Metamorphoses

The other leaps into the light chariot with his youthful body, and stands aloft, and rejoices to take in his hand the reins presented to him , and then gives thanks to his reluctant parent. In the meantime the swift Pyroeis, and Eoüs and Æthon, the horses of the sun, and Phlegon, making the fourth, fill the air with neighings, sending forth flames, and beat the barriers with their feet. After Tethys, ignorant of the destiny of her grandson, had removed these, and the scope of the boundless universe was given them, they take the road, and moving their feet through the air, they cleave the resisting clouds, and raised aloft by their wings, they pass by the East winds that had arisen from the same parts. But the weight was light; and such as the horses of the sun could not feel; and the yoke was deficient of its wonted weight. And as the curving ships, without proper ballast, are tossed about, and unsteady, through their too great lightness, are borne through the sea, so does the chariot give bounds in the air, unimpeded by its usual burden, and is tossed on high, and is just like an empty one.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 2

Book 2, Line 8ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-2-8