Phaeton+and+the+Sun

Alex Vetterlein and Jordan Bloom __Summary__: 1. The myth starts out as Phaeton, the son of a mortal and the sun god, is playing with his friend. He brought up how he is the god of the sun's child and his friend doesn't believe him and tells him to bring back proof. So, Phaeton's mother tells him to go to the mountains in the East and find his father's palace. He reaches the palace and it is stricken with glowing beauty. His father tells him that he is truly the god of the sun and tells him he will give him any wish as proof. Phaeton asks to ride his father's chariot for the day, but he dad pleads for him to make another wish because the chariot is very dangerous and can cause great destruction. Still, Phaeton wishes to make this journey so his father allows him to, warning him that even he himself, a fully-grown god can barely handle it, and sprinkles magic oil around Phaeton. When Phaeton takes seat in the chariot, the fire-breathing horses start his trip. Phaeton is very fearful of being up high. He passes a giant snake within the sky that begins to attack him and he loses control of the horses reigns, and they flee. The chariot is then racing towards Earth and all the gods shook their heads in disgust at what was happening. Luckily, Zeus was there in time to save the Earth by launching a thunderbolt at the chariot. The magic oil protected Phaeton from the heat of the horses and chariot, but not from the thunderbolt. A new chariot was rebuilt, but poor Phaeton was dead. Zeus claimed that it would be best that the Earth was saved and Phaeton killed, rather than thousands of people dead just because of Phaeton's foolishness. The story ends with Apollo(the name of the sun god) agreeing to use the new chariot. __Myth__ 2. This type of myth is Hubris punishment. __Purpose__ 3. The purpose of this myth was to teach children to always listen to their elder's because sometimes their foolishness can lead to destruction, especially if it's a god. Phaeton didn’t listen to the warnings of his dad, Apollo, god of the sun, and went on his chariot anyway. He couldn’t control it and Zeus had to shoot him down to save the world from burning up from its heat. Phaeton didn’t listen and so he died.

__Modern day__ 4.This relates to modern day because when he steered the chariot too close to the Earth, it burned up the massive Sahara Forest and turned it and everything in it to ashes. This in modern day is the Sahara Desert. Also there is a car called the "Phaeton Volkswagon".