Helios embodied the people’s affection and love, never asking for anything in return. A guardian of oaths and the world, he made an oath to watch over his people with care. He would bring gifts of warmth and sunshine that the people adored, and they would bestow him an abode of ravishing, luxurious gifts. When his warmth would leave, a cool ambience would flood the surroundings, and the people would wait again to feel Helios’ warmth.
Helios’ beloved, naïve son, Phaethon, always accompanied him along for rides to distribute warmth to the people. Everyone enjoyed his youthful vigor, and greeted him with enthusiastic embraces. Phaethon was always so ambitious to ask his father about delivering warmth to the people on his own for once. He was unexperienced and naïve, but his dynamism would be enough to take the reigns and try his best to inspire his father. Helios always turned down Phaethon’s request to do this objective without some formal training, but one day, Helios decided to give his son an honest try, having been impressed by his aspiration and perseverance to undertake such a feat.
All of sudden, bright flashes of light spiraled everywhere, engulfing Phaethon’s surroundings. Helios travelled down to the people, only to witness chaotic infernos consuming the people’s minds and hearts.
“My son, what have you done?” Helios begs Phaethon.
“I am sorry father. I lost control. I thought I could do what you do. I thought I could…I thought,” Phaethon pleads, only to be cut off by excessive bouts of coughing. Helios’ worst nightmare came in the form of an unstoppable lightning strike that killed Phaethon instantaneously. In absolute dread, Helios cried out to his son, only for his lament to be in vain. Enraged, Helios sojourns to the culprit of the strike, employing a promised warning.
“You better watch what you do Zeus. I will never take my eyes off you.” Helios warns. Zeus smiles amusingly. Helios keeps his promise, and moves as close to the people as he can without hurting them. For days on end, his view of the people and Zeus were ceaseless, and a sense of uncomfort surrounded the people. Zeus became fed up with the consistent eyes badgering him, almost taunting him for any action he might do, and politely asked Aether to restore a favour he previously promised. Aether swept the world and obstructed Helios’ view from Zeus and the people, and they began to feel Helios’ and Phaethon’s warmth in excess now. Helios, feeling defeated and discouraged by the loss of son, had not the strength nor heart to hurt the people he loved so dearly, and remained in his place, unable to obtain justice from Zeus’ accomplishment.
Everyone who now looks at Helios, looks at him with scorn and resentment having been punished for a deed done that was not theirs. From the raging fires of an enduring mistake and a father’s suffering penance, the Earth remained unbearably warm, forever trapped by the winds carrying the inferno across the world.
Analysis Part 1: What is Global Warming? Summarizing the Real Myth
Global warming is the increase in average global temperature (MacMillan). Carbon dioxide and other air pollutants are collected in the atmosphere, and absorb solar radiation and sunlight recoiling off the Earth’s surface when it otherwise would have been released into space (MacMillan). Global warming's importance is insinuated in my re-imagining of the myth of Phaethon, Helios’s son, and his fall onto Earth. My myth in no way is able to connect the phenomenon of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions as resulting in global warming, but perhaps it can help to explain global warming in a distinctive, non-scientific approach.
To provide an understanding of how these ancient myths contributed to the creation of this myth, I will first provide a synopsis of the characters and their functions within myth. Helios is described as the Titan personification of the Sun using his chariot to sustain daylight across the sky until night time, and he has the ability of sight to oversee everything on Earth and Mount Olympus (HH. Hymn. 31 to Helios). Aeschylus' play "Heliades", which unfortunately exists in fragments, reveals that one day, Helios’ son, Phaethon, is intrigued by the sun chariot and asks Helios if he can take his turn to propel it across the sky (Aeschylus). Helios grants Phaethon permission, but in the midst of riding the chariot, he loses his guidance and control and eventually crashes into the Earth, setting the entirety of it ablaze (Aeschylus). Zeus offers punishment to Phaethon for crashing into Earth in the form of a lighting strike and kills him (Aeschylus). This is all the information that describes the fall of Phaethon, and there is no other information that may indicate about what occurs after Phaethon’s death, except for his intense mourning by his sisters and parents indicated in Heliades. This is where my myth deviates and presents a new understanding of the aftermath of the events in the original myth that correspond to the origination of global warming.
Analysis Part 2: Using Ancient Myths in Creative Decision Making
I wanted to progress the story into an understanding of how we can conceptualize the phenomenon of global warming. Based on the myths explained above, I use Helios' personification of the literal Sun, Aether's personification of the air/atmosphere, and their interaction as a metaphor for the solar radiation (as Helios) that is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere (as Aether). I use Phaethon's crash into Earth to describe heat waves from the Sun being trapped on Earth that adds extra solar radiation being trapped in the atmosphere. This is based on the folklore of Phaethon’s fall used in Western civilization by many farmers to describe why heat waves and droughts occur, in which the term “earth on fire” accompanies the death of life (crops, plants and potentially wide life) and extreme heating conditions (McLeod).
Incorporating many aspects of the original myth, I wanted to add on an element of vengeance and suffering that is felt by Helios after his son is struck down by Zeus. The original telling of the myth does not describe Helios’s perspective of the event after Phaethon is killed, so I wanted to be able to use this imaginary extension of the original myth into my own myth to describe the events of global warming. In the following explanations, I will reveal the themes of fatherly love and Helios' occasional wrath using several myths. While Helios is humble and faithful to his people, he also presents a temper and reveals his wrath evident in the interactions of Odysseus and his crew in "The Odyssey" when they eat his cattle and he has to ask Zeus to help him smite Odysseus' ship in Book 1 (Homer, Odyssey 1. 8 ff) , and when Phineus, king of Salmydessus, challenges Helios to a contest to test prophetic skills to see who can win the favour of the people (Oppian, Cynegetica 2. 615). Helios' favour and love for his son and wrath is shown in this myth, when Phineus threatens Phaethon in his apparent loss to Helios, and he sends Harpies after Phineus (Oppian, Cynegetica 2. 615). In my myth, I briefly mentioned that Helios and Phaethon also have a good, stable relationship with the Greek people. I decided to incorporate this relationship in inspiration of the general cults around the Greek peninsula praising Helios and his son, especially in Southern Greece and Corinth, in which citizens built a gateway consisting of two chariots that carry Phaethon and Helios in their honour (Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 3. 2) This relationship also proved to be important in my myth when Helios descends upon Earth in a way that does not hurt the humans, and how his positioning between keeping the people safe while trying to keeping an eye on Zeus led to his current position relative to Earth, causing gradual waves of heat upon the land. These myths explain my decision for incorporating Helios' wrath exemplified by punishing others when they threaten protection of his people, loved ones and property, specifically in this case, the wrath Helios shows to Zeus when he strikes Phaethon. Keep in mind when I previously mentioned that there are no other mentions of Phaethon, his story and his relationship with Helios in myth, (except in reiterations of his myth by other poets).
While this phenomenon is not occurring in modern, real life, I decided to use Helios' capacity for observance and surveillance over Mount Olympus and humans on Earth mentioned previously in Homer's Hymns (HH. Hymn. 31 to Helios) to describe the reason for Helios’s gradual closeness to the Earth in my myth. This eventually corresponds to an increase in the heat/solar exposure of the Sun (Helios) onto Earth. I use Helios’ descent to be closer to Earth as an advertence to the current arrangement of the sun within space, suggesting that the sun could have been even further away for Earth than it is currently positioned. This compromise is based on Helios' relationship with the people and is stuck in this positioning, as mentioned previously. According to Homer's Hymns to Cronides, Zeus does not like to be watched over, nor does he like to be reprimanded or constrained for his actions, and this is reflected in myth by him not wanting to be seen by Helios (HH. Hymn. 23 To Cronides). I decided to incorporate Zeus’ commitment to secrecy by introducing Aether, the primordial god of air and light (Aesch. PB. 88 ff.) He is often the literal personification of air, filling the spaces and environment between the dome of the sky (considered to be Ouranos, who is the Titan personification of the sky and heaven) and the mists that surround earth-bounded air to ultimately create the atmosphere around the Earth (Aesch. PB. 88 ff.). Aether is also said to envelope the moon, sun, stars, clouds and mountain peaks with his mists (Hom. Od. 8, 46-47.) These texts describing Aether's atmospheric personification is useful for incorporating fantastical, fictitious elements into the myth. I decided to use Aether as a metaphor to represent the actual atmosphere of the Earth that absorbs the solar radiation, and Zeus' secrecy in myths explained previously is important to his role as the ever-engulfing air of the Earth. I was also inspired to incorporate a relationship between Aether and Zeus in myth by the brief explanation of their relationship in Orphic Hymn 5 to Ether, in which Aether is described to be of high status in Zeus' dominions (Orphic Hymn 5 to Ether). Since Zeus is the God of the Sky, and Aether controls the winds while enveloping everything that there is in the sky (Zeus' dominion), Aether seems to have some control over the sun's effects to a certain extent in shielding Mount Olympus where the gods reside and the rest of the world. This would also mean that Helios is now closer to Zeus' domain that allows him to watch over him more easily, as mentioned previously. However, in accordance with global warming, this shielding can prove to be disadvantageous as the sun's radiation will reflect off of the Earth and be captured within the clouds and atmosphere. The strong relationship between Zeus (sky) and Aether (air/atmosphere) to protect the Earth from the Sun's rays (Helios) becomes clearer and more purposeful.
At the end of the story, I combine the three major events of my myth into one grand explanation that describes the development of global warming: the heat waves from the crashing of the Sun chariot by Phaethon, the sun’s energy and radiation emitted by Helios as he draws closer to Earth, and the appointing of Aether to trap Helios’ gaze from Earth and Mount Olympus.
Bibliography
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MacMillan, Amanda. “Global Warming 101.” Natural Resources Defense Council Inc., 11 Mar. 2016, www.nrdc.org/stories/global-warming-101.
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