]
"When I was in school one of my lessons was about the beautiful goddess
Aurora. She was said to open the rosy gates of dawn with her own
fingers, so that the wonderful horses of Apollo might pass through to
follow their shining track through the sky. She was so beautiful that
Tithonus, who lived on the earth, always watched for the sunrise, that
he might see Aurora. After a while she began to watch for him, too. She
looked down every morning on the wakening world and found that he was
almost the only one among mortals who enjoyed the glorious colors Apollo
painted in the sky with his arrows of light. One morning she dared to
sing to him, and then he answered that it was Aurora, and not Apollo,
for whom he was watching each morning at sunrise. She loved him for this
and became his wife.
"Being a goddess, she could live for ever, and she wanted Tithonus to
live forever, too. The gods and goddesses never drink wine or water, but
ambrosia from golden goblets. She brought a golden goblet of ambrosia to
Tithonus on the earth, and, after he had taken a drink, told him the
happy news that now he should live forever. But she had forgotten to ask
of the gods for him the gift of eternal youth.
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