- ing on success, they feel strong because they feel that they
are thought[o] strong. And perhaps their beaks would have been even and the prize divided, had not Cloanthus, stretching out both hands over the deep, breathed a prayer and called the gods to hear his vow:—"Powers 5 whose is the rule of ocean, whose waters I ride, for you with glad heart will I lead to your altars on this shore a snow-white bull, as a debtor should; I will throw the entrails afar into the salt waves, and pour out a clear stream of wine." He said, and deep down among the billows there 10 heard him all the Nereids and Phorcus' train, and maiden Panopea, and father Portunus[o] himself, with his own great hand, pushed the ship as she moved; fleeter than south-wind or winged arrow she flies to the land and is lodged already deep in the haven. 15
Then Anchises' son, duly summoning the whole company, proclaims by a loud-voiced herald Cloanthus conqueror, and drapes his brow with green bay; he gives each crew a gift at its choice, three bullocks, and wine, and the present of a great talent of silver. To the captains themselves 20 he further gives especial honours, to the conqueror a gold-broidered scarf, round which runs a length of Melibœan purple with a double Mæander; enwoven therein is the royal boy[o] on leafy Ida, plying the swift stag with the javelin and the chase, keen of eye, his chest seeming to heave; 25 then, swooping down from Ida, the bearer of Jove's armour has snatched him up aloft in his crooked talons, while his aged guardians are stretching in vain their hands to heaven, and the barking of the hounds streams furious to the sky. But for him whose prowess gained him the second place 30 there is a cuirass of linked chain mail, three-threaded with gold, which the hero himself had stripped with a conqueror's hand from Demoleos on swift Simois' bank under the shadow of Troy; this he gives the warrior for his own, 35 a glory and a defence in the battle. Scarce could the two servants, Phegeus and Sagaris, support its many folds, pushing shoulder to shoulder; yet Demoleos, in his day, with it on his breast, used to drive the Trojans in flight
