In maddened trance She whirls throughout the cave, her locks erect With horror, and the fillets of the god Dashed to the ground; her steps unguided turn To this side and to that; the tripods fall O'erturned; within her seethes the mighty fire Of angry Phoebus; nor with whip alone He urged her onwards, but with curb restrained; Nor was it given her by the god to speak All that she knew; for into one vast mass (15) All time was gathered, and her panting chest Groaned 'neath the centuries.

In order long All things lay bare: the future yet unveiled Struggled for light; each fate required a voice; The compass of the seas, Creation's birth, Creation's death, the number of the sands, All these she knew.

Thus on a former day The prophetess upon the Cuman shore, (16) Disdaining that her frenzy should be slave To other nations, from the boundless threads Chose out with pride of hand the fates of Rome.
E'en so Phemonoe, for a time oppressed With fates unnumbered, laboured ere she found, Beneath such mighty destinies concealed, Thine, Appius, who alone had'st sought the god In land Castalian; then from foaming lips First rushed the madness forth, and murmurs loud Uttered with panting breath and blent with groans; Till through the spacious vault a voice at length Broke from the virgin conquered by the god: "From this great struggle thou, O Roman, free Escap'st the threats of war: alive, in peace, Thou shalt possess the hollow in the coast Of vast Euboea." Thus she spake, no more.
Ye mystic tripods, guardians of the fates And Paean, thou, from whom no day is hid By heaven's high rulers, Master of the truth, Why fear'st thou to reveal the deaths of kings, Rome's murdered princes, and the latest doom Of her great Empire tottering to its fall, And all the bloodshed of that western land?
Were yet the stars in doubt on Magnus' fate Not yet decreed, and did the gods yet shrink From that, the greatest crime?
Or wert thou dumb That Fortune's sword for civil strife might wreak Just vengeance, and a Brutus' arm once more Strike down the tyrant?
From the temple doors Rushed forth the prophetess in frenzy driven, Not all her knowledge uttered; and her eyes, Still troubled by the god who reigned within, Or filled with wild affright, or fired with rage Gaze on the wide expanse: still works her face Convulsive; on her cheeks a crimson blush With ghastly pallor blent, though not of fear.
Her weary heart throbs ever; and as seas Boom swollen by northern winds, she finds in sighs, All inarticulate, relief.

But while She hastes from that dread light in which she saw The fates, to common day, lo! on her path The darkness fell.

Then by a Stygian draught Of the forgetful river, Phoebus snatched Back from her soul his secrets; and she fell Yet hardly living.
Nor did Appius dread Approaching death, but by dark oracles Baffled, while yet the Empire of the world Hung in the balance, sought his promised realm In Chalcis of Euboea.