At length his companions recalled him to nobler sentiments, and he received their admonition gratefully.  Circe aided their departure, and instructed them how to pass safely by the coast of the Sirens.  The Sirens were sea-nymphs who had the power of charming by their song all who heard them, so that the unhappy mariners were irresistibly impelled to cast themselves into the sea to their destruction.  Circe directed Ulysses to fill the ears of his seamen with wax, so that they should not hear the strain; and to cause himself to be bound to the mast, and his people to be strictly enjoined, whatever he might say or do, by no means to release him till they should have passed the Sirens’ island.  Ulysses obeyed these directions.  He filled the ears of his people with wax, and suffered them to bind him with cords firmly to the mast.  As they approached the Sirens’ island, the sea was calm, and over the waters came the notes of music so ravishing and attractive that Ulysses struggled to get loose, and by cries and signs to his people begged to be released; but they, obedient to his previous orders, sprang forward and bound him still faster.  They held on their course, and the music grew fainter till it ceased to be heard, when with joy Ulysses gave his companions the signal to unseal their ears, and they relieved him from his bonds.

The imagination of a modern poet, Keats, has discovered for us the thoughts that passed through the brains of the victims of Circe, after their transformation.  In his “Endymion” he represents one of them, a monarch in the guise of an elephant, addressing the sorceress in human language, thus: 

    “I sue not for my happy crown again;
    I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;
    I sue not for my lone, my widowed wife;
    I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,
    My children fair, my lovely girls and boys;
    I will forget them; I will pass these joys,
    Ask nought so heavenward; so too—­too high;
    Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die;
    To be delivered from this cumbrous flesh,
    From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,
    And merely given to the cold, bleak air. 
    Have mercy, goddess!  Circe, feel my prayer!”

SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

Ulysses had been warned by Circe of the two monsters Scylla and Charybdis.  We have already met with Scylla in the story of Glaucus, and remember that she was once a beautiful maiden and was changed into a snaky monster by Circe.  She dwelt in a cave high up on the cliff, from whence she was accustomed to thrust forth her long necks (for she had six heads), and in each of her mouths to seize one of the crew of every vessel passing within reach.  The other terror, Charybdis, was a gulf, nearly on a level with the water.  Thrice each day the water rushed into a frightful chasm, and thrice was disgorged.  Any vessel coming near the whirlpool when the tide was rushing in must inevitably be ingulfed; not Neptune himself could save it.