"‘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 and to undergo an ordeal [ponos]; 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 armor, 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
Krataiis 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 Phaethousa and Lampetie, who are children of the sun-god
Hyperion by Neaira. 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
homecoming [nostos], 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 gray sea with their oars. Presently the great and
cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a fair wind that blew dead
aft, and stayed 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.
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