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BOOK V.
161

Shall man's supineness mock the skies?
See, altars four to Neptune rise:
The God, the God himself supplies
The fury and the brands.'

She seized a torch, and o'er her head
Waved it with backdrawn arm, and sped.
With kindling hearts and senses dazed
The mothers of Dardania gazed.
Then one, in reverend years the first,
Pyrgo, who Priam's sons had nurst,
'No Beroe, matrons, have you here:
Not this Doryclus' wife:
See, breathing in her face appear
Signs of celestial life:
Observe her eyes, how bright they shine:
Mien, accent, walk, are all divine.
Beroe herself I left but now
Sick and outworn, with clouded brow,
That she alone should fail to pay
Due reverence to Anchises' day.'

In doubt at first the matrons stand,
And scan the ships with eyes malign,
Divided 'twixt their present land
And that which beckons o'er the brine,
When lo! her wings the goddess spread,
And skyward on her rainbow fled.
Then all as one to madness driven
By portents manifest from heaven,
A shout of loud acclaim they raise,
Live embers snatch from hearths ablaze,
The fuel on the altars seize,
Hurl stocks and brands, and boughs of trees:
The fire-god darts from mast to keel
O'er bench and oar, and figured deal.