[Footnote 1:  On the question of authenticity, see, Class.  Phil. 1920, 103 ff.]

The story, beginning at line 101, was familiar.  Minos, King of Crete, had laid siege to Megara, whose king, Nisus, had been promised invincibility by the oracles so long as his crimson lock remained untouched.  Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, however, was driven by Juno to fall in love with Minos, her father’s enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the temptation of betraying her father to Minos.  The picture of the girl when she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own heart, is an interesting attempt at intensive art:  209-219: 

cum furtim tacito descendens Scylla cubili auribus erectis nocturna silentia temptat et pressis tenuem singultibus aera captat. tum suspensa levans digitis vestigia primis egreditur ferroque manus armata bidenti evolat:  at demptae subita in formidine vires caeruleas sua furta prius testantur ad umbras. nam qua se ad patrium tendebat semita limen, vestibulo in thalami paulum remoratur et alti suspicit ad gelidi nictantia sidera mundi non accepta piis promittens munera divis.

Her aged nurse, Carme, comes upon the bewildered and shivering girl, folds her in her robe, and coaxes the awful confession from her; 250-260: 

    haec loquitur mollique ut se velavit amictu
  frigidulam iniecta circumdat veste puellam,
  quae prius in tenui steterat succincta crocota.
  dulcia deinde genis rorantibus oscula figens
  persequitur miserae causas exquirere tabis.
  nec tamen ante ullas patitur sibi reddere voces,
  marmoreum tremebunda pedem quam rettulit intra.
  ilia autem “quid me” inquit, “nutricula, torques?
  quid tantum properas nostros novisse furores?
  non ego consueto mortalibus uror amore.”

Scylla does not readily confess.  The poet’s characterization of her as she protracts the story to avoid the final confession reveals an ambitious though somewhat unpracticed art.  Carme tries in vain to dissuade the girl, and must, to calm her, promise to aid her if all other means fail.  The aged woman’s tenderness for her foster child is very effectively phrased in a style not without reminiscences of Catullus (340-48): 

    his ubi sollicitos animi relevaverat aestus
  vocibus et blanda pectus spe luserat aegrum,
  paulatim tremebunda genis obducere vestem
  virginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem
  inverso bibulum restinguens lumen olivo
  incipit ad crebros (que) insani pectoris ictus
  ferre manum assiduis mulcens praecordia palmis.
  noctem illam sic maesta super morientis alumnae
  frigidulos cubito subnixa pependit ocellos.