King of the Ligurians and kinsman of Phaethon, bound to the youth by love. Mourning him among the poplars on the Eridanus, he was remade by his grief and by Phoebus into a swan that, remembering the fire that killed his friend, shuns the sky and keeps to lake and river.1
Ovid tells that Cycnus, son of Sthenelus, ruled the peoples of Liguria; related to Phaethon through his mother and joined to him in love, he left his cities and his throne to lament along the green banks of the Eridanus where the Heliades stood as weeping trees. As he wept his voice thinned into song, white plumage hid his hair, a long neck stretched from his breast, and he rose a swan — distrustful of the heavens and of Jove's unjust fire, he sought instead the still pools and broad rivers, and loves the water that is the enemy of flame.2
This Cycnus is distinct from his many namesakes: the son of Ares slain by Heracles, the son of Poseidon killed by Achilles at Troy, and the boy-lover of Apollo at Tempe who likewise became a swan. Only the Ligurian king belongs to the tale of Phaethon and the Eridanus.3
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story