According to Circe’s advice, Ulysses bade his men bind him fast to the mast, disregard his cries and gestures of command, and keep on their course until the dangerous rocks were lost to view; but, before he allowed them to execute these orders, he stopped their ears with melted wax, so they could not hear a sound, for he alone could hear the Sirens’ song and live.
The men then bound him hand and foot to the mast, returned to their oars, and rowed steadily on. Soon the Sirens’ melody fell upon Ulysses’ charmed ears; but, although he commanded and implored his men to set him free and alter their course, they kept steadily on until no sound of the magic song could reach them, when they once more set their leader free.
Charybdis and Scylla.
Now, although this danger had been safely passed, Ulysses was troubled in spirit, for he knew he would soon be obliged to steer his course between two dread monsters, Charybdis and Scylla, who lay so close together, that, while striving to avoid one, it was almost impossible not to fall an easy prey to the other.
Charybdis’ den lay under a rock crowned with a single wild fig tree; and three times daily she ingulfed the surrounding waters, drawing even large galleys into her capacious jaws.
As for Scylla, she too dwelt in a cave, whence her six ugly heads protruded to devour any prey that came within reach.
“No mariner can boast
That he has passed by Scylla with a crew
Unharmed; she snatches from the deck, and bears
Away in each grim mouth, a living man.”
Homer (Bryant’s tr.).
This selfsame Scylla, once a lovely maiden, had won the heart of the sea god Glaucus (p. [303]), but coquettishly tormented him until he implored Circe to give him some love potion strong enough to compel her love.
Circe, who had long nursed a secret passion for Glaucus, was angry at him, and jealous of her rival, and, instead of a love potion, prepared a loathsome drug, which she bade him pour into the water where Scylla was wont to bathe. Glaucus faithfully did as she commanded; but when Scylla plunged into the water, her body, and not her feelings, changed, and she became a loathsome monster, a terror to gods and men.
When in sight of the fig tree, Ulysses, cased in armor, stood on the prow to attack Scylla should she attempt to seize one of his crew. The sound of the rushing waters whirling around Charybdis made all on board tremble with fear, and the pilot steered nearer still to dread Scylla’s den.