TWENTY-SEVEN

For one long day after Phaeton’s fall the sun did not rise.

Some say Jupiter himself had to undertake the task of consoling bereft Phoebus Apollo.

The lord of daylight did not want to see his winged steeds again, nor ride the wide sky. Only the chief of the gods could encourage the brokenhearted father of Phaeton. The stories are told of the fiery, winged horses returning spent and weary to their stables from the widespread dark.

One entire day the sun did not rise, that day a long and seamless night, and some mortals later swore that they heard Vulcan’s hammer, forging a new chariot high above the plains and valleys in the mountainous refuge of Olympus.

Clymene and her daughters heard the murmur of the naiads’ song in the soft wind.

“Surely he’s still alive,” said Lampetia.

“Phaeton is waiting for us!” insisted Cycnus, the loyal cousin.

Clymene said much less, warned by the glance of Phaethusa.

Clymene’s eldest daughter had seen Phaeton in her sleep before the fiery dawn had broken, and had heard her brother’s warning in a dream that she had whispered at last into her mother’s ear.

I am lost,

but wait for you.

Perhaps this dream was Juno’s way of answering a mother’s prayer. There was no mistaking the sad message. Clymene and her daughters, joined by Cycnus, boarded a ship and sailed downriver to the sea, and had the sailors set the sails for western waters.

As the sunlight resumed its circuit, the ocean swells glittering, seabirds gliding once again, Clymene sensed the sun’s somber course, the hours passing slowly, the sunlight not quick to chase the morning mist.

The ship sailed westward.

Cycnus saw them first – the beckoning arms in the mouth of the river, the glowing faces of the naiads.

And he heard their voices, half-spoken, half-conveyed by thought, Here.

Phaeton is here.