Book 24
1
See what you’ve done, you confounded Titan! You’ve destroyed everything on the earth by trusting a foolish boy His son Phaethon. with your car. Some places he’s scorched by driving close to the earth, and elsewhere he’s frozen everything to death by taking the heat right away, bringing chaos and confusion on the whole wide world. Why, if I hadn’t realised what was afoot, and brought him down with my thunderbolt, there’d have been nothing left of mankind. A pretty poor driver of the chariot you sent us out—for all his good looks!
1
It’s all my fault, Zeus, but don’t be angry with me for giving in to my boy. He kept nagging at me to let him. How could I have expected such trouble to follow?
1
Didn’t you know what a delicate operation it was, how getting the least bit off course spoils everything? Didn’t you know how the horses are full of mettle and need a tight rein? Let it go slack, and they take the bit in their teeth right away, as of course they did with him, running away with him, now to the left, and after a moment to the right, and sometimes right back on their tracks, and up and down, doing just what they liked, and he didn’t know how to deal with them.
