Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

by Stephen Fry

Phaeton’s affectionate friend Cygnus went to the River Eridanos, into whose waters poor dead Phaeton had plunged. He sat there on the bank mourning the loss of his lover with such a plaintive wail that a distraught Apollo struck him dumb and finally, out of pity and remorse for the youth’s ceaseless but now silent and inconsolable suffering, transformed him into a beautiful swan. This species, the mute swan, became holy to Apollo. In remembrance of the death of the beloved Phaeton the bird is silent all its life until the very moment of its death, when it sings with terrible melancholy its strange and lovely goodbye, its swan song. In honour of Cygnus the young of all swans are called ‘cygnets’.

Here Phaeton lies who in the sun-god’s chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.

After many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream