Clymene- Greek SpiritSpirit · Nymph
Also known as: Klymene, Κλυμένη, and Klymenē
Description
Clymene swore to her son that Helios was his father and sent the boy east to prove it. Phaethon asked to drive the sun chariot, lost control, and fell burning from the sky. She found his tomb by the Eridanus, where his sisters wept themselves into poplar trees and their tears became amber.
Mythology & Lore
The Sun God's Lover
Clymene was an Oceanid nymph, one of the three thousand daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. She became the lover of Helios and raised their son Phaethon far from Olympus, in Ethiopia, where the boy grew up knowing only his mother's word that his father was a god.
When a companion mocked Phaethon's claim to divine parentage, the boy went to Clymene demanding the truth. She raised her hands toward the sun and swore by its light that Helios was his father. The palace of the Sun lay to the east, she told him, at the edge of the world. He need only follow the dawn. Phaethon went.
The Chariot and the Grief
Phaethon reached his father's palace and asked, as proof of his birth, to drive the sun chariot for a single day. Helios, bound by a rash oath to grant any wish, could not refuse. The boy took the reins and lost control. The chariot careened across the sky, scorching the earth and setting mountains ablaze until Zeus struck Phaethon down with a thunderbolt. He fell burning into the river Eridanus.
Clymene wandered the earth searching for her son. When she reached the Eridanus, the Naiad nymphs had already found his body and built his tomb. She threw herself upon the stone. The Heliades, Phaethon's sisters, came to mourn beside her and wept for four months without rest. When they tried to rise, bark crept up their legs and sealed them where they stood — the gods had turned them into poplar trees. Their tears hardened into drops of amber that fell into the river and were carried downstream.
Hesiod also names a Clymene as the wife of the Titan Iapetus and mother of Prometheus and Atlas. Ancient authors disagreed on whether she was the same Oceanid who loved Helios.