“They are sisters three,” she replied, “that sit in a mead (by which your ship must needs pass) circled with dead men’s bones.  These are the bones of men whom they have slain, after with fawning invitements they have enticed them into their fen.  Yet such is the celestial harmony of their voice accompanying the persuasive magic of their words, that knowing this, you shall not be able to withstand their enticements.  Therefore when you are to sail by them, you shall stop the ears of your companions with wax, that they may hear no note of that dangerous music; but for yourself, that you may hear, and yet live, give them strict command to bind you hand and foot to the mast, and in no case to set you free, till you are out of the danger of the temptation, though you should entreat it, and implore it ever so much, but to bind you rather the more for your requesting to be loosed.  So shall you escape that snare.”

Ulysses then prayed her that she would inform him what Scylla and Charybdis were, which she had taught him by name to fear.  She replied:  “Sailing from AEaea to Trinacria, you must pass at an equal distance between two fatal rocks.  Incline never so little either to the one side or the other, and your ship must meet with certain destruction.  No vessel ever yet tried that pass without being lost, but the Argo, which owed her safety to the sacred freight she bore, the fleece of the golden-backed ram, which could not perish.  The biggest of these rocks which you shall come to, Scylla hath in charge.  There in a deep whirlpool at the foot of the rock the abhorred monster shrouds her face; who if she were to shew her full form, no eye of man or god could endure the sight:  thence she stretches out all her six long necks peering and diving to suck up fish, dolphins, dog-fish, and whales, whole ships, and their men, whatever comes within her raging gulf.  The other rock is lesser, and of less ominous aspect; but there dreadful Charybdis sits, supping the black deeps.  Thrice a day she drinks her pits dry, and thrice a day again she belches them all up:  but when she is drinking, come not nigh, for being once caught, the force of Neptune cannot redeem you from her swallow.  Better trust to Scylla, for she will but have for her six necks six men:  Charybdis in her insatiate draught will ask all.”

Then Ulysses enquired, in case he should escape Charybdis, whether he might not assail that other monster with his sword:  to which she replied that he must not think that he had an enemy subject to death, or wounds, to contend with:  for Scylla could never die.  Therefore, his best safety was in flight, and to invoke none of the gods but Cratis, who is Scylla’s mother, and might perhaps forbid her daughter to devour them.  For his conduct after he arrived at Trinacria she referred him to the admonitions which had been given him by Tiresias.