Acestes now Alone remains; no palm is left to bear, Yet skyward shoots the veteran, proud to show What skill his hand can boast, the sounding of his bow.
LXXII.

Sudden a portent was revealed; how great An augury, the future brought to light, And frightening seers their omens sang too late.
Aloft, the arrow kindled in its flight, Then marked with shining trail its pathway bright, And, wasting, vanished into viewless air.
So stars, unfastened from the vault of night, Stream in the firmament with fiery glare, And through the dark fling out a length of glittering hair.
LXXIII.

Awed stand the men of Sicily and Troy, And pray the gods.

AEneas owns the sign, And, heaping gifts, Acestes clasps with joy.
"Take, father, take; Jove's auspices divine A special honour for thy meed assign.
This bowl, embossed with images of gold, The gift of old Anchises, shall be thine, Which Thracian Cisseus to my sire of old Gave, as a pledge of love, to have it and to hold." LXXIV.

So saying, with a garland of green bay He crowned his temples, and the prize conferred, And named Acestes victor of the day.
Nor good Eurytion to the choice demurred, Nor grudged to see the veteran's claim preferred, Though his the prowess that the rest surpassed, His shaft the one that struck the soaring bird.
The second, he who cut the cord, the last, He who with feathered reed transfixed the tapering mast.
LXXV.