In Greek mythology, Clymene or Klymene (; , Kluménē) was the name of an Oceanid nymph loved by the sun god Helios and the mother by him of Phaethon and the Heliades. In most versions, Clymene is the one to reveal to Phaethon his divine parentage and encourage him to seek out his father, and even drive his solar chariot.
Etymology
The Greek proper name (Kluménē) is the feminine form of (Klúmenos), meaning "famous". In turn, derives from the verb , meaning 'to hear, to understand', itself from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew-, which means 'to hear'. It thus shares the same root and meaning as "Clytie", another Oceanid nymph whom Helios loved.
Family
Clymene is one of the three hundred Oceanid daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. Although she shares name and parentage with Clymene, the wife of Iapetus, who is also a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys (and thus one of her sisters), she is distinguished from her.
In another version, attributed to the pseudo-Hesiodic work Catalogue of Women, Clymene is the mortal daughter of Minyas, who married Helios and had Phaethon by him. Alternatively, she married Phylacus, the son of Deion, and bore him Iphiclus, a very swift son.
Byzantine writer John Tzetzes recorded an alternative genealogy where Clymene is the mother of a boy named Phaethon by Helios, but not the Phaethon who drove his father's chariot (who is instead the son of a woman named Prote).
Mythology
Euripides' account
Euripides wrote a version of Phaethon's story that does not survive in full. In Euripides' version of the tale, Clymene was given as wife to Merops, the king of Aethiopia, as a bride; her son Phaethon however is the product of her illicit liaison with Helios, although she claimed that it was her lawful husband who fathered him and all her children.
And Euripides in his Phaeton says that Clymene was given
“To Merops, sovereign of that land, Which from his four-horsed chariot first The rising sun strikes with his golden rays; And which its swarthy neighbours call The radiant stable of the Morn and Sun.” Here the poet merely describes them as the common stables of the Morning and of the Sun; but further on he tells us they were near to the dwellings of Merops, and in fact the whole plot of the piece has reference to this.
According to the hypothesis, Clymene revealed to her son Phaethon that he was the child of Helios, rather than her husband Merops. It has been suggested that Clymene made this revelation to Phaethon in order to overcome his reluctance to get married; the greatest problem of the fragmentary plot is to confirm the identity of Phaethon's bride. Henri Weil suggested it is one of Phaethon's half-sisters, the Heliades, and James Diggle noted that while this suggestion is unprovable, he is convinced that it is correct.
After Phaethon's disastrous ride, near the end Clymene mourns her son, and orders slave girls to bring Phaethon's dead, still smoking body in the palace and hide it from Merops, while lamenting Helios' role in his demise. Plutarch reports that she mourned her son's death saying:
My best beloved, but now he lies
And putrefies in some dark vale.
Another fragment, of uncertain position in the play, also preserved by Plutarch, has Clymene state she loathes the handy horned bow, and youths' pastime exercises, as they remind her of her son.
Near the end, Merops, now knowing the truth about his supposed son's parentage, tries to retaliate against Clymene by killing her as the chorus tells Clymene to plead with her father Oceanus to save her from perishing; it is unclear whether Clymene survives thanks to an ex machina intervention by a god, as well as that god's exact identity, whether it is Oceanus indeed trying to save his daughter, Helios or even Athena.
Ovid's account
Like Euripides's version of the story, in Ovid's Clymene is the wife of Merops and also the mother of Phaethon and the Heliades by Helios. Phaethon is proud to be the son of the sun god, but his claim is mocked and questioned by his friend Epaphus, the son of Zeus and Io. Phaethon asks for confirmation of his parentage from his mother, who tells him to seek for Helios himself.
By that brightness marked out by glittering rays, that sees us and hears us, I swear to you, my son, that you are the child of the Sun; of that being you see; you are the child of he who governs the world; if I lie, may he himself decline to look on me again, and may this be the last light to reach our eyes! It is no great effort for you yourself to find your father’s house. The place he rises from is near our land. If you have it in mind to do so, go and ask the sun himself!