“Quænam te genuit solâ sub rupe leæna?
Quod mare conceptum spumantibus exspuit undis?
Quæ Syrtis, quæ Scylla, vorax quæ vasta Charybdis?”
These lines seem to have been suggested by the address of Patroclus to Achilles, near the commencement of the sixteenth book of the Iliad—
“—— Ὀυκ αρα σοι γε πατηρ ἠν ἱπποτα Πηλευς,
Ὀυδε Θετις μητηρ· γλαυκη δε σε τικτε Θαλασσα,
Πετραι δ’ ἠλιβατοι, ὁτι τοι νεος ἐστιν απηνης.”
Catullus, having put the expression of this idea in the mouth of a princess abandoned by her lover, it became a sort of Formula for deserted heroines among subsequent poets. Thus Ovid, in the eighth book of his Metamorphoses—
“Non genitrix Europa tibi est, sed inhospita Syrtis,
Armeniæ tigres, austroque agitata Charybdis;”