Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/184

150 Know then, in brief, that of the prizes set

For every customary course proclaimed

By order of the judges, the whole sum

Victoriously he gathered, happy deemed

By all; declared an Argive, and his name

Orestes, son of him who levied once

The mighty armament of Greeks for Troy.

So fared he then: but when a God inclines

To hinder happiness, not even the strong

Are scatheless. So, another day, when came

At sunrise the swift race of charioteers,

He entered there with many a rival car:—

One from Achaia, one from Sparta, two

Libyan commanders of the chariot-yoke;

And he among them fifth, with steeds of price

From Thessaly;—the sixth Aetolia sent

With chestnut mares; the seventh a Magnete man;

The eighth with milk-white colts from Oeta’s vale;

The ninth from god-built Athens; and the tenth

Boeotia gave to make the number full.

Then stood they where the judges of the course

Had posted them by lot, each with his team;

And sprang forth at the brazen trumpet’s blare.

Shouting together to their steeds, they shook

The reins, and all the course was filled with noise

Of rattling chariots, and the dust arose

To heaven. Now all in a confused throng

Spared not the goad, each eager to outgo

The crowded axles and the snorting steeds;

For close about his nimbly circling wheels

And stooping sides fell flakes of panted foam.

Orestes, ever nearest at the turn,

With whirling axle seemed to graze the stone,

And loosing with free rein the right-hand steed

That pulled the side-rope, held the near one in.

So for a time all chariots upright moved,

But soon the Oetaean’s hard-mouthed horses broke

From all control, and wheeling as they passed

From the sixth circuit to begin the seventh,

Smote front to front against the Barcan car.