Scylla and Charybdis 1

Episode #6:  Scylla & Charybdis, Part 1

Circe’s Advice to Odysseus

‘But once your crew has rowed you past the Sirens
a choice of routes is yours. I cannot advise you
which to take, or lead you through it all—
you must decide for yourself—
but I can tell you the ways of either course.
On one side beetling cliffs shoot up, and against them
pound the huge roaring breakers of blue-eyed Amphitrite—
the Clashing Rocks they're called by all the blissful gods.
Not even birds can escape them, no, not even the doves
that veer and fly ambrosia home to Father Zeus:
even of those the sheer Rocks always pick off one
and Father wings one more to keep the number up.
No ship of men has ever approached and slipped past—
always some disaster—big timbers and sailors' corpses
whirled away by the waves and lethal blasts of fire.
One ship alone, one deep-sea craft sailed clear,
the Argo, sung by the world, when heading home
from Aeetes' shores. And she would have crashed
against those giant rocks and sunk at once if Hera,
for love of Jason, had not sped her through.                                             

On the other side loom two enormous crags . . .

One thrusts into the vaulting sky its jagged peak,

hooded round with a dark cloud that never leaves—

no clear bright air can ever bathe its crown,

not even in summer's heat or harvest-time.

No man on earth could scale it, mount its crest,

not even with twenty hands and twenty feet for climbing,

the rock's so smooth, like dressed and burnished stone.

And halfway up that cliff side stands a fog-bound cavern

gaping west toward Erebus, realm of death and darkness—  

past it, great Odysseus, you should steer your ship.

No rugged young archer could hit that yawning cave

with a winged arrow shot from off the decks.

Scylla lurks inside it—the yelping horror,

yelping, no louder than any suckling pup

but she's a grisly monster, I assure you.

No one could look on her with any joy,

not even a god who meets her face-to-face ...

She has twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down

and six long swaying necks, a hideous head on each,   

each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset,

packed tight—and armed to the hilt with black death!

Holed up in the cavern's bowels from her waist down

she shoots out her heads, out of that terrifying pit,

angling right from her nest, wildly sweeping the reefs

for dolphins, dogfish or any bigger quarry she can drag

from the thousands Amphitrite spawns in groaning seas.

No mariners yet can boast they've raced their ship

past Scylla's lair without some mortal blow—

with each of her six heads she snatches up

a man from the dark-prowed craft and whisks him off.

The other crag is lower—you will see, Odysseus—
though both lie side-by-side, an arrow-shot apart.
Atop it a great fig-tree rises, shaggy with leaves,
beneath it awesome Charybdis gulps the dark water down.
Three times a day she vomits it up, three times she gulps it down,
that terror! Don't be there when the whirlpool swallows down—
not even the earthquake god could save you from disaster.
No, hug Scylla's crag—sail on past her—top speed!
Better by far to lose six men and keep your ship
than lose your entire crew.'

'Yes, yes, but tell me the truth now, goddess,' I protested.

'Deadly Charybdis—can't I possibly cut and run from her

and still fight Scylla off when Scylla strikes my men?'

'So stubborn!' the lovely goddess countered.
'Hell-bent yet again on battle and feats of arms?
Can't you bow to the deathless gods themselves?
Scylla's no mortal, she's an immortal devastation,
terrible, savage, wild, no fighting her, no defense—
just flee the creature, that's the only way.  
Waste any time, arming for battle beside her rock,
I fear she'll lunge out again with all of her six heads
and seize as many men. No, row for your lives,
invoke Brute Force, I tell you, Scylla's mother—
she spawned her to scourge mankind,
she can stop the monster's next attack!

****************************************

Encounter with Scylla & Charybdis, Part 1

We'd scarcely put the island of the Sirens astern when suddenly
I saw smoke and heavy breakers, heard their booming thunder.
The men were terrified—oar blades flew from their grip,       
clattering down to splash in the vessel's wash.
She lay there, dead in the water ...
no hands to tug the blades that drove her on.

 

But I strode down the decks to rouse my crewmen,
halting beside each one with a bracing, winning word:
'Friends, we're hardly strangers at meeting danger—
and this danger is no worse than what we faced
when Cyclops penned us up in his vaulted cave
with crushing force! But even from there my courage,
my presence of mind and tactics saved us all,                                          

and we will live to remember this someday,

I have no doubt. Up now, follow my orders,

all of us work as one! You men at the thwarts—

lay on with your oars and strike the heaving swells,

trusting that Zeus will pull us through these straits alive.

You, helmsman, here's your order—burn it in your mind—

the steering-oar of our rolling ship is in your hands.

Keep her clear of that smoke and surging breakers,

head for those crags or she'll catch you off guard,

she'll yaw over there—you'll plunge us all in ruin!'

So I shouted. They snapped to each command.

No mention of Scylla—how to fight that nightmare?—

for fear the men would panic, desert their oars

and huddle down and stow themselves away.

But now I cleared my mind of Circe's orders—

cramping my style, urging me not to arm at all.

I donned my heroic armor, seized long spears

in both my hands and marched out on the half-deck,

forward, hoping from there to catch the first glimpse

of Scylla, ghoul of the cliffs, swooping to kill my men.

But nowhere could I make her out—and my eyes ached,

scanning that mist-bound rock face top to bottom.

Now wailing in fear, we rowed on up those straits,

Scylla to starboard, dreaded Charybdis off to port,

her horrible whirlpool gulping the sea-surge down, down

but when she spewed it up—like a cauldron over a raging fire—

all her churning depths would seethe and heave—exploding spray

showering down to splatter the peaks of both crags at once!

But when she swallowed the sea-surge down her gaping maw

the whole abyss lay bare and the rocks around her roared,

terrible, deafening— bedrock showed down deep, boiling black with sand—

and ashen terror gripped the men.

But now, fearing death, all eyes fixed on Charybdis—

now Scylla snatched six men from our hollow ship,

the toughest, strongest hands I had, and glancing

backward over the decks, searching for my crew

I could see their hands and feet already hoisted,

flailing, high, higher, over my head, look—

wailing down at me, comrades riven in agony,

shrieking out my name for one last time!

Just as an angler poised on a jutting rock

flings his treacherous bait in the offshore swell,

whips his long rod—hook sheathed in an oxhorn lure—

and whisks up little fish he flips on the beach-break,

writhing, gasping out their lives ... so now they writhed,

gasping as Scylla swung them up her cliff and there

at her cavern's mouth she bolted them down raw—

screaming out, flinging their arms toward me,

lost in that mortal struggle . . .

Of all the pitiful things I've had to witness,

suffering, searching out the pathways of the sea,

this wrenched my heart the most.