"The aruspices inspected the entrails."--"It was then that a dead silence fell over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering around the cella, another priest, naked save by a cincture round the middle, rushed forward, and dancing with wild gestures, implored an answer from the goddess."--"A low murmuring noise was heard within the body of the statue; thrice the head moved, and the lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic words: "There are waves like chargers that meet and glow, There are graves ready wrought in the rocks below, On the brow of the Future the dangers lower, But blessed are your barks in the fearful hour." [Footnote 10: Vol. i. p. 42.] That in the poem is as follows--the oracle preceding the description of its effect upon the superstitious multitude. "The aruspices proclaimed the prodigies. 'The entrails palpitate--the liver's lobes Are withered, and the heart hath shrivelled up!' Groans rose from living surges round; yet loud The High Priest uttered--'Lay them on the fire!' 'Twas done; and wine and oil poured amply o'er, And still the sacrificer wildly cried-- 'Woe unto all! the wandering fires hiss up Through the black vapors--lapping o'er the flesh They burn not, but abandon! ashes fill The temple, whirled upon the wind that waves'" etc. _The Oracle_. "'Ye shall pass o'er the Tyrrhene sea in ships Laden with virgins, gems and gods, and spoils Of a dismembered empire, and a cloud Of light shall radiate your ocean path!' Breathes not the soul of mystery in this?" "And the prostrated multitudes, like woods Hung with the leaves of autumn, stirred; then fell A silence when the heart was heard--a pause-- When ardent hope became an agony; And parted lips and panting pulses--eyes Wild with their watchings, brows with beaded dews Of expectation chilled and fevered--all The shaken and half lifted frame--declared The moment of the oracle had come! A sceptre to the hand of Isis leapt And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest Uttered the maiden's answer, and the fall Of many quickened steps like whispers pass'd Along the columned aisles and vestibule." Both oracles partake the same mystic character and allude obscurely to the same fearful and overwhelming event.