But arm’d at all parts, and two lances took, Up to the foredeck went, and thence did look That rocky Scylla would have first appear’d And taken my life with the friends I fear’d. From thence yet no place could afford her sight, Though through the dark rock mine eye threw her light, And ransack’d all ways. I then took a strait That gave myself, and some few more, receit ’Twixt Scylla and Charybdis; whence we saw How horridly Charybdis’ throat did draw The brackish sea up, which when all aboard She spit again out, never caldron sod With so much fervour, fed with all the store That could enrage it; all the rock did roar With troubled waters; round about the tops Of all the steep crags flew the foamy drops. But when her draught the sea and earth dissunder’d, The troubled bottoms turn’d up, and she thunder’d, Far under shore the swart sands naked lay. Whose whole stern sight the startled blood did fray From all our faces. And while we on her Our eyes bestow’d thus to our ruin’s fear, Six friends had Scylla snatch’d out of our keel, In whom most loss did force and virtue feel. When looking to my ship, and lending eye To see my friends’ estates, their heels turn’d high, And hands cast up, I might discern, and hear Their calls to me for help, when now they were To try me in their last extremities. And as an angler med’cine for surprise Of little fish sits pouring from the rocks, From out the crook’d horn of a fold-bred ox, And then with his long angle hoists them high Up to the air, then slightly hurls them by, When helpless sprawling on the land they lie; So eas’ly Scylla to her rock had rapt My woeful friends, and so unhelp’d entrapt Struggling they lay beneath her violent rape, Who in their tortures, desp’rate of escape, Shriek’d as she tore, and up their hands to me Still threw for sweet life. I did never see, In all my suff’rance ransacking the seas, A spectacle so full of miseries. Thus having fled these rocks (these cruel dames Scylla, Charybdis) where the King of flames Hath off’rings burn’d to him, our ship put in The island that from all the earth doth win The epithet _Faultless,_ where the broad-of-head And famous oxen for the Sun are fed, With many fat flocks of that high-gone God. Set in my ship, mine ear reach’d where we rode The bellowing of oxen, and the bleat Of fleecy sheep, that in my memory’s seat Put up the forms that late had been imprest By dread Ææn Circe, and the best Of souls and prophets, the blind Theban seer, The wise Tiresias, who was grave decreer Of my return’s whole means; of which this one In chief he urg’d—that I should always shun The island of the man-delighting Sun. When, sad at heart for our late loss, I pray’d My friends to hear fit counsel (though dismay’d With all ill fortunes) which was giv’n to me By Circe’s and Tiresias’ prophecy,— That I should fly the isle where was ador’d The Comfort of the world, for ills abhorr’d Were ambush’d for us there; and therefore will’d They should put off and leave the isle.