"She spake; I answered: 'Goddess, this, I pray thee, truly tell, If way be none both to escape Charybdis' yawning hell,
And vengeance for my comrades lost, on Scylla, too, to take?'
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"Then promptly to my question thus the nymph in answer spake :
Foolhardy one, once more the deeds and toil of battle-field
Are in thy mind: wilt thou not deign to deathless gods to yield?
No mortal being Scylla deem, but dread immortal woe,
Grievous and fierce, one hard to fight, whoe'er may be her foe.
Against her thou hast no defence,-no safety but in flight;
For if thou tarry nigh her cliff, to arm thee for the fight,
I fear lest, darting forth afresh, she seize upon her prey,
And each devouring head once more its victim bear away.
Row past her cave with all thy force, and aid the while implore
Of great Crataiis, who this curse to wretched mortals bore,
Who then her offspring will restrain, that she dart forth no more.'
"Next thou wilt reach Trinacria's isle, where on the pastures feed
The noble beeves and goodly sheep of the great Sun-god's breed.
Seven herds of oxen, and of sheep seven fleecy flocks, are there,
Each fifty head in number told, and they nor offspring bear,
Nor does their number waste, and nymphs their shepherdesses are,—
Phaethusa and Lampetie, whom Neæra the divine
Bore to Hyperion, their sire, god of the bright sunshine.
The nymphs she reared, and far away did to Trinacria send,
Their father's peerless flocks and herds for evermore to tend.
If these inviolate thou leav'st, in hope to reach thine home,
Ye all, though oft with woe beset, to Ithaca may come;
But if ye harm them, then be sure destruction will befall
Thy vessel wrecked upon the seas, thy hapless comrades all.
121. Against her thou hast no defence, &c.
"But thou, O Father! I forewarn thee, shun
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
Though tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint,
Save he who reigns above, none can resist."
-MILTON,. Par. Lost, ii. 810.
128. Next thou wilt reach, &c.
"Ante et Trinacriâ lentandus remus in unda."-VIRG. Æn., iii. 384.
And e'en if thou escape the doom that doth thy friends await,
In evil plight shalt thou return, companionless and late.'
"She spake; and golden-throned Morn brought back the light of
day:
The goddess left, and through the isle returning took her way.
Nor lingered I, but sought my ship and comrades on the shore,
And bade them hasten all aboard, and our good ship unmoor.
And speedily they all embarked; and on his 'customed seat
Each in due order took his place, and the white sea-wave beat.
The goddess dread of human speech, the fair-haired Circe, gave
A wind, that, following fast and fresh, a good companion, drave
With bellying sails our dark-prowed ship across the briny wave.
Our tackling in due order set, we then reclined at ease,
And left our course to pilot's hand, and to the guiding breeze.
"Then with a sorrowing heart I spake: 'My comrades, not alone
To one or two, but unto all, 'tis right that I make known
The secret of the oracles by Circe's art foreshown.
All shall hear all, that knowing all, we either now may die,
Or haply, shunning death and fate, escape the peril nigh.
First of the wondrous Siren choir she did the wiles areed,-
Bade us their magic strains to shun, and ever-flowery mead.
She charged that I alone should hear their soul-entrancing song,
But lest I yield me to its spell, bind me with cordage strong,
That in the mast-box prisoned fast upright I may remain,
And lash the rope-ends round the mast, mine efforts to restrain ;
And if from you I or command my freedom or implore,
Then do ye but with stronger bonds imprison me the more.'
"Thus I fair Circe's oracles to them revealed: meanwhile
Right speedily our gallant ship approached the Sirens' isle.
Before the fav'ring breeze we drove; but sudden o'er the deep
There fell a breathless calm some god the waters lulled to sleep.
154. Then with a sorrowing heart, &c.
Quæ Phœbo Pater omnipotens, mihi Phoebus Apollo
Prædixit, vobis Furiarum ego maxima pando."—VIRG. Æn., iii. 251.
169. But sudden o'er the deep, &c.
Quum venti posuere, omnisque repente resedit
Fluctus, et in lento luctantur marmore topsæ."-VIRG. Æn., vii. 27.
My crew arose, and, low'ring sail, away the canvas stowed;—
The whitened sea-foam flew, as quick with polished oars they rowed.
Then into pellets small I cut of solid wax a mould,
And in the broad palms of my hands each pellet pressed and rolled.
Soon 'neath the pressure of my palms the wax began to run,
Warmed by Hyperion's offspring's beam, the Lord of Day, the Sun;
And with it full I filled the ears of each man, one by one.
Then to the mast-box, hand and foot, with cordage pinioned fast,
They lashed me as I stood, and ran the rope-ends round the mast,
And sitting at his rower's bench, each made the white foam fly,
Till within ear-shot now we drew to the weird Sisters nigh.
Our ship's approach escaped them not, though swift we drove
along,
But sweet and clear came o'er the wave the prelude of their song:
"Come hither, glory of the Greeks, far-famed Ulysses; stay
Thy vessel by our shore awhile, and listen to our lay.
For in dark ship no mariner has ever passed us by
Before his ravished ear has heard our song's sweet melody,
172. The whitened sea-foam flew, &c.
Tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda."-CATULLUS, lxiv. 13.
"But that our own Spenser's Faerie Queene is perhaps even less known to the majority of English readers than the Odyssey of Homer (by grace of popular translations), it might be needless to remind them how the whole of Sir Guyon's voyage on the 'Idle Lake' is nothing more or less than a reproduction of this portion of Ulysses' adventures. The five mermaidens, who entrap unwary travellers with their melody, address the knight as he floats by in a strain which is the echo of the Sirens' :
'O thou fayre son of gentle Fäery,
That art in mightie arms most magnifyde
Above all knights that art in battaill tryde,
O turn thy rudder hitherwarde awhile :
Here may thy storme-bett vessell safely ryde:
This is the port of rest from troublous toyle,
The worldes sweet Inn from pain and wearisome turmoyle.'—Bk. ii. 12.
The enchantress Acrasia, with her transformed lovers-the 'seeming beasts who are men in deed'—is but a copy from Circe; while the 'Gulf of Greediness' yawning on one side of the Lake
'That deep engorgeth all this worldës prey '—
and on the other side the 'Rock of Vile Reproach,' whose fatal magnetic power draws in
But with his mind enriched with lore, has sailed away in joy.
Well know we all things that befell upon the plains of Troy;
All that the wrath of gods made Greek and Trojan undergo.
All that upon the fertile earth doth come to pass, we know.'
66 Thus sang the Sirens; and their voice smote sweetly on mine ear,
And mighty longing seized my heart to pause awhile and hear.
Then to my crew, for my release, with knitted brows I gave
A signal stern; but each man's oar the harder smote the wave:
And straight arose Eurylochus and Perimede, and cast
More bonds around me, and my limbs lashed tighter to the mast.
But when we, driving through the seas, the danger had passed by,
And heard no more the Sirens' voice, and witching harmony,
Uprose my comrades, and the wax I in their ears had poured
Removed, and me, from bonds released, to liberty restored.
“Scarce had we passed, when straight we saw a curling smoke arise,
And heard the vasty billows roar, that surged before our eyes.
all who try to shun the whirlpool opposite, are the Scylla and Charybdis of Homer."— The Odyssey, by the Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, 'Blackwood's Ancient Classics,' pp. 86, 87.
Cicero, De Finibus, thus translates this passage, p. 58:
"O decus Argolicum, quin puppim flectis, Ulixe,
Auribus ut nostros possis adgnoscere cantus?
Nam nemo hæc unquam est transvectus cærula cursu,
Quin prius adstiterit vocum dulcedine captus ;
Post variis avido satiatus pectore musis,
Doctior ad patrias lapsus pervenerit oras.
Nos grave certamen belli clademque tenemus,
Græcia quam Troja divino numine vexit;
Omniaque e latis rerum vestigia terris."
202. Scarce had we passed, &c.
Tum procul e fluctu Trinacria cernitur Ætna;
Et gemitum ingentem pelagi, pulsataque saxa
Audimus longè, fractasque ad littora voces:
Exsultantque vada, atque æstu miscentur arenæ.
"An hideous roaring far away they heard,
That all their senses filled with affright;
And straight they saw the raging surges reared
Up to the skies, that them of drowning made affeard."
-SPENSER, Faerie Queene, Bk. ii. 12. 2.
"Sudden they see from midst of all the main
The surging waters like a mountain rise,
And the great sea, puffed up with proud disdain,
In terror at the sight each man let fall his feath'ring blade,—
Adown the stream it loudly plashed, and there our ship was stayed.
With oarless hands we sat and gazed; but passing quick to each
Throughout the ship, I sought to calm his fright with cheering speech :
“O friends, in suff'ring not unlearned, no more we have to bear,
Than when the Cyclops fell our crew immured within his lair.
Yet to escape e'en thence my wit and valour found a way:
Methinks we shall this peril, too, recall to mind some day.
And now too come, give ear, and act as I your leader urge,-
Let each sit still upon his seat, and of the foaming surge
The billows beat with sturdy arms, if haply Saturn's son
Vouchsafe that so this present death unscathed we all may shun.
But thou, O helmsman, lay to heart the charge that I confide
To thy sole care, since thine the task our hollow ship to guide,—
See from yon smoke and roaring wave thou giv'st her offing wide.
To swell above the measure of his guise,
As threat'ning to devour all that his power despise.
The waves come rolling, and the billows roar
Outrageously, as they enragèd were.'
-SPENSER, Faerie Queene, Bk. ii. 12. 21, 22.
207. Throughout the ship, &c.
dictis mœrentia pectora mulcet.
O socii, neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum,
O passi graviora ; dabit Deus his quoque finem.
Vos et Scyllæam rabiem, penitusque sonantes
Accêstis scopulos; vos et Cyclopia saxa
Experti. Revocate animos, moestumque timorem
Mittite. Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit."—VIRG. Æn., i. 197.
"Tosto un dì sia, che rimembrar vi giove
Gli scorsi affanni, e sciorre i voti a Dio.
Or durate magnanimi, e voi stessi
Serbate, prego, ai prosperi successi."-TASSO, Ger. Lib., 5. 91.
213. Let each sit still, &c.
Eripite, O socii, pariterque insurgite remis."-VIRG. Æn., iii. 560.
216. But thou, O helmsman, &c.
tu condita mente teneto."-Ibid., iii. 388.
217. Since thine the task, &c.
"Said then the boatman, 'Palmer, steer aright,
And keep an even course, for yonder way
We needs must pass (God do us well acquight).'”
-SPENSER, Faerie Queene, Bk. ii. 12. 3.
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