On high from the yard-arm, straining it taut with the sheets of hide. {890}
Onward the fresh breeze wafted the ship: full soon they beheld
A fair isle flower-bestarred, where the Siren Destroyers dwelled,
Acheloüs’ clear-voiced daughters, whose sweet songs wont to beguile
With their witchery whosoe’er cast anchor anigh that isle.
They were children whom lovely Terpsichorê, one of the Muses, bore
To the flood Acheloüs: and unto Dêmêter’s daughter of yore,
When she yet was unwedded, the noble Persephonê, ministered they,
As in blended chorus they sang: but as birds in the latter day
Were they fashioned in part to behold, and as maidens in part they were.