“‘High in the air the rock its summit shrouds In brooding tempests, and in rolling clouds; Loud storms around, and mists eternal rise, Beat its bleak brow, and intercept the skies. When all the broad expansion, bright with day, Glows with the autumnal or the summer ray, The summer and the autumn glow in vain, The sky for ever lowers, for ever clouds remain. Impervious to the step of man it stands, Though borne by twenty feet, though arm’d with twenty hands; Smooth as the polish of the mirror rise The slippery sides, and shoot into the skies. Full in the centre of this rock display’d, A yawning cavern casts a dreadful shade: Nor the fleet arrow from the twanging bow, Sent with full force, could reach the depth below. Wide to the west the horrid gulf extends, And the dire passage down to hell descends. O fly the dreadful sight! expand thy sails, Ply the strong oar, and catch the nimble gales; Here Scylla bellows from the dire abodes, Tremendous pest, abhorr’d by man and gods! Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar The whelps of lions in the midnight hour. Twelve feet, deform’d and foul, the fiend dispreads; Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads; Her jaws grin dreadful with three rows of teeth; Jaggy they stand, the gaping den of death; Her parts obscene the raging billows hide; Her bosom terribly o’erlooks the tide. When stung with hunger she embroils the flood, The sea-dog and the dolphin are her food; She makes the huge leviathan her prey, And all the monsters of the watery way; The swiftest racer of the azure plain Here fills her sails, and spreads her oars in vain; Fell Scylla rises, in her fury roars, 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?’