Next a steer, Picked for his swelling neck and beauteous form, He leads to the altar, and with slanting knife Spreads on his brow the meal, and pours the wine.
The victim's struggles prove the gods averse; But when the servers press upon his horns He bends the knee and yields him to the blow.
No crimson torrent issued at the stroke, But from the wound a dark empoisoned stream Ebbed slowly downward.

Aruns at the sight Aghast, upon the entrails of the beast Essayed to read the anger of the gods.
Their very colour terrified the seer; Spotted they were and pale, with sable streaks Of lukewarm gore bespread; the liver damp With foul disease, and on the hostile part The angry veins defiant; of the lungs The fibre hid, and through the vital parts The membrane small; the heart had ceased to throb; Blood oozes through the ducts; the caul is split: And, fatal omen of impending ill, One lobe o'ergrows the other; of the twain The one lies flat and sick, the other beats And keeps the pulse in rapid strokes astir.
Disaster's near approach thus learned, he cries -- "Whate'er may be the purpose of the gods, 'Tis not for me to tell; this offered beast Not Jove possesses, but the gods below.
We dare not speak our fears, yet fear doth make The future worse than fact.

May all the gods Prosper the tokens, and the sacrifice Be void of truth, and Tages (famous seer) Have vainly taught these mysteries." Such his words Involved, mysterious.

Figulus, to whom For knowledge of the secret depths of space And laws harmonious that guide the stars, Memphis could find no peer, then spake at large: "Either," he said, "the world and countless orbs Throughout the ages wander at their will; Or, if the fates control them, ruin huge Hangs o'er this city and o'er all mankind.
Shall Earth yawn open and engulph the towns?
Shall scorching heat usurp the temperate air And fields refuse their timely fruit?
The streams Flow mixed with poison?
In what plague, ye gods, In what destruction shall ye wreak your ire?
Whate'er the truth, the days in which we live Shall find a doom for many.

Had the star Of baleful Saturn, frigid in the height, Kindled his lurid fires, the sky had poured Its torrents forth as in Deucalion's time, And whelmed the world in waters.