Helios' Journey Through the Sky

   As Eos threw open the gates of Helios’s golden palace of the east, Helios mounted his golden chariot and drove out into the sky. The rays that encircled his head and his chariot lit up the sky, and he was so bright only the gods were able to look straight at him without being blinded.

   Helios drove his chariot, pulled by four fiery steeds up to the heavens. Although the path was steep and narrow, and the steeds were wild, Helios always held them on their course. At high noon Helios would stop at the top of the sky and look around. At the top of the sky nothing could escape his fiery gaze. Again he drove on, but now he gave free rein to his steeds. The steeds were able to see Helios’s palace far to the west. Eager to reach their stable they ran on faster and faster. The shadow grew long and dusk settled over the world as Helios and his steeds arrived at his palace. Helios’s five daughters, the Heliades, who always waited for their father's arrival, untied his steeds and let them plunge into the ocean for a cooling bath. Then as the steeds rested in their stables, Helios told his daughters all that he had seen that day. During the darkest time of night, Helios boarded a vessel with his chariot and sailed back to his palace in the east, where he could be ready to greet the next day.