ABSTRACT
In Ovid’s myth of Phaeton, Phoebus Apollo, who drives the sun’s chariot daily across the sky, gives one wish to Phaeton, his mortal son, who asks to drive the chariot, the craft of Vulcan, god of technology. Phoebus, dismayed but obliged to keep his word, orders his golden chariot brought forth and hitched to the fiery steeds with many admonitions: “Forget the whip, / But hold the reins with all your strength; these horses/ Race at their will.” But the boy cannot control them; they race and plunge, the dry earth splits, grain fields turn to ashes, cities perish, forests burn, the poles grow hot, springs dry up, mountains lose their snow, sea mammals die, and “Ancient Earth, child-bearer of all things,” cries out to Zeus: “Is this your will? Have I earned this for my / Fertility? For me who wear the scars / Of plough and spade?”1 And Zeus blasts Phaeton out of the sky. Can Phoebus Apollo, god of reason and of poetry, regain control of Vulcan’s chariot?
