In the primordial age when the world was yet a canvas of untamed elements and divine whims, there lived a water nymph of the deep named Clytie. She was an Oceanid, one of the three thousand daughters of the titans Oceanus and Tethys, whose realm spanned the vast, rhythmic pulses of the sea. While her sisters delighted in the silver shimmer of the currents and the playful dance of the tides, Clytie’s heart was captured by a fire that burned far above the reaches of the ocean’s depths. She had looked upon Helius, the majestic personification of the Sun, and found herself irrevocably bound to his golden radiance. Each morning, as the saffron-robed Eos pulled back the veil of night, Helius would emerge from the eastern gates of the world in his chariot of polished gold. Pulled by four fiery steeds—Pyrois, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon—he would ascend the celestial vault, casting a brilliance that brought life to the fields and warmth to the hearts of all mortals. Clytie would rise from the foaming crests of the sea, perching upon the jagged rocks of the shore, her eyes fixed upon the divine charioteer as he traced his path across the sky.
For a time, it was whispered among the gods that Helius returned her gaze. The sun god, whose light reveals all things, found comfort in the steadfast devotion of the nymph. However, the hearts of the Olympians were as fickle as the shifting winds of the Mediterranean. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, had long harbored a grudge against Helius. It was the Sun who had used his all-seeing eyes to witness Aphrodite’s secret tryst with Ares and had promptly informed her husband, the smith-god Hephaestus. Seeking a cruel revenge, Aphrodite decided to wound Helius where he was most vulnerable: in his capacity for love. She struck him with an insatiable passion for a mortal princess named Leucothoe, the daughter of the Persian King Orchamus. This new obsession completely eclipsed the affection Helius had felt for Clytie. The sun god, once content with the nymph's quiet adoration, now spent his nights and days plotting how to win the hand of the beautiful princess. He even disguised himself as Leucothoe’s mother to gain entry into her secluded chambers, and eventually, the two became lovers.
Clytie, watching from her lonely vigil upon the rocks, felt the warmth of the sun turn cold. She saw Helius linger longer over the palaces of Persia and noticed that his gaze no longer fell upon the waves where she waited. The jealousy that took root in her soul was a dark and thorny thing, choking the love she once carried. In a moment of desperate spite, thinking she might win Helius back by removing her rival, Clytie went to King Orchamus. She whispered the truth of his daughter’s secret meetings with the sun god. The king, a man of rigid law and fierce temper, was enraged by what he perceived as a stain upon his house. Despite Leucothoe’s pleas that she had been overcome by a god, Orchamus ordered his daughter to be buried alive in a deep pit of sand. Helius, hearing the cries of his beloved, rushed to her aid with the speed of light, but he arrived too late. The weight of the earth had claimed her spirit. In his profound grief, Helius sprinkled the sands with celestial nectar, and from the site of Leucothoe’s grave, there grew the first sprig of frankincense—a plant that produces a fragrance fit for the gods.
When Clytie approached Helius, hoping that her disclosure had cleared the way for their reunion, she was met with a hatred more scorching than any solar flare. Helius cursed her for her treachery and her cruelty. He swore that he would never again look upon her with anything but contempt. He declared that while he must continue his duty to light the world, he would ensure that no part of his warmth would ever bring her comfort again. Devastated and broken by the realization that her jealousy had destroyed the very thing she cherished, Clytie retreated from the company of the other nymphs. She could not return to the ocean, for her shame was too great to face her father and sisters. Instead, she wandered the rugged landscape of Central Greece, eventually coming to rest on the rocky slopes of Mount Parnassus, a place where the gods and muses were known to walk.
There, on the bare earth, Clytie began a vigil of sorrow that would last for nine long days. She refused all sustenance, neither eating the ambrosia of the gods nor drinking the cool water of the mountain springs. She sat in the dust, her hair disheveled and her clothing torn, her face turned upward toward the sky. For nine days and nine nights, she did not move. When the sun rose, she followed its arc from east to west with her eyes, weeping silent tears that salted the ground. She watched Helius as he drove his chariot through the zenith, and she watched him as he dipped below the horizon into the cup of the ocean, leaving her in the cold darkness of the mountain night. Her grief was so absolute that it began to change her very nature. Her body, once supple and divine, began to stiffen and take root in the soil of Parnassus. Her limbs turned into green stalks, and her skin became the rough texture of a stem. Her feet burrowed into the earth, anchoring her to the spot of her mourning.