Ovid vividly tells the tragic story of Phaethon, the son of the Sun God, Phoebus Apollo, who unwisely dared to try to drive his father’s fiery chariot across the sky.
Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here, as Phaethon sets out on his doomed adventure.
To be continued …
Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here.
In the illustration by Karl Bryullov, Apollo himself demonstrates how it should be done.
Phaethon’s ride in the chariot of his father, the Sun, has brought catastrophe as he sets the world ablaze. Now Jupiter intervenes to fell him with a thunderbolt before the damage goes from bad to worse.
The illustration by Giovanni Bernardi shows his fall, his sisters, who are turned to poplar trees on his burial mound, and his friend Cycnus, who will be transformed in to a swan.
Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here.
