“Thus she was crying, while her moaning filled the house, when a portent appears, sudden and marvellous to relate. Even while the hands and eyes of his grieving 5 parents were upon him, lo, a flickering tongue of flame on the top of Iulus’ head was seen to shoot out light, playing round his soft curly locks with innocuous contact and pasturing about his temples. We are all hurry and alarm, shaking out his blazing hair and quenching the 10 sacred fire with water from the spring—but Anchises my father raised his eyes in ecstasy to heaven, directing hand and voice to the stars: ‘Almighty Jove, if any prayer can bow thy will, look down on us—’tis all I crave—and if our piety have earned requital, grant us thy 15 succour, father, and ratify the omen we now see.’ Scarce had the old man spoken, when there came a sudden peal of thunder on the left, and a star fell from heaven and swept through the gloom with a torchlike train and a blaze of light. Over the top of the house we see it pass, 20 and mark its course along the sky till it buries itself lustrously in Ida’s wood—then comes a long furrowed line of light, and a sulphurous smoke fills the space all about. Then at length overcome, my father raises himself towards the sky, addresses the gods, and does reverence to the 25 sacred meteor: ‘No more, no more delay from me. I follow your guidance, and am already in the way by which you would lead me. Gods of my country! preserve my house, preserve my grandchild. Yours in this augury—your shield is stretched over Troy. Yes, my son, I 30 give way, and shrink not from accompanying your flight.’ He said—and by this the blaze is heard louder and louder through the streets, and the flames roll their hot volumes nearer. ‘Come then, dear father, take your seat on my back, my shoulders shall support you, nor shall I feel the 35 task a burden. Fall things as they may, we twain will share the peril, share the deliverance. Let my little Iulus walk by my side, while my wife follows our steps at a distance. You, our servants, attend to what I now say. As you leave the city there is a mound, where stands an ancient temple of Ceres all alone, and by it an old cypress, observed these many years by the reverence of our sires. This shall be our point of meeting in one place from 5 many quarters. You, my father, take in your hand these sacred things, our country’s household gods. For me, just emerged from this mighty war, with the stains of carnage fresh upon me, it were sacrilege to touch them, till I have cleansed me in the running stream.’ 10