not power to touch that: it cut the knot and the hempen fastening by which she hung, tied by the foot, from the mast's top. Away she flew, all among the south-winds and their murky clouds. Then, quick as thought, his bow long since ready, and his shaft poised on the string, 5 Eurytion breathed a vow to his brother, fixing his eye on her in the moment of her triumph high up in the open sky, and as she claps her wings, pierces the dark cloudy covert, and strikes the dove. Down she drops unnerved, leaving her life among the stars of ether, and as she tumbles to 10 earth, brings back the arrow in her breast. Acestes remained alone, a champion with no prize to gain; yet he shot his weapon into the air aloft, displaying at once his veteran skill and the force of his twanging bow. And now their eyes are met by a sudden portent, drawing a mighty 15 augury in its train. In after days the vast issue told the tale, and terror-striking seers shrieked their omens too late. For as it flew in the clouds of heaven, the reed took fire, and marked its way with a trail of flame, and wasted and vanished wholly into unsubstantial air; even as stars unfastened 20 from the firmament oft sweep across and drag their blazing hair as they fly. Fixed aghast to the spot, in prayer to Heaven, hung the stout sons of Trinacria and Troy; nor does Æneas' sovran judgment reject the omen. He clasps the glad Acestes to his heart, loads him with 25 costly gifts, and bespeaks him thus:—"Take them, my father; for Olympus' mighty monarch has said by the voice of these omens that yours is to be a prize drawn without a lot. From Anchises the aged himself comes the present I now bestow—a bowl embossed with figures, 30 which in old days Cisseus[o] gave to my sire Anchises in royal bounty, a standing remembrance of himself and a testimony of his love." So saying, he crowns his brow with verdant bays, and proclaims, first of all, the conquering name of Acestes. Nor did good Eurytion grudge the 35 preëminence, though he and none but he brought down the bird from the sky. Next steps into the prize he who cut the cord; last, he whose quivering arrow nailed the mast
