PHAETHON • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Phaethon

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proper noun

Phaethon n.

(Class. Myth.) The son of Helios (Phoebus), that is, the son of light, or of the sun. He is fabled to have obtained permission to drive the chariot of the sun, in doing which his want of skill would have set the world on fire, had he not been struck with a thunderbolt by Jupiter, and hurled headlong into the river Po.

(Zool.) A genus of oceanic birds including the tropic birds.

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Etymology of 'Phaethon'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Phaethon" Quotes from Famous Books

... pre-eminent for strength and might, and for reckless pride, even the mighty Phaethon, that all the herdsmen still likened to a star, because he always shone so bright when he went among the other cattle, and was right easy to be discerned. Now when this bull beheld the dried skin of the fierce-faced lion, he rushed against the keen-eyed Heracles himself, ...

— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... us, that, reflecting upon the account given of Phaethon, who fell thunderstruck into the Eridanus, and of his sisters, who were changed to poplars weeping amber, he took a resolution, if he should ever be near the scene of these wonderful transactions, to inquire among the natives concerning the truth of the [150]story. It so happened, that, ...

— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... see thee, in my dreams, As fair as Daphne, with the morning beams Of thy bright locks about thee like a cloak,— Fair as the young Aurora when she woke At Phaethon's call, athwart the mountain-heights. I see thee radiant in the summer nights, And, bosom-pack'd with frenzies unrepress'd, I thrill to thee in ...

— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

Words linked to "Phaethon" : Greek mythology, boatswain bird, tropic bird, Greek deity, family Phaethontidae, Phaethontidae