Narrative
There he was, at 18 years old, Phaethon was finally able to see his father on his special day. It was a big celebration for the tiny family, Helios promised to meet his son Phaethon for the first time. After the festivities and celebration, Phaethon wished for one gift, he asked his father to ride the Chariot of the Sun. Helios was hesitant at first, but deemed his son was old and mature enough to take on such a difficult task. The fiery stallions of the Sun’s Chariot show no mercy, even to Helios himself, despite their tightly bonded companionship. Phaethon was hundreds of feet in the air, barely holding on to the fiery horses as the stallions sped forward on their own. The chariot enveloped in light as it bursts across the earth repeatedly at such a low altitude that the Sun was now double the size in the sky, the horses were not listening to Helios repeated calls, until Zeus appeared in a sudden burst of lightning. Zeus was prepared to shoot down the Sun’s Chariot, despite Helios pleading for mercy, Zeus needed to stop the Chariot from doing more harm to Earth than it already did, one thunderbolt was all it took to burst the Chariot like a star in the sky. Helios was outraged at Zeus for killing his son Phaethon and the rest of the stallions and sought to avenge the death of his close companions and son.
Helios set out to the underworld to get new fiery horses for the Sun’s Chariot, until he stumbled into Hades. Hades too shared a hatred to Zeus, he was tricked and cheated out of power by Zeus and sent to the Underworld, Helios and Hades joined to seek revenge. Along with 7 of the strongest stallions in the underworld, Helios left the underworld with a bag of magic dust, gifted to him by Hades. The next day, as Helios was riding the Sun’s Chariot across the sky, opened the bag of magic dust, smearing it into the atmosphere. The magic dust was Hades special gift to the overworld, it is odourless and practically invisible, but it was formally used to trap heat within the underworld, now it’s covering the Earth. It was hard to notice any difference in temperature at first, but Hades always played the long game. As generations went on, Helios poured more and more of the magic dust into the sky. Creating an invisible heat trapping layer, soon Zeus and the people of Earth will notice Helios revenge.
Analysis
In this narrative, there are a few gods used in this aetiological myth about global warming. The main theme in this aetiology is revenge, as depicted by Helios and Hades. The theme of revenge is very common in Greek Mythology, it is used in many cautionary tales to show mortals to not commit wrongdoings, however this theme of revenge is used in an aetiological way. These two gods were angry at Zeus for his actions and used that anger to plot revenge against Zeus and the people living on Earth. Helios who is seen as the main deity in this myth granted his son Phaethon to ride the Chariot of the Sun, who then loses control and burns the Earth (Plato, Timaeus. 22). Helios gets angry at Zeus because his son was punished to death by a thunderbolt (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 598). In the aetiology, it is seen that Hades also shares a hatred for Zeus, mainly because he was unfairly given the Underworld in the division of the cosmos after him and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon won in the war of the titans. In the actual Greek myth, it was a fair division where the brothers made a draw, and Hades drew the Underworld as his share (Homer, Iliad 15. 187). Hades feeling anger towards Zeus because the division was unfair is an innovation of the original myth shown in this aetiology, this was an important innovation because it allows Hades and Helios to share a common goal and fulfill the main theme of the narrative, revenge.
The first main incident of the aetiology was Phaethon losing control of the Suns Chariot. From the ancient myth, riding the Suns Chariot is a very important task, Helios and his Chariot control the Suns movement across the sky, bringing light as well as warmth to Earth. It is mentioned in the original myth, that the Earth first froze when the Chariot climbed too high but scorched the Earth when it was too close (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 252), this required Phaethon to be in full control of the Chariot’s horses and why Zeus had to stop the chaos immediately by force. The aetiology mentions Phaethon rides so close to the Earth, that the planet receives 100 days more worth of heat than it should, this is the first main catalyst in the aetiology of global warming. This aetiology shows the origin of what first caused the Earth to heat up, the first catalyst creating the turning point of Earth into global warming, which was Phaethon’s accident.
After Phaethon’s death, it is obvious and evident that his father Helios is upset, he was the one that granted Phaethon access to the Chariot after all. Helios was filled with grief and remorse; he would have denied his sons request if only he knew it meant his son would be alive. In ancient myth, Helios grief raised into rage and he denied his duty of riding the Chariot and bringing Sun to the world, evidently it is because he was distraught at the death of his son (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750), It was only after all the deities surrounded Helios and begged him to not shroud the world in darkness, he climbed back on the Chariot and continued his duty. The aetiology uses these emotions of grief and guilt in Helios to justify his anger and hatred towards Zeus and seek to avenge his son’s death.
In the aetiology, Helios was left without a son and no horses to lead his Chariot across the sky, since it was described the horses were fiery, it made sense for Helios to go to the Underworld to find new stallions. This leads Helios into the world of Hades, as ruler of the Underworld, Hades also depicts fire through symbolism and his environment of the Underworld (Plato, Phaedo 111 - 115), just like how Helios is also symbolically similar to fire since he controls fiery horses and the whole Sun (Seneca, Medea 28). This similarity between Hades and Helios makes them a good match, along with their similar hatred towards Zeus, the aetiology creates a connection between Hades and Helios based on the main theme of the narrative of revenge. Hades primary focus was to ensure none of his subjects leave the Underworld, hence he rarely left his domain, the aetiology shows this by Hades giving a gift to Helios to take to the Overworld as a great opportunity for both of them to seek revenge. The aetiology invents a magic dust that is supposedly used to insulate the heat within the Underworld, this is gifted to Helios by Hades to heat up the planet and avenge Phaethon.
The next and following days, Helios is shown to smear the atmosphere with the bag of magic dust. The aetiology uses similar characteristics of greenhouse gasses to be represented by the magic dust, the properties of colourless and odourless are major properties of greenhouse gasses that insulate heat within the Earth causing global warming. This magic dust used to insulate heat within the Underworld is now sprayed across the Earth’s atmosphere, this insulation over the Earth is identical to the effects of the greenhouse gasses present today in the atmosphere. Helios sprays this magic dust to warm up the planet even more, he acts out of grief and anger towards Zeus and tries to avenge his son by causing damage to Earth and polluting the sky which is known as Zeus’s domain. This act fulfills Helios and Hades revenge plot, as well as creates a reason and cause as to how global warming started and is continuing, each year the Earth gets warmer and warmer and this all because Helios is avenging his son Phaethon who died in the hands of Zeus.
The aetiology now covers the two main components of global warming, the initial heating of the planet has been represented by Phaethon’s mistake riding the Chariot too close to the Earth, producing over a hundred days worth of heat within a matter of minutes; as well as the continuous long term property of greenhouse gasses represented by the magic dust to continue the cycle of heating by forming an insulating layer around the Earth.
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