Book 2
the space of two Celestial Signs; and when
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the lad beheld him, steeped in oozing slime
of venom, swart, and threatening to strike
grim wounds with jagged spear-points, he was lost;
and, fixed in chills of horror, dropped the reins.
When these they felt upon their rising backs,
the startled steeds sprang forthwith; and, unchecked,
through atmospheres of regions unexplored,
thence goaded by their unchecked violence,
broke through the lawful bounds, and rushed upon
the high fixed stars. They dragged the chariot
through devious ways, and soared amid the heights;
dashed down deep pathways, far, precipitous,
and gained a level near the scorching earth.
Phoebe is wondering that her brother's steeds
run lower than her own, and sees the smoke
of scorching clouds. The highest altitudes
are caught in flames, and as their moistures dry
they crack in chasms. The grass is blighted; trees
are burnt up with their leaves; the ripe brown crops
give fuel for self destruction—Oh what small
complaints! Great cities perish with their walls,
and peopled nations are consumed to dust—
the forests and the mountains are destroyed.
Cilician Taurus, Athos and Tmolus,
and Oeta are burning; and the far-famed Ida
and all her cooling rills are dry and burning,
and virgin Helicon, and Hoemos—later
Oeagrius called—and Aetna with tremendous,
redoubled flames, and double-peaked Parnassus,
Sicilian Eryx, Cynthus—Othrys, pine-clad,
and Rhodope, deprived his snowy mantle,
and Dindyma and Mycale and Mimas,
and Mount Cithaeron, famed for sacred rites:
and Scythia, though a land of frost, is burning,
and Caucasus,—and Ossa burns with Pindus,—
and greater than those two Olympus burns—
the lofty Alps, the cloud-topped Apennines.
And Phaethon, as he inhaled the air,
burning and scorching as a furnace blast,
