Past the Sirens the road forked, she said, and she would not choose for me. On one side stood the Wandering Rocks, which even the waves and winds of fire cannot pass; only the Argo ever slipped through, and even she would have smashed on the cliffs if Hera had not loved Jason. On the other side rose two crags. One peak stabbed heaven under cloud that never lifts; no mortal could climb it or stand on it, for smooth stone ran sheer as if polished.
Halfway up that cliff was a mist-dark cave facing west toward Erebus — the way to the house of Hades. There Scylla lived, whose voice was no louder than a newborn puppy’s, but she herself was an evil monster: twelve feet, six long necks, three rows of teeth in each head, full of black death. She fished from her cave for dolphins and seals and whatever larger beast she could catch. No sailor yet could boast he passed her without loss; she snatched a man with each head from every dark-prowed ship.
The other rock was lower. A great fig tree grew on it. Under it dread Charybdis sucked the black water down three times a day and vomited it up three times — a horror not even Poseidon could save a man from if he was caught when she drank. Circe told me to hug Scylla’s cliff and drive hard past; better to mourn six men than lose them all.
I asked if I could not fight Scylla off and save Charybdis too. “Reckless man,” she said. “Will you always fight? She is not mortal; she is an immortal evil, dread, savage, not to be fought. If you arm and linger by the rock I fear she will strike again with all six heads. Row hard and call on Crataiis, her mother, who bore her for a plague to men.”
After that I would come to Thrinacia, island of Helios, where seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep pasture, fifty in each, and no birth or death among them. Goddesses herd them — Lampetie and Phaethusa, whom Neaera bore to Helios. If I left the cattle unharmed we might yet reach Ithaca; if I harmed them I foresaw ruin for ship and crew, and even if I escaped alone I would come late and in misery.