But if we say, that these Straits form the single prototype of the Homeric description, we are again met by hopeless contradictions. For there does not lie any triangular island close by the Bosphorus, which might answer to Thrinacie: and there is no free maritime passage whatever, other than the Bosphorus, by which the Ocean-mouth, that is, the mouth of the Palus Mæotis, can be attained by a person who has Troy for his point of departure.
These facts appear to direct us plainly towards one satisfactory, and as it seems inevitable, conclusion. It is exhibited in the sentences that immediately follow.
First, it seems at once clear that Homer either knew, or else dimly figured to himself by Phœnician report, certain geographical facts, including those which follow:—
1. That there was an island, whose figure was defined by a word signifying three promontories, and which was accessible by a passage on the western side of Greece.
2. That near this island, there lay on one side the jaw of a dangerous narrow.
3. That either on the other side of it or in some other neighbouring quarter lay the open sea, and a route along it, by which the further side of the island might be reached, without traversing the narrow.
4. That at a point beyond both these openings (I say nothing for the present of the points of the compass) there lay a great stream such as he called Ὠκεανὸς, flowing always inwards to the θάλασσα, which he supposed to be fed by it (Il. xxi. 196).
5. That there was likewise a passage, which Homer called the Πλαγκταὶ, accessible from the eastern side of Greece; and through which Jason, and as he believed Jason alone, had sailed.
6. That at a point beyond this passage too, there lay an expanse of sea, θάλασσα, and again a great stream, such as he called Ὠκεανὸς, flowing always inwards to the θάλασσα.
Now we have seen that he gives us in the poem one mouth, and one mouth only, of Ὠκεανὸς, which corresponds with every one of these propositions taken singly: it is, according to him, beyond Thrinacie, beyond the Straits of Scylla and Charybdis, attainable by an open sea passage, and beyond the Πλαγκταὶ or Bosphorus.