Charlotte Mary Yonge

Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History Charlotte Mary Yonge

Book Excerptecame smaller and smaller, till he dwindled into a grasshopper, and at last only his voice was to be heard chirping at sunrise and sunset. Helios had an earthly wife too, and a son named Phaeton, who once begged to be allowed to drive the chariot of the sun for just one day. Helios yielded; but poor Phaeton had no strength nor skill to guide the horses in the right curve. At one moment they rushed to the earth and scorched the trees, at another they flew up to heaven and would have burnt Olympus, if Jupiter had not cast his thunderbolts at the rash driver and hurled him down into a river, where he was drowned. His sisters wept till they were changed into poplar trees, and their tears hardened into amber drops. Mercury gave his lyre to Apollo, who was the true god of music and poetry, and under him were nine nymphs--the Muses, daughters of memory--who dwelt on Mount Parnassus, and were thought to inspire all noble and heroic song, all poems in praise to or of the gods or of brave men, and the gra