Editing Helios (section)

=== The Watchman ===
==== Persephone ====
[[File:Head Helios AM Rhodes E49.jpg|thumb|left|Head of Helios, middle period, [[Archaeological Museum of Rhodes]]]]

{{rquote|right|But, Goddess, give up for good your great lamentation.<br />You must not nurse in vain insatiable anger.<br />Among the gods Aidoneus is not an unsuitable bridegroom,<br />Commander-of-Many and Zeus's own brother of the same stock.<br />As for honor, he got his third at the world's first division<br />and dwells with those whose rule has fallen to his lot.|''[[Homeric Hymn]] to [[Demeter]]'', lines 82–87, translated by Helene Foley<ref>Foley, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wRARAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA6 6]</ref>}}

Helios is said to have seen and stood witness to everything that happened where his light shone. When [[Hades]] abducts [[Persephone]], Helios is the only one to witness it.{{sfn|Penglase|1994|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=U4mFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA124 124]}}

In Ovid's ''[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]]'', Demeter asks the stars first about Persephone's whereabouts, and it is [[Helice (mythology)|Helice]] who advises her to go ask Helios. Demeter is not slow to approach him, and Helios then tells her not to waste time, and seek out for "the queen of the third world".<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]]'' [https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidFastiBkFour.php#anchor_Toc69367852 4.575]</ref>

==== Ares and Aphrodite ====
[[File:JOHANN HEISS VULCAN SURPRISING VENUS AND MARS.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|''Vulcan surprises Venus and Mars'', by [[Johann Heiss]] (1679)]]

In another myth, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, but she cheated on him with his brother [[Ares]], god of war. In Book Eight of the ''Odyssey'', the blind singer [[Demodocus (Odyssey character)|Demodocus]] describes how the illicit lovers committed adultery, until one day Helios caught them in the act, and immediately informed Aphrodite's husband Hephaestus. Upon learning that, Hephaestus forged a net so thin it could hardly be seen, in order to ensnare them. He then announced that he was leaving for [[Lemnos]]. Upon hearing that, Ares went to Aphrodite and the two lovers coupled.<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0218%3Abook%3D8%3Acard%3D5 8. 266–295]</ref> Once again Helios informed Hephaestus, who came into the room and trapped them in the net. He then called the other gods to witness the humiliating sight.<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0218%3Abook%3D8%3Acard%3D6 8. 296–332]</ref>

Much later versions add a young man to the story, a warrior named [[Alectryon (mythology)|Alectryon]], tasked by Ares to stand guard should anyone approach. But Alectryon fell asleep, allowing Helios to discover the two lovers and inform Hephaestus. For this, Aphrodite hated Helios and his race for all time.<ref name=":senny">[[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], ''[[Phaedra (Seneca)|Phaedra]]'' [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/sen.phaedra.shtml 124]</ref> In some versions, she cursed his daughter [[Pasiphaë]] to fall in love with the [[Cretan Bull]] as revenge against him.<ref>[[Scholia]] on [[Euripides]]' ''[[Hippolytus (play)|Hippolytus]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=quBFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA501 47]</ref><ref>[[Libanius]], ''[[Progymnasmata]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=kRi-If9IAOYC&pg=PA27 2.21]</ref> Pasiphaë's daughter [[Phaedra (mythology)|Phaedra]]'s passion for her step-son [[Hippolytus of Athens|Hippolytus]] was also said to have been inflicted on her by Aphrodite for this same reason.<ref name=":senny" />

==== Leucothoe and Clytie ====
[[File:The nymph klytie transforming into a sunflower as the sun god drives his chariot above, engraving by abraham diepenbeeck for the metamorphoses book by ovid, in a greek language copy.jpg|thumb|left|240px|Clytie turns into a sunflower as the Sun refuses to look at her, engraving by [[Abraham van Diepenbeeck]].]]

Aphrodite aims to enact her revenge by making Helios fall for a mortal princess named [[Leucothoe (daughter of Orchamus)|Leucothoe]], forgetting his previous lover the [[Oceanid]] [[Clytie (Oceanid)|Clytie]] for her sake. Helios watches her from above, even making the winter days longer so he can have more time looking at her. Taking the form of her mother [[Eurynome]], Helios enters their palace, entering the girl's room before revealing himself to her.

However, Clytie informs Leucothoe's father [[Orchamus]] of this affair, and he buries Leucothoe alive in the earth. Helios comes too late to rescue her, so instead he pours [[nectar]] into the earth, and turns the dead Leucothoe into a [[Boswellia sacra|frankincense tree]]. Clytie, spurned by Helios for her role in his lover's death, strips herself naked, accepting no food or drink, and sits on a rock for nine days, pining after him, until eventually turning into a purple, sun-gazing flower, the [[Heliotropium|heliotrope]].<ref name=":1">[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/141#4.190 4.167]–[https://topostext.org/work/141#4.256 273]; [[Lactantius Placidus]], ''Argumenta'' [https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=oDRdAAAAcAAJ&pg=GBS.PA18&hl=el 4.5]; Paradoxographers anonymous, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=eTUOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA222 222]</ref><ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA45 p. 45]; Gantz, p. 34; Berens, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_NcDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA63 p. 63]; Grimal, s. v. [https://archive.org/details/concisedictionar00grim/page/102/mode/2up?view=theater Clytia]</ref> This myth, it has been theorized, might have been used to explain the use of [[frankincense]] [[aroma]]tic resin in Helios' worship.{{sfn|Κακριδής|Ρούσσος|Παπαχατζής|Καμαρέττα|1986|page=228}} Leucothoe being buried alive as punishment by a male guardian, which is not too unlike [[Antigone]]'s own fate, may also indicate an ancient tradition involving [[human sacrifice]] in a vegetation cult.{{sfn|Κακριδής|Ρούσσος|Παπαχατζής|Καμαρέττα|1986|page=228}} At first the stories of Leucothoe and Clytie might have been two distinct myths concerning Helios which were later combined along with a third story, that of Helios discovering Ares and Aphrodite's affair and then informing Hephaestus, into a single tale either by Ovid himself or his source.<ref name="20–38">[[Joseph Fontenrose|Fontenrose, Joseph]]. ''The Gods Invoked in Epic Oaths: [[Aeneid]], XII, 175-215.'' [[The American Journal of Philology]] 89, no. 1 (1968): pp [https://doi.org/10.2307/293372 20–38].</ref>

==== Other ====
In [[Sophocles]]' play ''[[Ajax (play)|Ajax]]'', [[Ajax the Great]], minutes before committing suicide, calls upon Helios to stop his golden reins when he reaches Ajax's native land of [[Salamis Island|Salamis]] and inform his aging father [[Telamon]] and his mother of their son's fate and death, and salutes him one last time before he kills himself.<ref>[[Sophocles]], ''[[Ajax (play)|Ajax]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0184%3Acard%3D815 845-860]</ref>