“’You will find the other rock lie lower, but they are so close together that there is not more than a bow-shot between them. [A large fig tree in full leaf {101} grows upon it], and under it lies the sucking whirlpool of Charybdis.  Three times in the day does she vomit forth her waters, and three times she sucks them down again; see that you be not there when she is sucking, for if you are, Neptune himself could not save you; you must hug the Scylla side and drive ship by as fast as you can, for you had better lose six men than your whole crew.’

“‘Is there no way,’ said I, ’of escaping Charybdis, and at the same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?’

“‘You dare devil,’ replied the goddess, ’you are always wanting to fight somebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten even by the immortals.  For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is savage, extreme, rude, cruel and invincible.  There is no help for it; your best chance will be to get by her as fast as ever you can, for if you dawdle about her rock while you are putting on your armour, she may catch you with a second cast of her six heads, and snap up another half dozen of your men; so drive your ship past her at full speed, and roar out lustily to Crataiis who is Scylla’s dam, bad luck to her; she will then stop her from making a second raid upon you.’

“’You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god—­seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock.  They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera.  Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father’s flocks and herds.  If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades; and even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men.’

“Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven, whereon she returned inland.  I then went on board and told my men to loose the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took their places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars.  Presently the great and cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a fair wind that blew dead aft, and staid steadily with us, keeping our sails well filled, so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear, and let her go as wind and helmsman headed her.