Heliades

The Heliades were the daughters of the Sun (Helios) who mourned their brother Phaethon after Zeus struck him from the sun’s chariot. In the classical versions their grief lasted until they were changed into trees beside the river Eridanus, and their tears hardened into amber.

Who Were the Heliades?

The name means “daughters of Helios”. In Ovid’s account they are sisters of Phaethon, whose mother is Clymene (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.333–343). Ovid names only two of them: Phaethusa, the eldest, and Lampetie; a third sister is mentioned but not named (Metamorphoses 2.346–352). The same two names occur in the Odyssey, where Phaethusa and Lampetie are nymphs, daughters of Helios Hyperion and Neaera, who tend the sun’s cattle and sheep on the island of Thrinacia (Homer, Odyssey 12.127–136, 12.374–375). In that passage their mother is Neaera, not Clymene.

The Death of Phaethon

Phaethon, son of Helios and Clymene, drove his father’s chariot and was struck down by Zeus’ thunderbolt. In Ovid he fell into the river Eridanus, which received him and washed his smoking face, and the Naiads of the west buried his body and set an epitaph over it (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.319–328). Clymene searched the world for his body and found his bones buried on a foreign bank, then lay upon the tomb (Metamorphoses 2.333–339).

The Transformation into Trees

The Heliades mourned beside the tomb, beating their breasts and calling his name day and night. When the moon had four times filled her orb, Phaethusa, the eldest, complained that her feet were growing stiff. Lampetie was held fast by sudden roots, and a third sister, tearing her hair, found her hands full of leaves. Bark crept over their legs, bodies and arms until only their mouths were left to call on their mother. Clymene tried to tear them from the trunks, but drops of blood ran from the broken branches, and the girls begged her to stop (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.340–363). Ovid does not name the tree. Apollonius, however, says the daughters of Helios are enclosed in tall poplars (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.604–606). Hyginus gives another reason for the change: the sisters of Phaethon had yoked the horses without their father’s permission, and for this they were turned into poplars (Hyginus, Fabulae 152A).

The Amber Tears

Ovid says that tears flowed from the sisters, and hardened in the sun into amber (electra) on the new branches; the clear river took it and sent it to be worn by the brides of Latium (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.364–366). In Apollonius, the Argonauts sail into the Eridanus where Phaethon fell, and see the daughters of Helios in the poplars, wailing and shedding drops of amber that the sun dries on the sand until the waves wash them into the river. At night the heroes hear their lament, and their tears are carried on the water like drops of oil (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.596–626). Euripides also mentions the amber tears, in a choral song that wishes to reach the Adriatic shore and the water of the Eridanus, where the “girls of Phaethon” weep tears of amber into the sea (Euripides, Hippolytus 735–741).

Heliades Sources

Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.319–366; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.596–626; Euripides, Hippolytus 735–741; Homer, Odyssey 12.127–136, 12.374–375; Hyginus, Fabulae 152A.

See Also: Helios, Clymene, Phaeton, Zeus, Eridanus