of olden time—was rent in twain, so runs the story, the
two countries before having been one and unbroken; at
last the sea poured in violently between, and with its
waters cut off the Hesperian from the Sicilian side, washing
between fields and cities, their seaboards now parted,
with the waves of its narrow channel. There the right-hand
coast is held by Scylla,[163] the left by Charybdis, ever 5
hungering, who, at the bottom of the whirling abyss,
thrice a day draws the huge waves down her precipitous
throat, and in turn upheaves them to the sky, and lashes