Aeneid Bibliomancy Reading

This oracle points to a randomly selected line from The Aeneid. The surrounding passages are provided for context.

 

Your passage is from BOOK III: MONSTERS, OMENS AND SIGNS.

 

For Context:

BOOK III: MONSTERS, OMENS AND SIGNS

What other death you please, yourselves bestow.’
“Scarce had he said, when on the mountain’s brow

We saw the giant shepherd stalk before
His following flock, and leading to the shore:

A monstrous bulk, deform’d, depriv’d of sight;
His staff a trunk of pine, to guide his steps aright.

His pond’rous whistle from his neck descends;
His woolly care their pensive lord attends:
This only solace his hard fortune sends.

Soon as he reach’d the shore and touch’d the waves,
From his bor’d eye the gutt’ring blood he laves:

He gnash’d his teeth, and groan’d; thro’ seas he strides,
And scarce the topmost billows touch’d his sides.

“Seiz’d with a sudden fear, we run to sea,
The cables cut, and silent haste away;

The well-deserving stranger entertain;
Then, buckling to the work, our oars divide the main.

The giant harken’d to the dashing sound:
But, when our vessels out of reach he found,

He strided onward, and in vain essay’d
Th’ Ionian deep, and durst no farther wade.

With that he roar’d aloud: the dreadful cry
Shakes earth, and air, and seas; the billows fly
Before the bellowing noise to distant Italy.