Respect Your Elders In Ted Hughes's Tales Of Ovid

Respect your elders. A phrase we all have heard many times throughout our lives. There are many phrases like these that guide us and teach us how to act; don’t be prideful, love your neighbor; these lessons can be traced down centuries and can be seen in parables from the bible and even in Greek mythology. Greek mythology was created to teach lessons on how people, at that time, should act and how to treat their gods. In Ted Hughes interpretation of Tales of Ovid he shows what happens to people who don’t follow the rules. In the story Phaethon, Phaethon, a human but son of the sun-god Phoebus, is punished because he is stubborn and ignores the advice that his dad-an elder, gives him. The moral of this story can be seen in both the prescriptive

Phaethon is given a wish by his father to ask him for anything, Phaethon asks for the chariot. Phoebus warns him to change his wish he tells him that no mortal can control the horses and that even he has trouble with it. “Even for me it is not easy” (Hughes 28). He warns Phaethon of how strong the horses are and how dangerous it is the ride the chariot because of obstacles there are in the sky, such as waking up the serpent, going too low to earth or too high to heaven and burning it. Phaethon is so fixated on riding the chariot that he ignores his father’s warning. “He wants nothing but to drive the chariot and the horses of the sun” (Hughes 29). Phoebus fails to bring sense into his son and grants him his wish; Phaethon rides the chariot but not before reminded to stay on the road. Phaethon not able to control the horses and gets lost, creating phenomena on earth. He burns earth and harms heaven which ultimately leads to him burning up and dying. His stubbornness taught the lesson to listen to your elders because they speak from wisdom and their mistakes and because if you don’t it will lead to your death just like

It not only teaches lessons but also explains how certain things came about in the world. Through the chaos that Phaethon creates on earth and in heaven many creations occur. When Phaethon was riding the horses, he got off the path his father told him to follow causing the Big Dipper or also known as the Plough to appear for the first time, “for the first time the stars of Plough smoked” (Hughes 32). Phaethon also sets earth on fire causing many things. He caused Africa to become a desert, “Libya, in a flash of steam became a shimmer desert” (Hughes 35), a place that from there on afterward would be a place where people would cry to water. Due to this the people began to burn and their skin tone changed, “the Ethiopians were burnt black” (Hughes 35). Since the earth was burning the Nile river appears in Africa “the terrified Nile escaped into Africa and his head among smoldering mountains” (Hughes 36). Phaethon is punished by Jove because of all the destruction he caused. Phaethon is hit by a thunder bolt and bursts into flames which causes Phaethon to be a shooting star, “Phaethon, hair ablaze, a fiery speck…plunged towards the earth like a star falling and burning out on a clear night” (Hughes 39). Phaethon becomes a star in the constellations as a reminder of what