When they feel this, the team run wild and leave the well-beaten track, and fare no longer in the same course as before. The driver is panic-stricken. He knows not how to handle the reins entrusted to him, nor where the road is; nor, if he did know, would he be able to control the steeds. Then for the first time the cold Bears grew hot with the rays of the sun, and tried, though all in vain, to plunge into the forbidden sea. And the Serpent, which lies nearest the icy pole, ever before harmless because sluggish with the cold, now grew hot, and conceived great frenzy from that fire. They say that you also, Boötes, fled in terror, slow though you were, and held back by your clumsy ox-cart.
But when the unhappy Phaëthon looked down from the top of heaven, and saw the lands lying far, far below, he grew pale, his knees trembled with sudden fear, and over his eyes came darkness through excess of light. And now he would prefer never to have touched his father's horses, and repents that he has discovered his true origin and prevailed in his prayer. Now, eager to be called the son of Merops, he is borne along just as a ship driven before the headlong blast, whose pilot has let the useless rudder go and abandoned the ship to the gods and prayers. What shall he do? Much of the sky is now behind him, but more is still in front! His thought measures both. And now he looks forward to the west, which he is destined never to reach, and at times back to the east. Dazed, he knows not what to do; he neither lets go the reins nor can he hold them, and he does not even know the horses' names. To add to his panic fear, he sees scattered everywhere in the sky strange figures of huge and savage beasts. There is one place where the Scorpion bends out his arms
