stands erect in the midst of the temple, and rolls around his
eyes that sparkle with fire. The frightened multitude is alarmed; the
priest, having his chaste hair bound with a white fillet, recognizes the
Deity and exclaims, "The God! Behold the God! Whoever you are that are
present, be of good omen, both with your words and your feelings. Mayst
thou, most beauteous one, be beheld to our advantage; and mayst thou aid
the nations that perform thy sacred rites." Whoever are present, adore
the Deity as bidden; and all repeat the words of the priest over again;
and the descendants of AEneas give a pious omen, both with their
feelings, and in their words. To these the God shows favour; and with
crest erected, he gives a hiss, a sure token, repeated thrice with his
vibrating tongue. Then he glides down the polished steps,[63] and turns
back his head, and, about to depart, he looks back upon his ancient
altars, and salutes his wonted abode and the temple that {so long} he
has inhabited. Then, with his vast bulk, he glides along the ground
covered with the strewn flowers, and coils his folds, and through the
midst of the city repairs to the harbour protected by its winding quay.

Here he stops; and seeming to dismiss his train, and the dutiful
attendance of the accompanying crowd, with a placid countenance, he
places his body in the Ausonian ship. It is sensible of the weight of
the God; and the ship {now} laden with the Divinity for its freight, the
descendants of AEneas rejoice; and a bull having first been slain on the
sea-shore, they loosen the twisted cables of the bark bedecked with
garlands. A gentle breeze has {now} impelled the ship. The God is
conspicuous aloft,[64] and pressing upon the crooked stern with his neck
laid upon it, he looks down upon the azure waters; and with the gentle
Zephyrs along the Ionian sea, on the sixth rising of the daughter of
Pallas, he makes Italy, and is borne along the Lacinian shores, ennobled
by the temple of the Goddess {Juno}, and the Scylacean[65] coasts. He
leaves Iapygia behind, and flies from the Amphissian[66] rocks with the
oars on the left side; on the right side he passes by the steep
Ceraunia, and Romechium, and Caulon,[67] and Narycia, and he crosses the
sea and the straits of the Sicilian Pelorus, and the abodes of the king
the grandson of Hippotas, and the mines of Temesa; and then he makes for
Leucosia,[68] and the rose-beds of the warm Paestum. Then he coasts by
Capreae,