A thousand ships were mann’d to sail the sea; Nor had their just resentments found delay, Had not the winds and waves opposed their way. At Aulis, with united powers, they meet; But there, cross winds or calms detain’d the fleet. Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore, A boding sign the priests and people see: A snake of size immense ascends a tree, And in the leafy summit spied a nest, Which o’er her callow young a sparrow press’d; Eight were the birds, unfledged; their mother flew And hover’d round her care, but still in view, Till the fierce reptile first devour’d the brood; Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood. This dire ostent the fearful people view; Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew What heaven decreed; and with a smiling glance, Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance: “Oh Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours, But long delays shall first afflict our powers; Nine years of labour the nine birds portend, The tenth shall in the town’s destruction end.”