Astrology & myths · Greek and Roman myth · Ovid, Metamorphoses II
Phaethon, who borrowed the Sun
In Ovid's telling, Phaethon asks his father, the Sun, to let him drive the Sun's chariot for a day.
The story
The Sun warns him at length about the road and the horses, but Phaethon insists. The horses feel the lighter weight and bolt; Phaethon lets go of the reins, the mountains burn, and Jupiter strikes him from the chariot with a thunderbolt.
Reading it
The story explains, in its own terms, why some lands are desert, which Ovid says in so many words. It is also a story about a daily path that must not change: the same regularity that lets this site calculate tomorrow's sunrise to the second.
Astrology and myth are presented here as symbolic and historical traditions, not as predictions. The sky's positions and times on this site are calculated the same way in every lens.
Sources
- University of Virginia (A. S. Kline's version) Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II, lines 1–328: Phaethon (opens in a new tab) for Phaethon drives the Sun's chariot, loses the reins, the earth burns, Jupiter strikes him down · checked 2 October 2026
- Cool Moon Facts How the Sun pages calculate for the engine, its definitions, its independent checks and its limits