Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel

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 Phaėton, 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 Phaėton 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.

Phaėton, 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. Phaėton persists. The old man says:

"Even the ruler of vast Olympus, who hurls the ruthless bolts with his terrific right hand, can not guide 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 Phaėton 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.