Scylla and Charybdis, the Rocks.
Of beetling rocks, where roars the mighty surge Of dark-eyed Amphitrité; these are called The Wanderers by the blessed gods. No birds Can pass them safe, not even the timid doves, Which bear ambrosia to our father Jove, But ever doth the slippery rock take off Some one, whose loss the god at once supplies, To keep their number full. To these no bark Guided by man has ever come, and left The spot unwrecked; the billows of the deep And storms of fire in air have scattered wide Timbers of ships and bodies of drowned men. One only of the barks that plough the deep Has passed them safely,— Argo, known to all By fame, when coming from Eæta home, — And her the billows would have dashed against The enormous rocks, if Juno, for the sake Of Jason, had not come to guide it through. "Two are the rocks; one lifts to the broad heaven Its pointed summit, where a dark gray cloud Broods, and withdraws not; never is the sky Clear o'er that peak, not even in summer days Or autumn; nor can man ascend its steeps, Or venture down, so smooth the sides, as if
Man's art had polished them. There in the midst
Upon the western side toward Erebus
There yawns a shadowy cavern ; thither thou, Noble Ulysses, steer thy bark, yet keep So far aloof that, standing on the deck, A youth might send an arrow from a bow Just to the cavern's mouth. There Scylla dwells, And fills the air with fearful yells; her voice The cry of whelps just littered, but herself A frightful prodigy, a sight which none Would care to look on, though he were a god. Twelve feet are hers, all shapeless; six long necks, A hideous head on each, and triple rows
Of teeth, close-set and many, threatening death. And half her form is in the cavern's womb, And forth from that dark gulf her heads are thrust, To look abroad upon the rocks for prey, Dolphin, or dogfish, or the mightier whale, Such as the murmuring Amphitrité breeds In multitudes. No mariner can boast That he has passed by Scylla with a crew Unharmed; she snatches from the deck, and bears Away in each grim mouth, a living man. "Another rock, Ulysses, thou wilt see, Of lower height, so near her that a spear, Cast by the hand, might reach it. On it grows A huge wild fig-tree with luxuriant leaves. Below, Charybdis, of immortal birth,
Draws the dark water down; for thrice a day She gives it forth, and thrice with fearful whirl She draws it in. O, be it not thy lot To come while the dark water rushes down!
Even Neptune could not then deliver thee.
Then turn thy course with speed toward Scylla's rock, And pass that way; 't were better far that six
Should perish from the ship than all be lost."
Homer. Tr. W. C. Bryant.
Of Sicily, Pelorus' narrow straits
Open to view, then take the land to the left, And the left sea, with a wide circuit round, And shun the shore and sea upon the right. Those lands, 't is said, by vast convulsions once Were torn asunder (such the changes wrought By time), when both united stood as one. Between them rushed the sea, and with its waves Cut off the Italian side from Sicily,
And now between their fields and cities flows With narrow tide. There Scylla guards the right, Charybdis the implacable the left;
And thrice its whirlpool sucks the vast waves down Into the lowest depths of its abyss,
And spouts them forth into the air again,
Lashing the stars with waves. But Scylla lurks Within the blind recesses of a cave,
Stretching her open jaws, and dragging down The ships upon the rocks. Foremost, a face, Human, with comely virgin's breast, she seems, E'en to the middle; but her lower parts A hideous monster of the sea, the tails
Of dolphins mingling with the womb of wolves. Better to voyage, though delaying long, Around Pachyna's cape, with circuit wide, Than once the shapeless Scylla to behold Under her caverns vast, and hear those rocks Resounding with her dark blue ocean hounds.
Virgil. Tr. C. P. Cranch.
"BARON or vassal, is any so bold
As to plunge in yon gulf and follow
Through chamber and cave this beaker of gold, Which already the waters whirlingly swallow? Who retrieves the prize from the horrid abyss Shall keep it the gold and the glory be his!"
So spake the King, and incontinent flung From the cliff that, gigantic and steep, High over Charybdis's whirlpool hung,
A glittering winecup down in the deep; And again he asked, "Is there one so brave
As to plunge for the gold in the dangerous wave?"
And the knights and the knaves all answerless hear The challenging words of the speaker; And some glance downwards with looks of fear, And none are ambitious of winning the beaker. And a third time the King his question urges, "Dares none, then, breast the menacing surges ?"
But the silence lasts unbroken and long; When a Page, fair-featured and soft, Steps forth from the shuddering vassal-throng, And his mantle and girdle already are doffed, And the groups of nobles and damosels nigh, Envisage the youth with a wondering eye.
He dreadlessly moves to the gaunt crag's brow, And measures the drear depth under;
But the waters Charybdis had swallowed she now Regurgitates bellowing back in thunder,
And the foam, with a stunning and horrible sound, Breaks its hoar way through the waves around.
And it seethes and roars, it welters and boils, As when water is showered upon fire; And skyward the spray agonizingly toils, And flood over flood sweeps higher and higher, Upheaving, downrolling, tumultuously,
As though the abyss would bring forth a young sea.
But the terrible turmoil at last is over; And down through the whirlpool's well A yawning blackness ye may discover,
Profound as the passage to central Hell; And the waves, under many a struggle and spasm, Are sucked in afresh by the gorge of the chasm.
And now, ere the din re-thunders, the youth Invokes the great name of God;
And blended shrieks of horror and ruth
Burst forth as he plunges headlong unawed:
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