His blooming offspring, or his beaut’ous wife!
In verdant meads they sport; and wide around
Lie human bones that whiten all the ground:
The ground polluted floats with human gore,
And human carnage taints the dreadful shore.
Fly swift the dangerous coast; let every ear
Be stopped against the song! ’tis death to hear!
Firm to the mast with chains thyself be bound,
Nor trust thy virtue to the enchanting sound.”
Continuing his journey, Ulysses and his men reach the whirlpools in which Scylla and Charybdis lurked, and their experience here is thus given in the Odyssey: