soon afterwards she became aged and feeble. She had already lived
seven hundred years when AEneas came into Italy, and she had three
centuries more to live before her years would be as numerous as the
grains of sand which she had held in her hand.

As AEneas with several of his companions approached the cave, they
were met at the outer entrance by the Sibyl herself. Then the Trojan
hero, after a prayer to Apollo, begged the good will of the prophetess
that her answers might be favorable to him and his people.

"And thou, O sacred maid, inspired to see
The event of things in dark futurity!
Give me, what heaven has promised to my fate,
To conquer and command the Latian state;
To fix my wandering gods, and find a place
For the long exiles of the Trojan race."
DRYDEN, _AEneid_, BOOK VI.

Nor did AEneas forget to beg the Sibyl, as Helenus had directed him,
to give her revelations by word of mouth, and not on leaves of trees,
as was her custom.

"But, oh! commit not thy prophetic mind
To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind,
Lest they disperse in air our empty fate;
Write not, but, what the powers ordain, relate."
DRYDEN, _AEneid_, BOOK VI.

The Sibyl graciously consented, and then the spirit of prophecy having
moved her, she told AEneas of the dangers that yet lay before him,