Dawn showed on her golden throne. Circe went inland. I told the men to embark and cast off. Circe sent a favoring wind. When we were well out I spoke — it was wrong that one or two alone should know the gods’ warnings. I told them of the Sirens and ordered them to bind me to the mast and stop their own ears with wax.
The island of the Sirens rose soon enough. The wind dropped to a dead calm; some god had put the waves to sleep. The men furled and stowed the sail, took to the oars, and whitened the water. I shaped wax with my knife, stopped their ears, and they bound me hand and foot to the mast amidships and sat to their stroke.
When we came in earshot the Sirens raised their clear song: “Come here, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans, and listen. No one ever sailed this way in his black ship without hearing the honey of our voices — then he goes on glad and wiser. We know all the Argives and Trojans suffered on the wide plain by the gods’ will, and we know all that happens on the nourishing earth.”
Soon I saw spray and heard a roar. The men dropped the oars in fear and the ship lost way. I went among them and told them this was not our first danger — we were in nothing like the fix we faced in the Cyclops’s cave, and my courage and counsel got us out then. Now they must do as I said: sit the benches, strike the deep surf with their oars, and trust Zeus to bring us past. To the helmsman I said to hug the cliff and not steer into the smoke and swell, or he would wreck us.
They obeyed. I did not speak of Scylla — an incurable grief — for fear they would drop the oars and huddle in the hold. Then I forgot Circe’s hard command not to arm. I put on my glorious armor, took two long spears, and went to the foredeck, watching for Scylla of the rock, but I could not see her anywhere though my eyes grew weary scanning the misty cliff.