shines,
And fills the space of two celestial signs.
_230
Soon as the youth beheld him, vexed with heat,
Brandish his sting, and in his poison sweat,
Half dead with sudden fear he dropped the reins;
The horses felt them loose upon their manes,
And, flying out through all the plains above,
Ran uncontrolled where'er their fury drove;
Rushed 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.
_240
The clouds disperse in fumes, the wondering Moon
Beholds her brother's steeds beneath her own;
The highlands smoke, cleft by the piercing rays,
Or, clad with woods, in their own fuel blaze.
Next o'er the plains, where ripened 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;
_250
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 Cithgeron, glow;
And Rhodope, no longer clothed in snow;
High Pindus, Mimas, and Parnassus sweat,
And AEtna rages with redoubled heat.
Even Scythia, through her hoary regions warmed,
In vain with all her native frost was armed.
_260
Covered 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 astonished 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 flowed,
And now the axle-tree beneath him glowed:
_270
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 drained,
Became a barren waste, a wild of sand.
The water-nymphs lament their empty urns,
Boeotia, robbed of silver Dirce, mourns;
_280
Corinth, Pyrene's wasted spring bewails,
And Argos grieves whilst A