The Chariot Race - Public domain book illustration

The Chariot Race
Identifier: ridpathlibraryof21ridp (find matches)
Title: The Ridpath library of universal literature : a biographical and bibliographical summary of the world's most eminent authors, including the choicest extracts and masterpieces from their writings ...
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: Literature
Publisher: New York : The Fifth avenue library society
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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to relate how the goal was six times rounded;ut then the horses of one chariot became unmanageable, and thehariot dashed against another.—The whole story is, however, a fab-;cated one. Orestes hfs not been killed ; but lives to kill Clytem-2Stra, his adulterous mother, and ^gsithus, her paramour.) . . . Then order changed to ruin ;ar crashed on car ; the wide Circasan plain»Vas sea-like strewed with wrecks. The Athenian saw,Slackened his speed, and wheeling round the marge,Left the wild tumult of that tossing storm.Behind, Orestes, hitherto the last,Had yet kept back his courses for the close.Now one sole rival left, on, on he flew,And the sharp sound of the impelling scourgeRang in the keen ears of the flying steeds.He hears, he reaches ; they are side by side ;Now one—the other—by a length the victor.The courses all are past—the wheels erect—All safe ; when, as the hurrying courses roundThe fatal pillar dashed, the wretched boySlackened the left rein ; on the columns edge
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SOPHOCLES 317 Crashed the frail axle ; headlong from the car,Caught, and all meshed within the reins he fell ;And masterless the mad steeds raged along. Loud from that mighty multitude aroseA shriek—a shout! But yesterday such deeds,To-day such doom ! Now whirled upon the earth,Now his limbs dashed aloft, they dragged him—thoseWild horses—till all gory from the wheelsReleased : and no man, not his nearest friend.Could in that mangled corpse have traced Orestes.They laid the body on the funeral pyre ;And, while we speak, the Phocian strangers bear,In a small, brazen, melancholy urn.That handful of cold ashes to which allThe grandeur of the Beautiful hath shrunk.Hither they bear him, in his fathers landTo find that heritage—a tomb ! —Electra; translation of Lord Lytton. ELECTRA, CLYTEMNESTRA, AND THE CHORUS. Electra.—A cry goes up within : friends, hear ye not ? Chorus.—I heard what none should hear—ah, misery !And shuddered listening. Clytem. (Within)^— Ah me ! ah me