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106 the galley, and takes the helm himself, until he brings the little fleet safe into the harbour of Cumæ. The crews disembark, with the joy which these seamen of old always felt when they touched land again, and proceed at once to search for water, cut wood, and light fires:—

Sage Dædalus—so runs the tale—

From Minos bent to fly,

On feathery pinions dared to sail

Along the untravelled sky;

Flies northward through the polar heights,

Nor stays till he on Cumæ lights.

First landed here, he consecrates

The wings whereon he flew

To Phœbus' power, and dedicates

A fane of stately view."

Here Æneas consults the mysterious Sibyl, whose oracular verses are referred to in Virgil's Pastoral already noticed. She figures under various names in classical story—that which she bears here is Deiphobè. Her dwelling is in a cave in the rock behind the temple, with which it communicates by a hundred doors. Within sits the prophetess on a tripod, where she receives the inspiration of the god. When the oracle is pronounced, the doors all fly open, and the sound comes forth. But there is one way in which she is wont to give her answers, against which Helenus has already warned her present visitors. She has a habit of jotting down her responses in verse upon the leaves of trees—each verse apparently on a separate leaf—and then piling them one upon another