The Broken Chariot Read Online Free PDF Page A

pompous self – was to be spoken with panache, a style which came easily once Herbert had been through the tedious work of memorizing, and learning how to fit in with the speech and action of others.
    Transforming himself into the pampered and irresponsible Phaeton, he assumes a privileged strut when his mother informs him, now that he is grown-up, that Phoebus Apollo the Sun God is his father. After much boasting to Epiphus of his descent from a deity – no less – he swaggers off to the Sun God’s Palace of Light to be acknowledged.
    Phoebus Apollo tells him it’s true that he is of divine origin, and Phaeton is so in love with the golden words, even more perhaps than he is with himself, that he wants to hear them again and again. His father, to convince him that he is indeed of a godly line, decides to prove it by telling him he has the power to grant any wish he cares to make.
    Phaeton expatiates on the golden precision of time, and declaims on the Sun God’s control of the calendar, without which the earth would exist in eternal gloom. The only wish he could possibly make is to have a go at driving his father’s chariot of the sun across the heavens, from dawn in the east to darkness in the west.
    Half-wild horses are already snorting and whinnying behind the stable doors and Phaeton in his eagerness moves forward to open them, but Phoebus pulls him back, while all the spectators of this mighty drama yell for him to do so. Phoebus regrets his promise. ‘Only I can control them in their anger at having to go, and stifle their hurry to get there once they begin.’
    Phoebus argues eloquently that the fiery chargers, once harnessed to the chariot, obey no one but him, and even he needs all his power to keep them on course. He knows for a certainty that Phaeton, his very own and handsome son whom he has just met, will be killed if he tries to drive a vehicle for which he has not the strength, skill or experience. ‘Ask me anything but that, my own resplendent lad!’ Phaeton ignores such piffling appeals to reason. ‘You are a god, and promised to grant me a wish, any wish, and a god cannot go back on a promise.’ Phoebus is forced to relent. ‘As my sun chariot each day is driven across the sky, so Fate must also take its course. Oh Fate, be kind!’
    Phaeton exults as the steeds are led prancing and snorting out. He gets into the chariot – bodged together from a barrow out of the garden but decorated with blue paper and silver stars. Putting forth all his strength, with a heart not constant enough for any possibility of fulfilling his task, Phaeton sets off in hope of triumph.
    The first stage is easy, as the animals smell the heavens and the distance they have to go, but everything happens as his father had predicted. In despair he watches his son struggle with the reins. Phaeton cannot believe that horses won’t obey the laws of his dashing confidence.
    Refusing to listen, they miss the signals, play wilfully and maliciously, zig this way and zag that, though Phaeton hopes they will sooner or later come to heel and take him calmly on. The struggle is noble and prolonged. Such half-tamed horses don’t like to obey. Phaeton fights valiantly until, disastrously losing control, the end is certain. Yet there is something in Phaeton which enjoys this part of his travail (played to the full by Herbert) even when the chariot is breaking up.
    Pieces slew all over the universal stage, a small piece, a bigger one, then one wheel, and the other. The four horses of Phaeton’s apocalypse spiral across the sky to leave a wake of appalling destruction among the planets and on earth. Only when Jupiter hurls a sizzling thunderbolt and sends Phaeton to his doom is the universe saved from further havoc.
    Herbert’s speeches turned Phaeton into himself and himself into Phaeton, as he willed the horses to avoid his fate. At one moment he regrets that Phaeton did not