stage1 install. Emerging portage craps out on ncurses-5.3

[grimshaw]

This is a fresh stage one install on a p2 300Mhz. I'm using a 1.4 basic CD.

emerge sync went fine.

I started an emerge portage and it did 8 or 10 packages just fine (downloaded and compiled) before it reached ncurses (ncurses-5.3) and it's dead.

it bombs with the following:
...
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... /lib/cpp
configure: error: C++ preprocessor "/lib/cpp" fails sanity check

!!! ERROR: sys-libs/ncurses-5.3-r1 failed.
!!! Function econf, Line 324, Exitcode 1
!!! econf failed

What do I do next?
_________________
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