The sun’s bright palace, on high columns raised,
With burnish’d gold and flaming jewels blazed;
The folding gates diffused a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refresh’d the sight;
Of polish’d ivory was the covering wrought;
The matter vied not with the sculptor’s thought;
For in the portal was display’d on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
À waving sea the inferior earth embraced,
And gods and goddesses the waters graced.
Aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus (the deceiving god),
With Doris here were carved, and all her train:
Some loosely swimming in the figured main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Though various features did the sisters grace,
A sister’s likeness was in every face.
On earth a different landscape courts the eyes:
Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise,
And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.
O’er all, the heaven’s refulgent image shines:
On either gate were six engraven signs.
Here Phaeton, still gaining on the ascent,
To his suspected father’s palace went,
Till, pressing forward through the bright abode,
He saw at distance the illustrious god:
He saw at distance, or the dazzling light
Had flash’d too strongly on his aching sight.
The god sits high, exalted on a throne
Of blazing gems, with purple garments on:
The Hours in order ranged on either hand,
And Days, and Months, and Years, and Ages, stand.
Here Spring appears, with flowery chaplets bound;
Here Summer, in her wheaten garland crown’d;
Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear,
And hoary Winter shivers in the rear.
Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;
That eye which looks on all was fixed on one:
He saw the boy’s confusion in his face,
Surprised at all the wonders of the place,
And cries aloud, “What wants my son? for know
My son thou art, and I must call thee so.”
“Light of the world,” the trembling youth replies,
“Illustrious parent! since you don’t despise
The parent’s name, some certain token give,
That I may Clymene’s proud boast believe,
Nor longer under false reproaches grieve.”
The tender sire was touch’d with what he said,
And flung the blaze of glories from his head,
And bade the youth advance. “My son,” said he,
“Come to thy father’s arms! for Clymene
Has told thee true: a parent’s name I own,
And deem thee worthy to be call’d my son.
As a sure proof, make some request, and I,
Whate’er it be, with that request comply:
By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night,
And roll impervious to my piercing sight.”
The youth, transported, asks, without delay,
To guide the sun’s bright chariot for a day.
The god repented of the oath he took;
For anguish thrice lis radiant head he shook.
“My son,” said he, “some other proof require;
Rash was my promise, rash is thy desire.
I’d fain deny this wish which thou hast made,
Or, what I can’t deny, would fain dissuade.
Too vast and hazardous the task appears,
Nor suited to thy strength, nor to thy years.
Thy lot is mortal, but thy wishes fly
Beyond the province of mortality.
There is not one of all the gods that dares
(However skill’d in other great affairs)
To mount the burning axletree but I;
Not Jove himself, the ruler of the sky,
That hurls the three-fork’d thunder from above,
Dares try his strength: yet who so strong as Jove?
The steeds climb up the first ascent with pain,
And when the middle firmament they gain,
If downwards from the heavens my head I bow,
And see the earth and ocean hang below,
Ev’n I am seized with horror and affright,
And my own heart misgives me at the sight.
A mighty downfall steeps the evening stage;
And steady reins must curb the horses’ rage:
Tethys herself has fear’d to see me driven
Down headlong from the precipice of heaven.
Besides, consider what impetuous force
Turns stars and planets in a different course:
I steer against their motions; nor am I
Borne back by all the current of the sky.
But how could you resist the orbs that roll
In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?
But you, perhaps, may hope for pleasing woods,
And stately domes, and cities fill’d with gods;
While through a thousand snares your progress lies,
Where forms of starry monsters stock the skies:
For, should you hit the doubtful way aright,
The bull, with stooping horns, stands opposite;
Next him, the bright Haemonian bow is strung;
And next, the lion’s grinning visage hung:
The scorpion’s claws here clasp a wide extent;
And here the crab’s in lesser clasps are bent.
Nor would you find it easy to compose
The mettled steeds, when from their nostrils flows
The scorching fire that in their entrails glows.
Ev’n I their headstrong fury scarce restrain,
When they grow warm and restiff to the rein.
Let not my son a fatal gift require;
But, O! in time, recall your rash desire:
You ask a gift that may your parent tell;
Let these my fears your parentage reveal,
And learn a father from a father’s care:
Look on my face; or if my heart lay bare,
Could you but look, you’d read the father there.
Choose out a gift, from seas, or earth, or skies;
For open to your wish all nature lies;
Only decline this one unequal task,
For ’tis a mischief, not a gift, you ask.
You ask a real mischief, Phaeton:
Nay, hang not thus about my neck, my son.
I grant your wish, and Styx has heard my voice;
Choose what you will, but make a wiser choice.”
Thus did the god the unwary youth advise;
But he still longs to travel through the skies;
When the fond father (for in vain he pleads)
At length to the Vulcanian chariot leads.
A golden axle did the work uphold,
Gold was the beam, the wheels were orb’d with gold;
The spokes in rows of silver pleased the sight;
The seat with parti-colour’d gems was bright:
Apollo shined amid the glare of light.
The youth with secret joy the work surveys,
When now the moon disclosed her purple rays:
The stars were fled, for Lucifer had chased
The stars away, and fled himself at last.
Soon as the father saw the rosy morn,
And the moon shining with a blunter horn,
He bid the nimble Hours, without delay,
Bring forth the steeds: the nimble Hours obey.
From their full racks the generous steeds retire,
Dropping ambrosial foams, and snorting fire.
Still anxious for his son, the god of day,
To make him proof against the burning ray,
His temples with celestial ointment wet,
Of sovereign virtue, to repel the heat;
Then fix’d the beamy circle on his head,
And fetch’d a deep foreboding sigh, and said:
“Take this at least, this last advice, my son:
Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:
The coursers of themselves will run too fast;
Your art must be to moderate their haste.
Drive them not on directly through the skies,
But where the zodiac’s winding circle lies,
Along the midmost zone; but sally forth,
Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north.
The horses’ hoofs a beaten track will show;
But neither mount too high, nor sink too low.
That no new fires or heaven or earth infest,
Keep the mid way: the middle way is best:
Nor where, in radiant folds, the serpent twines,
Direct your course; nor where the altar shines:
Shun both extremes; the rest let Fortune guide,
And better for thee than thyself provide!
See, while I speak, the shades disperse away,
Aurora gives the promise of a day;
I’m call’d, nor can I make a longer stay.
Snatch up the reins, or still the attempt forsake,
And not my chariot, but my counsel, take,
While yet securely on the earth you stand,
Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand.
Let me alone to light the world, while you
Enjoy those beams which you may safely view.”
He spoke in vain: the youth, with active heat
And sprightly vigour, vaults into the seat,
And joys to hold the reins, and fondly gives
Those thanks his father with remorse receives.
Meanwhile the restless horses neigh’d aloud,
Breathing out fire, and pawing where they stood.
Tethys, not knowing what had pass’d, gave way,
And all the waste of heaven before them lay.
They spring together out, and swiftly bear
The flying youth through clouds and yielding air;
With wingy speed outstrip the eastern wind,
And leave the breezes of the morn behind.
The youth was light, nor could he fill the seat,
Or poise the chariot with its wonted weight:
But as at sea the unballasted vessel rides,
Cast to and fro, the sport of winds and tides,
So in the bounding chariot, toss’d on high,
The youth is hurried headlong through the sky.
Soon as the steeds perceive it, they forsake
Their stated course, and leave the beaten track.
The youth was in a maze, nor did he know
Which way to turn the reins, or where to go:
Nor would the horses, had he known, obey.
Then the seven stars first felt Apollo’s ray,
And wish’d to dip in the forbidden sea.
The folded serpent, next the frozen pole,
Stiff and benumb’d before, began to roll,
And raged with inward heat, and threaten’d war,
And shot a redder light from every star;
Nay, and ’tis said, Bootes, too, that fain
Thou wouldst have fled, though cumber’d with thy wain.
The unhappy youth then, bending down his head,
Saw earth and ocean far beneath him spread.
His colour changed, he startled at the sight,
And his eyes darken’d by too great a light.
Now could he wish the fiery steeds untried,
His birth obscure, and his request denied:
Now would he Merops for his father own,
And quit his boasted kindred to the Sun.
So fares the pilot, when his ship is toss’d
In troubled seas, and all its steerage lost;
He gives her to the winds, and, in despair,
Seeks his last refuge in the gods and prayer.
What could he do? his eyes, if backward cast,
Find a long path he had already pass’d;
If forward, still a longer path they find:
Both he compares, and measures in his mind;
And sometimes casts an eye upon the east,
And sometimes looks on the forbidden west.
The horses’ names he knew not in the fright;
Nor would he loose the reins, nor could he hold them right.
Now all the horrors of the heavens he spies,
And monstrous shadows of prodigious size,
That, deck’d with stars, lie scatter’d o’er the skies.
There is a place above, where Scorpio bent
In tail and arms surrounds a vast extent;
In a wide circuit of the heavens he shines,
And fills the space of two celestial signs.
Soon as the youth beheld him, vex’d with heat,
Brandish his sting, and in his poison sweat,
Half dead with sudden fear, he dropp’d the reins;
The horses felt them loose upon their manes,
And, flying out through all the plains above,
Ran, uncontroll’d, where’er their fury drove;
Rush’d on the stars, and, through a pathless way
Of unknown regions, hurried on the day.
And now above and now below they flew,
And near the earth the burning chariot drew.
The clouds disperse in fumes, the wond’ring moon
Beholds her brother’s steeds beneath her own:
The high lands smoke, cleft by the piercing rays,
Or, clad with woods, in their own fuel blaze.
Next o’er the plains, where ripen’d harvests grow,
The running conflagration spreads below.
But these are trivial ills: whole cities burn,
And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn.
The mountains kindle as the car draws near;
Athos and Tmolus red with fires appear;
Oeagrian Haemus (then a single name)
And virgin Helicon increase the flame:
Taurus and Oete glare amid the sky;
And Ida, spite of all her fountains, dry:
Eryx, and Othrys, and Cithaeron, glow;
And Rhodope, no longer clothed in snow:
High Pindus, Mimas, and Parnassus, sweat;
And Aetna rages with redoubled heat:
Ev’n Scythia, through her hoary regions warm’d,
In vain with all her native frost was arm’d:
Cover’d with flames, the towering Apennine,
And Caucasus, and proud Olympus, shine;
And where the long-extended Alps aspire
Now stands a huge continued range of fire.
The astonish’d youth, where’er his eyes could turn,
Beheld the universe around him burn:
The world was in a blaze; nor could he bear
The sultry vapours and the scorching air,
Which from below, as from a furnace, flow’d:
And now the axletree beneath him glow’d.
Lost in the whirling clouds that round him broke,
And white with ashes, hovering in the smoke,
He flew where’er the horses drove, nor knew
Whither the horses drove, or where he flew.
’Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun
To change his hue, and blacken in the sun;
Then Libya first, of all her moisture drain’d,
Became a barren waste, a wild of sand;
The water-nymphs lament their empty urns;
Boeotia, robb’d of silver Dirce, mourns;
Corinth Pyrene’s wasted spring bewails;
And Argos grieves while Amymone fails.
The foods are drain’d from every distant coast;
Ev’n Tanais, though fix’d in ice, was lost:
Enraged Caicus and Lycormas roar,
And Xanthus, fated to be burnt once more:
The famed Maeander, that unwearied strays
Through many windings, smokes in every maze:
From his loved Babylon Euphrates flies:
The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise
In thick’ning fumes, and darken half the skies:
In flames Ismenos and the Phasis roll’d,
And Tagus, floating in his melted gold:
The swans, that on Cayster often tried
Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died:
The frighted Nile ran off, and under ground
Conceal’d his head, nor can it yet be found;
His seven divided currents all are dry,
And, where they roll’d, seven gaping trenches lie:
No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,
Nor Tiber, of his promised empire vain.
The ground, deep cleft, admits the dazzling ray,
And startles Pluto with the flash of day:
The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose
Wide naked plains, where once their billows rose;
Their rocks are all discover’d, and increase
The number of the scatter’d Cyclades;
The fish in shoals about the bottom creep;
Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap:
Gasping for breath, the unshapen Phocae die,
And on the boiling wave extended lie:
Nereus, and Doris, with her virgin train,
Seek out the last recesses of the main:
Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,
And secret in their gloomy caverns pant:
Stern Neptune thrice above the waves upheld
His face, and thrice was by the flames repell’d.
The Earth at length, on every side embraced
With scalding seas, that floated round her waist,
When now she felt the springs and rivers come,
And crowd within the hollow of her womb,
Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head,
And clapp’d her hand upon her brows, and said,
(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,
Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat):
“If you, great king of gods, my death approve,
And I deserve it, let me die by Jove:
If I must perish by the force of fire,
Let me transfix’d with thunderbolts expire.
See, while I speak, my breath the vapours choke
(For now her face lay wrapp’d in clouds of smoke),
See my singed hair, behold my faded eye,
And wither’d face, where heaps of cinders lie!
And does the plough for this my body tear?
This the reward for all the fruits I bear,
Tortured with rakes, and harass’d all the year?
That herbs for cattle daily I renew,
And food for man, and frankincense for you?
But, grant me guilty, what has Neptune done?
Why are his waters boiling in the sun?
The wavy empire, which by lot was given,
Why does it waste, and farther shrink from heaven?
If I nor he your pity can provoke,
See your own heavens, the heavens begin to smoke!
Should once the sparkles catch those bright abodes,
Destruction seizes on the heavens and gods;
Atlas becomes unequal to his freight,
And almost faints beneath the glowing weight.
If heaven, and earth, and sea, together burn,
All must again into their chaos turn.
Apply some speedy cure, prevent our fate,
And succour Nature ere it be too late.”
She ceased, for choked with vapours round her spread,
Down to the deepest shades she sunk her head.
Jove call’d to witness ev’ry power above,
And even the god whose son the chariot drove,
That what he acts he is compell’d to do,
Or universal ruin must ensue.
Straight he ascends the high ethereal throne,
From whence he used to dart his thunder down,
From whence his showers and storms he used to pour,
But now could meet with neither storm nor shower:
Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand,
Full at his head he hurl’d the forky brand
In dreadful thunderings. Thus the almighty sire
Suppress’d the raging of the fires with fire.
At once from life and from the chariot driven,
The ambitious boy fell thunderstruck from heaven;
The horses started with a sudden bound,
And flung the reins and chariot to the ground:
The studded harness from their necks they broke,
Here fell a wheel, and here a silver spoke,
Here were the beam and axle torn away,
And scatter’d o’er the earth the shining fragments lay.
The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair,
Shot from the chariot like a falling star,
That in a summer’s evening from the top
Of heaven drops down, or seems, at least, to drop,
Till on the Po his blasted corpse was hurl’d,
Far from his country, in the western world.