Phaeton "dead ere his prime." Cyncus, King of Liguria, had dearly loved the gallant boy, and again and yet again he dived deep in the river and brought forth the charred fragments of what had once been the beautiful son of a god, and gave to them honourable burial. Yet he could not rest satisfied that he had won all that remained of his friend from the river's bed, and so he continued to haunt the stream, ever diving, ever searching, until the gods grew weary of his restless sorrow and changed him into a swan.
And still we see the swan sailing mournfully along, like a white-sailed barque that is bearing the body of a king to its rest, and ever and anon plunging deep into the water as though the search for the boy who would fain have been a god were never to come to an end.
To Phaeton the Italian Naiades reared a tomb, and inscribed on the stone these words:
"Driver of Phœbus' chariot. Phaëton,
Struck by Jove's thunder, rests beneath this stone,
He could not rule his father's car of fire.
Yet was it much, so nobly to aspire."—Ovid.
