At once six mouths expands, at once six men devours.


“‘Close by, a rock of less enormous height

Breaks the wild waves, and forms a dangerous strait;

Full on its crown a fig’s green branches rise,

And shoot a leafy forest to the skies;

Beneath, Charybdis holds her boisterous reign

’Midst roaring whirlpools, and absorbs the main;

Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas subside,

Thrice in dire thunders she refunds the tide.

Oh, if thy vessel plough the direful waves,

When seas retreating roar within her caves,

Ye perish all! though he who rules the main

Lends his strong aid, his aid he lends in vain.

Ah, shun the horrid gulf! by Scylla fly.

’Tis better six to lose, than all to die.’


“I then: ‘O nymph propitious to my prayer,

Goddess divine, my guardian power, declare,

Is the foul fiend from human vengeance freed?

Or, if I rise in arms, can Scylla bleed?’


“Then she: ‘O worn by toils, O broke in fight,

Still are new toils and war thy dire delight?

Will martial flames for ever fire thy mind,

And never, never be to Heaven resign’d?

How vain thy efforts to avenge the wrong!

Deathless the pest! impenetrably strong!

Furious and fell, tremendous to behold!

E’en with a look she withers all the bold!

She mocks the weak attempts of human might;

Oh, fly her rage! thy conquest is thy flight.

If but to seize thy arms thou make delay,

Again thy fury vindicates her prey;

Her six mouths yawn, and six are snatch’d away.

From her foul wound Crataeis gave to air

This dreadful pest! To her direct thy prayer,

To curb the monster in her dire abodes,

And guard thee through the tumult of the floods.

Thence to Trinacria’s shore you bend your way,

Where graze thy herds, illustrious source of day!

Seven herds, seven flocks enrich the sacred plains,

Each herd, each flock full fifty heads contains;

The wondrous kind a length of age survey,

By breed increase not, nor by death decay.