The flattering sky glittered in often flames, And sundry fiery meteors blazed in heaven: Now spearlike, long; now like a spreading torch Lightning in silence stole forth without clouds, And from the northern climate snatching fire Blasted the Capitol. The lesser stars Which wont run their course through empty night At noonday mustered; Phoebe having filled Her meeting horns to match her brother's light, Strook with th' earth's sudden shadow waxed pale, Titan himself throned in the midst of heaven, His burning chariot plunged in sable clouds, And whelmed the world in darkness, making men Despair of day, as did Thiestes town (Mycenae) Phoebus flying through the east: Fierce Mulciber unbarred Etna's gate, Which flamed not on high; but headlong pitched Her burning head on bending Hespery. Coal-black Charybdis whirled a sea of blood; Fierce mastiffs hold; the vestal fires went out, The flame in Alba consecrate to Jove Parted in twain, and with a double point Rose like the Theban brothers' funeral fire; The earth went off her hinges; and the Alps Shook the old snow from off their trembling laps. The ocean swelled as high as Spanish Calpe, Or Atlas' head; their saints and household gods Sweat tears to show the travails of their city. Crowns fell from holy statues, ominous birds Defiled the day, and wilde beasts were seen, Leaving the woods, lodge in the streets of Rome. Cattle were seen that muttered human speech: Prodigous births with more and ugly joints, Than nature gives, whose sight appalls the mother, And dismal prophesies were spread abroad: And they whom fierce Bellona's fury moves To wound their arms, sing vengeance, Sibyl's priests, Curling their bloody locks, howl dreadful things, Souls quiet and appeased sighed from their graves, Clashing of arms was heard in untrod woods, Shrill voices shrieked, and ghosts encounter men. Those that inhabited the suburb fields Fled, foul Erinnis stalked about the walls, Shaking her snaky hair and crooked pine With flaming top, much like that hellish fiend Which made the stern Lycurgus wound his thigh, Or fierce Agave mad; or like Megaera That scared Alcides, when by Juno's task He had before looked Pluto in the face. Trumpets were heard sound; and with what noise An armed battle joins, such and more strange Black night brought forth in secret: Sylla's ghost Was seen to walk, singing sad oracles, And Marius' head above cold Tau'ron peering (His grave broke open) did affright the boars. To these ostents (as their old custom was) They call th' Etrurian augurs, amongst whom The gravest, Aruns, dwelt in forsaken Luca, [or Luna] Well skilled in pyromancy; one that knew The hearts of beasts, and flight of wandering fowls. First he commands such monsters Nature hatched Against her kind (the barren mule's loathed issue) To be cut forth and cast in dismal fires: Then, that the trembling citizens should walk About the city; then the sacred priests That with divine lustration purged the walls, And went the round, in, and without the town. Next, an inferior troop in tucked up vestures, After the Gabine manner: then the nuns And their veiled matron, who alone might view Minerva's statue; then they that keep and read Sibylla's secret works, and wash their saint In Almo's flood. Next learned augurs follow, Apollo's soothsayers, and Jove's feasting priests; The skipping Salii with shields like wedges; And Flamin's last, with network woolen veils. While these thus in and out had circled Rome, Look, what the lightning blasted Aruns takes And it inters with murmurs dolorous, And calls the place bidental. On the altar He lays a ne'er-yoked bull, and pours down wine, Then crams salt leaven on his crooked knife; The beast long struggled, as being like to prove An awkward sacrifice, but by the horns The quick priest pulled him on his knees and slew him: No vein sprung out but from the yawning gash, Instead of red blood wallowed venomous gore. These direful signs made Aruns stand amazed, And searching farther for the gods' displeasure, The very colour scared him; a dead blackness Ran through the blood, that turned it all jelly, And stained the bowels with dark loathsome spots; The liver swelled with filth, and every vein Did threaten horror from the host of Caesar; A small thin skin contained the vital parts, The heart stirred not, and from the gaping liver Squeezed matter through the caul; the entrails 'peared, And which (aye me) ever pretendeth ill, At that bunch where the liver is, appeared A knob of flesh, whereof one half did look Dead, and discolored, th' other lean and thin. By these he seeing what mischiefs must ensue, Cried out, 'O gods! I tremble to unfold What you intend: great Jove is now displeased, And in the breast of this slain bull are crept Th' infernal powers.