103He had finished his warnings: yet the boy resists his words, presses his purpose, and burns with desire for the chariot. 105So his father, having delayed as long as he could, leads the youth to the lofty chariot, the gift of Vulcan. 107The axle was golden, the pole golden, golden the rim of the outer wheel, the spokes a row of silver; 109along the yoke chrysolites and gems set in order gave back bright light as Phoebus was reflected on them. 111And while great-hearted Phaethon marvels at these things and examines the workmanship, look, watchful Aurora has opened in the shining east her purple doors and her halls full of roses.
114The stars scatter, whose ranks Lucifer marshals, and he leaves his station in the sky the last of all. 116When the Titan saw him making for the earth, and the world reddening, and the horns of the waning moon as it were vanishing, he orders the swift Hours to yoke the horses. 119The goddesses swiftly carry out his orders, and lead from the high stalls the four-footed steeds, vomiting fire and filled with the juice of ambrosia, and put on the clanking bridles. 122Then the father touched his son's face with a sacred ointment and made it able to endure the consuming flame, and set the rays on his hair, and, heaving from his anxious breast sighs that foretold grief, he said: 'If you can at least obey these warnings of your parent, spare the goad, boy, and use the reins more firmly: they hurry of their own accord; 128the labour is to hold them back when they are eager.
129And do not choose the road straight through the five zones: the track is cut slantwise in a broad curve, and, confined within the limit of three zones, it avoids the southern pole and the Bear that is joined to the north winds. 133Let your way be this: you will see clear tracks of the wheels. 134And so that sky and earth may both receive equal heat, neither press the chariot down nor drive it up through the topmost ether. 136Going too high you will burn the dwellings of heaven, too low the lands: in the middle you will go most safely. 138And let the wheel not turn you too far to the right towards the coiling Serpent, nor lead you too far to the left to the low-lying Altar: hold your course between the two.
140The rest I entrust to Fortune, and I pray that she may help you and take better thought for you than you take for yourself. 142While I speak, dewy night has touched the turning-posts set on the Hesperian shore. 143We are not free to delay: we are summoned: the darkness is put to flight and dawn shines out. 145Seize the reins in your hand, or, if your heart can be changed, use my counsels, not my chariot, while you can, and while you still stand on solid ground, and while you are not yet, in your ignorance, mounting the chariot you have unwisely wished for. 149Let me give the lands the light that you may watch in safety!' 150The boy takes possession of the light chariot with his youthful body, stands up on it, rejoices to touch the reins put in his hands, and thereupon gives thanks to his unwilling father.
153Meanwhile the Sun's swift horses, Pyrois and Eous and Aethon, and the fourth, Phlegon, fill the air with fiery neighing and beat the barriers with their hooves. 156When Tethys, unaware of her grandson's fate, pushed these back, and the freedom of the boundless sky was given them, they seized the road, and moving their feet through the air they cut through the clouds that stand in their way, and, lifted on wings, they outstrip the East Winds that rose from the same quarter. 161But the weight was light, not such as the Sun's horses could recognise, and the yoke lacked its accustomed heaviness; 163and as curved ships roll without their proper ballast and, unsteady from too much lightness, are carried over the sea, so the chariot, empty of its usual load, leaps into the air and is tossed on high and is like an empty one.
167As soon as they felt this, the team of four rush off and leave the beaten track, and do not run in the same order as before. 169He himself is frightened, and does not know which way to turn the reins entrusted to him, nor where the road is; 170nor, if he knew, could he command them. 171Then for the first time the cold Plough-oxen grew hot with the rays and tried in vain to dip themselves in the forbidden sea, and the Serpent which is set nearest the icy pole, sluggish with cold before and fearsome to no one, grew hot and took on new fury from the heat.
176They say that you too fled in confusion, Bootes, although you were slow and your wagon held you back. 178But when unhappy Phaethon looked down from the height of the ether on the lands lying far, far below, he grew pale, and his knees trembled with sudden fear, and darkness rose over his eyes through so much light. 182And now he would rather never have touched his father's horses; now he regrets having learned his parentage and prevailed by asking; now, longing to be called the son of Merops, he is carried along like a ship driven by a headlong north wind, whose helmsman has let go the helm he could not master and abandoned her to the gods and to prayers.
187What is he to do? 187Much of the sky has been left behind his back, more is before his eyes! 188He measures both in his mind, and now he looks ahead to the west, which it is not his fate to reach, now looks back to the east: and not knowing what to do he is stupefied, and neither lets go the reins nor has the strength to hold them, nor knows the horses' names.