Yet Helenus'
commands
counsel that our course
keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on
either hand.
keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on
either hand.
Virgil - Aeneid
On it, whatsoever it were, I cast myself; it is
enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. Do you rather, by any death
you will, destroy this life of mine. "
'Scarcely had he spoken thus, when on the mountain top we see
shepherding his flocks a vast moving mass, Polyphemus himself seeking
the shores he knew, a horror ominous, shapeless, huge, bereft of sight.
A pine lopped by his hand guides and steadies his footsteps. His fleeced
sheep attend him, this his single delight and solace in ill. . . . After
he hath touched the deep flood and come to the sea, he washes in it the
blood that oozes from his eye-socket, grinding his teeth with groans;
and now he strides through the sea up to his middle, nor yet does the
wave wet his towering sides. We hurry far away in precipitate flight,
with the suppliant who had so well merited rescue; and silently cut the
cable, and bending forward sweep the sea with emulous oars. He heard,
and turned his steps towards the echoing sound. But when he may in no
wise lay hands on us, nor can fathom the Ionian waves in pursuit, he
raises a vast cry, at which the sea and all his waves shuddered, and the
deep land of Italy was startled, and Aetna's vaulted caverns moaned. But
the tribe of the [675-709]Cyclopes, roused from the high wooded hills,
run to the harbour and fill the shore. We descry the Aetnean brotherhood
standing impotent with scowling eye, their stately heads up to heaven, a
dreadful consistory; even as on a mountain summit stand oaks high in air
or coned cypresses, a high forest of Jove or covert of Diana. Sharp fear
urges us to shake out the sheets in reckless haste, and spread our sails
to the favouring wind.
Yet Helenus' commands counsel that our course
keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on
either hand. We are resolved to turn our canvas back. And lo! from the
narrow fastness of Pelorus the North wind comes down and reaches us. I
sail past Pantagias' mouth with its living stone, the Megarian bay, and
low-lying Thapsus. Such names did Achemenides, of luckless Ulysses'
company, point out as he retraced his wanderings along the returning
shores.
'Stretched in front of a bay of Sicily lies an islet over against
wavebeat Plemyrium; they of old called it Ortygia. Hither Alpheus the
river of Elis, so rumour runs, hath cloven a secret passage beneath the
sea, and now through thy well-head, Arethusa, mingles with the Sicilian
waves. We adore as bidden the great deities of the ground; and thence I
cross the fertile soil of Helorus in the marsh. Next we graze the high
reefs and jutting rocks of Pachynus; and far off appears Camarina,
forbidden for ever by oracles to move, and the Geloan plains, and vast
Gela named after its river. Then Acragas on the steep, once the breeder
of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with
granted breeze I leave thee behind, palm-girt Selinus, and thread the
difficult shoals and blind reefs of Lilybaeum. Thereon Drepanum receives
me in its haven and joyless border. Here, so many tempestuous seas
outgone, alas! my father, the solace of every care and chance, Anchises
is [710-718]lost to me. Here thou, dear lord, abandonest me in
weariness, alas! rescued in vain from peril and doom.
enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. Do you rather, by any death
you will, destroy this life of mine. "
'Scarcely had he spoken thus, when on the mountain top we see
shepherding his flocks a vast moving mass, Polyphemus himself seeking
the shores he knew, a horror ominous, shapeless, huge, bereft of sight.
A pine lopped by his hand guides and steadies his footsteps. His fleeced
sheep attend him, this his single delight and solace in ill. . . . After
he hath touched the deep flood and come to the sea, he washes in it the
blood that oozes from his eye-socket, grinding his teeth with groans;
and now he strides through the sea up to his middle, nor yet does the
wave wet his towering sides. We hurry far away in precipitate flight,
with the suppliant who had so well merited rescue; and silently cut the
cable, and bending forward sweep the sea with emulous oars. He heard,
and turned his steps towards the echoing sound. But when he may in no
wise lay hands on us, nor can fathom the Ionian waves in pursuit, he
raises a vast cry, at which the sea and all his waves shuddered, and the
deep land of Italy was startled, and Aetna's vaulted caverns moaned. But
the tribe of the [675-709]Cyclopes, roused from the high wooded hills,
run to the harbour and fill the shore. We descry the Aetnean brotherhood
standing impotent with scowling eye, their stately heads up to heaven, a
dreadful consistory; even as on a mountain summit stand oaks high in air
or coned cypresses, a high forest of Jove or covert of Diana. Sharp fear
urges us to shake out the sheets in reckless haste, and spread our sails
to the favouring wind.
Yet Helenus' commands counsel that our course
keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on
either hand. We are resolved to turn our canvas back. And lo! from the
narrow fastness of Pelorus the North wind comes down and reaches us. I
sail past Pantagias' mouth with its living stone, the Megarian bay, and
low-lying Thapsus. Such names did Achemenides, of luckless Ulysses'
company, point out as he retraced his wanderings along the returning
shores.
'Stretched in front of a bay of Sicily lies an islet over against
wavebeat Plemyrium; they of old called it Ortygia. Hither Alpheus the
river of Elis, so rumour runs, hath cloven a secret passage beneath the
sea, and now through thy well-head, Arethusa, mingles with the Sicilian
waves. We adore as bidden the great deities of the ground; and thence I
cross the fertile soil of Helorus in the marsh. Next we graze the high
reefs and jutting rocks of Pachynus; and far off appears Camarina,
forbidden for ever by oracles to move, and the Geloan plains, and vast
Gela named after its river. Then Acragas on the steep, once the breeder
of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with
granted breeze I leave thee behind, palm-girt Selinus, and thread the
difficult shoals and blind reefs of Lilybaeum. Thereon Drepanum receives
me in its haven and joyless border. Here, so many tempestuous seas
outgone, alas! my father, the solace of every care and chance, Anchises
is [710-718]lost to me. Here thou, dear lord, abandonest me in
weariness, alas! rescued in vain from peril and doom.
