Half a Hundred Hero Tales of Ulysses And the Men of Old

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE STORY OF PHAETON BY M. M. BIRD A FIERY and high-spirited youth, Phaeton could not brook the taunts of his playmate Epaphus, who claimed divine descent from Isis. When Phaeton boasted that his father was Phoebus the Sun-god, Epaphus only laughed and called him a base-born pretender. So one day Phaeton, stung to madness by these taunts, went boldly to his mother Clymene and demanded that she should give him some clear proof that he was indeed, as she averred, the very son of Phoebus. Clymene lifted her beautiful hands to the Sun, who rode gorgeous in the Heavens, and swore by him that none other than Phoebus was the father of the boy. " Nevertheless," said she, " if this doth suffice you not, and you seek other proof, travel yourself to his Eastern Mansion, which lies not so far remote from here, and ask