Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

THE CONFLAGRATION OF PHAETON. 155

this chariot ; and yet, what have we greater than Jupiter ? The first part of the road is steep, and such as the horses, though fresh in the morning, can hardly climb. In the middle of the heaven it is high aloft, whence it is often a source of fear, even to myself, to look down upon the sea and the earth, and my breast trembles with fearful apprehensions. The last stage is a steep descent, and requires a sure command of the horses. . . . Besides, the heavens are carried round with a constant rotation, and carrying with them the lofty stars, and whirl them with rapid revolution. Against this I have to contend ; and that force which overcomes all other things does not overcome me, and J am carried in a contrary direction to the rapid world.”

Here we seem to haye a glimpse of some higher and older learning, mixed with the astronomical errors of the day : Ovid supposes the rapid world to move, revolve, one way, while the sun appears to move another.

But Phaéton insists on undertaking the dread task. The doors of Aurora are opened, “her halls filled with roses ” ; the stars disappear ; the Hours yoke the horses, “filled with the juice of ambrosia,” the father anoints the face of bis son with a hallowed drug that he may the better endure the great heat; the reins are handed him, and the fatal race begins. Phebus has advised him not to drive too high, or “thon wilt set on fire the signs of the heavens *—the constellations ;—nor too low, or he will consume the earth.

“Tn the mean time the swift Pyrocis, and Eoiis and /Ethon, the horses of the sun, and Phlegon, the fourth, fill the air with neighings, sending forth flames, and beat the barriers with their feet. .. . They taketheroad ... they cleave the resisting clouds, and, raised aloft by their wings, they pass by the east winds that had arisen from thesame parts. But the weight ” (of Phaéton) “ was light, and such as the horses of the sun could not feel ; and the yoke was deficient of its wonted weight. ... Soon as