Vain to trace Palinurus and his fate! But all knew where the Sibyl kept her state. In a shrine that Latona’s Children hold, Their joint domain, and Dædalus of old Adorned with various art, a huge cliff-wall Recedes into a cavern; and thence call, Rushing tumultuous through a hundred doors, As many voices. One roar, the whole, pours. Æneas touched the threshold, when a cry Came from within: “Ask, and I will reply! Hear! the God!”— And the Sibyl herself there; She, yet not herself; breathing not our air; No mortal accents from a mortal tongue; Visage, complexion changed, fillet unstrung; Breast stormily heaving; heart all but broke In yet untamed resistance to the yoke The God would fix, to break mind—human birth— To bind his messenger from Heav’n to Earth; While She, though pure, adoring, how not repine, Identity lost, e’en to be Divine! ’Twas instinct in her that rebelled; not she, The Prophetess, the Sibyl; for now see Her wrathful for her master’s honour:— “Thou, Trojan at His altar, and not a vow! Deemest mighty mouth of His awful shrine Will open but to answer prayer from thine?” Æneas had kept silence, not from fear, Or shame, but reverence; now he drew near, Entreating from the bottom of his heart: “Phœbus, Troy’s champion, when few took our part; Through whom Achilles died—whose kindly hands Led us o’er false seas, past perilous lands— O turn the shores where we have anchor cast, From the mirage they were to homes at last. And adverse Gods and Goddesses, to all, I pray, if e’er Troy’s glory stirred your gall, Does not down-fallen Pergamus atone— Is Envy not content with heaps of stone— With Priam’s House uprooted? What are we, Mere remnant tossed till now on every sea? Thee also, holy Prophetess, I ask; Free thy God’s cloudy riddles from their mask; In pity for me, who already know I am to rule Ausonia, unveil how, Where, and when, to found my City, replace Troy’s exiled Gods, Genii of our race; Nor trust thy renderings of what Fate weaves To the chance flutterings of autumn leaves; Chant; and be all transcribed; then, when, in pure Marble fanes, thy God is worshipped, be sure Kings after me shall treasure what is writ, And train up scholars to interpret it.” God and Prophetess listened no more;— will Was wrestling to be its own mistress still. A woman with a God! In vain she raves; Subduing lips that foam, breast swollen, waves Of inspiration stamp, rolling along, Apollo’s dictates on the Sibyl’s tongue, Till—again the hundred doors open wide— Phœbus to Æneas by her replied: “Think not thy work is done because at length Ocean’s dangers are escaped. All thy strength Will be tasked on land; though Latium’s lord Prepares to hail the offer of thy sword,