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circling the pole in liquid flight, nor as it speeds along utters a cry of peaceful import? No dark companion of the tripod,^[1] nor fiery bearer of the thunderbolt is here, and fair-haired Minerva’s hooting bird with the hooked beak comes not with better augury; but hawks and vultures exult on high over their airy plunder. Monstrous creatures are flying, and direful birds clamour in the clouds, nocturnal secreech-owls cry, and the horned owl with its dismal funeral chant. What celestial portents are we to follow first? must we take these as lords of the sky, O Thymbraean^[2]? Even now in frenzy do they tear each other’s faces with crooked talons, and lash the breezes with pinions that seem to smite the bosom, and assail their feathery breasts.” The other in reply: “Oft indeed, father, have I read omens of various sort from Phoebus. Yea, when in my vigorous youth the pinewood barque of Thessaly^[3] bore me in company of princes half-divine, even then did the chieftains listen spellbound to my chant of what should befall us on land and sea, nor Mopsus’ self was hearkened to more often by Jason in perplexity than my presagings of the future. But never ere this day felt I such terror, or observed prodigies so dire in heaven; yet happenings more awful are in store. Look hither then: in this clear region of profound aether numberless swans have marshalled their ranks, whether Boreas has driven them from the Strymonian North, or the benignant fostering air of placid Nile recalls them. They have stopped their flight: these deem thou in fancy to be Thebes, for they hold themselves motionless in a circle and are silent and at peace, as though enclosed by walls and rampart. But lo! a more valiant cohort