Dashed front to front on the Barcaean car.
Disaster on disaster came: now one
And now another car was overturned
And shattered; Crisa's plain was filled with wreck.
The skilful charioteer whom Athens sent
Then drew aside, slackened his pace and gave
The surge of wild confusion room to pass.
Last of the train Orestes drove, his steeds
Holding in hand, and trusting to the end;
But seeing only the Athenian left,
With piercing shouts, urging his team to speed,
He made for him, and side by side the pair
Drove onward, yoke even with yoke, now one
And now the other leading by a head.
Through all the courses but the last that youth
Ill-starred stood safely in an upright car.
But at the last, slackening his left-hand rein,
As his horse turned the goal, he unawares
The pillar struck and broke his axle-tree.
Out of the car he rolled, still in the reins
Entangled, while his horses, as he fell,
Rushed wildly through the middle of the course.
The whole assembly, when they saw him fall,
Raised a loud cry of horror at the fate
Of him that was the hero of the games,
Seeing him dragged along the ground, his feet
Anon flung skyward; till some charioteers,
With much ado, stopping the headlong steeds,
Released him, but so mangled that no friend
The gory and disfigured corpse would know.