. The flying horses took advantage of his confusion, and
departed from their accustomed track. Phaeton repented too late of his
rashness, for heaven and earth seemed threatened with an universal
conflagration, when Jupiter struck the rider with a thunderbolt, and hurled
him headlong into the river Po. His body, consumed by fire, was found by
the nymphs of the place, and honoured with a decent burial.
The Heliades, his sisters wept for four months, without ceasing, until the
Gods changed them into poplars, and their tears into grains of amber; while
the young king of the Ligurians, a chosen friend of Phaeton, was turned
into a swan at the very moment he was yielding to his deep regrets. Aurora
is also the daughter of Apollo. She granted the gift of immortality to
Tithonus, her husband, son of the king of Troy; but soon perceiving that
the gift was valueless, unless the power of remaining ever young was joined
with it, she changed him into a grasshopper. From their union sprang
Memnon, who was killed by Achilles at the siege of Troy. The tears of his
mother were the origin of the early dew, and the Egyptians formed, in
honour of him, the celebrated statue which possessed the wonderful property
of uttering a melodious sound every morning at sunrise, as if in welcome of
the divine luminary, like that which is heard at the breaking of the string
of a harp when it is wound up. This was effected by the rays of the sun
when they fell on it. At its setting, the form appeared to mourn the
departure of the God, and uttered sounds most musical and melancholy; this
celebrated statue was dismantled by the order of Cambyses, when he
conquered Egypt, and its ruins still astonish modern travellers by their
grandeur and beauty.
"Unto the sacred sun in Memnon's fane,
Spontaneous concords quired the matin strain;
Touched by his orient beam, responsive rings
The living lyre, and vibrates all its strings;
Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong,
And holy echoes swell the adoring song."