AENEAS TOOK THE LEAD IN ENCOURAGING HIS friends in work of this kind, too, and equipped himself with an axe like them. By chance, he was turning over these thoughts, sad at heart, staring at the vast forest, and he prayed thus:

   "If only that golden bough would show itself to me now on a tree in all this great wood. The prophetess spoke only too truly, alas, about you, Misenus."

Scarcely had he spoken, when it happened that two doves came fluttering before the man's very eyes and settled on the grass-covered ground. Then the great hero recognised his mother's birds, and prayed with joy:

   "You be my guides - if there is a way - and direct your course through the air into the woods where the rich branch casts its golden shade upon the ground. And you, my divine mother, do not fail me in this crisis."

So saying he controlled his pace, keeping his eyes open for what signs they might give and which direction they might take. As they fed, they flew forward, but never too far for those following to keep them in view. Then, when they reached the mouth of foul-smelling Avernus they quickly gained height, and gliding through the clear air they settled on their intended perch on top of the tree from where a gleam of gold - a contrasting colour - shone out through the branches.

Just as the mistletoe, whose seed is not sown by its host tree, is always green with fresh leaves amid the winter frost, wrapping the smooth branches with its yellow berries, so was the sight of the golden bough in the dark holm-oak, as the gold leaf rattled in the gentle breeze. Aeneas snatched it at once, and eagerly snapped it off when it resisted, and carried it home to the prophetic Sibyl.