had married
a man named Tithonus. She gave him ambrosia, which made him immortal,
but she could not keep him from growing old, so he became smaller and
smaller, till he dwindled into a grasshopper, and at last only his voice
was to be heard chirping at sunrise and sunset.

Helios had an earthly wife too, and a son named Phaeton, who once begged
to be allowed to drive the chariot of the sun for just one day. Helios
yielded; but poor Phaeton had no strength nor skill to guide the horses
in the right curve. At one moment they rushed to the earth and scorched
the trees, at another they flew up to heaven and would have burnt
Olympus, if Jupiter had not cast his thunderbolts at the rash driver and
hurled him down into a river, where he was drowned. His sisters wept
till they were changed into poplar trees, and their tears hardened into
amber drops.

Mercury gave his lyre to Apollo, who was the true god of music and
poetry, and under him were nine nymphs--the Muses, daughters of
memory--who dwelt on Mount Parnassus, and were thought to inspire all
noble and heroic song, all poems in praise to or of the gods or of brave
men, and the graceful music and dancing at their feasts, also the
knowledge of the stars of earth and heaven.

[Picture: Head of Pallas] These three--Apollo, Diana, and Pallas--were
the gods of all that was nobly, purely, and wisely lovely; but the Greeks
also believed in powers of ill, and there was a goddess of beauty, called
Venus (Aphrodite). Such beauty was hers as is the mere prettiness and
charm of pleasure--nothing high or fine. She was said to have risen out
of the sea, as the sunshine touched the waves, with her golden hair
dripping with the spray; and her favourite home was in myrtle groves,
where she drove her car, drawn by doves, attended by the three Graces,
and by multitudes of little winged children, called Loves; but there was
generally said to be one special son of hers, called Love--Cupid in
Latin, Eros in Greek--whose arrows, when tipped with gold, made people
fall in love, and when tipped with lead, made them hate one another. Her
husband was the ugly, crooked smith, Vulcan--perhaps because pretty
ornaments come of the hard work of the smith; but she never behaved well
to him, and only coaxed him when she wanted something that his clever
hands could make.

She was much more fond of amusing herself with Mars (Ares), the god of
war, another of the evil gods, for he was fierce, crue