- —inextricable, had not Dædalus in pity for the enthralling
passion of the royal princess, himself unravelled the craft and mystery of those chambers, guiding the lover's dark steps with a clue of thread. You too, poor Icarus,[o] had borne no mean part in that splendid portraiture, 5 would grief have given art its way. Twice the artist essayed to represent the tragedy in gold: twice the father's hands dropped down palsied. So they would have gone on scanning all in succession, had not Achates returned from his errand, and with him the priestess of Phœbus and 10 Diana, Deiphobe, Glaucus' daughter, who thus bespeaks the king: "Not this the time for shows like these; your present work is to sacrifice seven bullocks untouched by the yoke, seven sheep duly chosen."
This said to Æneas, whose followers swiftly perform the 15 prescribed rites, she summons the Teucrians into the lofty temple, herself its priestess. One huge side of the Eubœan cliff has been hollowed into a cave, approached by a hundred broad avenues, a hundred mouths—from these a hundred voices are poured, the responses of the Sibyl. 20 Just as they were on the threshold, "It is the moment to pray for the oracle," cries the maiden; "the god, the god is here." Thus as she spoke at the gate, her visage, her hue changed suddenly—her hair started from its braid—her bosom heaves and pants, her wild soul swells with 25 frenzy—she grows larger to the view, and her tones are not of earth, as the breath of the divine presence comes on her nearer and nearer. "What! a laggard at vows and prayers? Æneas of Troy a laggard? for that is the only spell to part asunder the great closed lips of the terror-smitten 30 shrine." She said, and was mute. A cold shudder runs through the Teucrians' iron frames, and their king pours out his very soul in prayer: "Phœbus, ever Troy's pitying friend in her cruel agonies—thou who didst level Paris' Dardan bow and string his Dardan arm 35 against the vast frame of Æacides[o]—by thy guidance I have penetrated all these unknown seas that swathe mighty continents. The Massylian tribes, thrust away by
