Scylla and Charybdis 2

Episode #8:  Scylla & Charybdis, Part 2

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!

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Encounter with Scylla & Charybdis, Part 2

Yet, six more days, my eager companions feasted on the cattle of the Sun,
the pick of the herds they'd driven off, but then, 
when Cronian Zeus brought on the seventh day,
the wind in its ceaseless raging dropped at last,
and stepping the mast at once, hoisting the white sail
we boarded ship and launched her, made for open sea.

But once we'd left that island in our wake—
no land at all in sight, nothing but sea and sky—
then Zeus the son of Cronus mounted a thunderhead
above our hollow ship and the deep went black beneath it.
Nor did the craft scud on much longer. All of a sudden
killer-squalls attacked us, screaming out of the west,   

a murderous blast shearing the two forestays off

so the mast toppled backward, its running tackle spilling

into the bilge. The mast itself went crashing into the stern,

it struck the helmsman's head and crushed his skull to pulp

and down from his deck the man flipped like a diver—

his hardy life spirit left his bones behind.

Then, then in the same breath Zeus hit the craft

with a lightning-bolt and thunder. Round she spun,

reeling under the impact, filled with reeking brimstone,

shipmates pitching out of her, bobbing round like seahawks

swept along by the whitecaps past the trim black hull—

and the god cut short their journey home forever.

But I went lurching along our battered hulk

till the sea-surge ripped the plankings from the keel

and the waves swirled it away, stripped bare,

and snapped the mast from the decks—

but a backstay made of bull's-hide still held fast,

and with this I lashed the mast and keel together,

made them one, riding my makeshift raft

as the wretched galewinds bore me on and on.

At last the West Wind quit its wild rage

but the South came on at once to hound me even more,

making me double back my route toward cruel Charybdis.

All night long I was rushed back and then at break of day

I reached the crag of Scylla and dire Charybdis' vortex

right when the dreadful whirlpool gulped the salt sea down.

But heaving myself aloft to clutch at the fig-tree's height,

like a bat I clung to its trunk for dear life—not a chance

for a good firm foothold there, no clambering up it either,

the roots too far to reach, the boughs too high overhead,

huge swaying branches that overshadowed Charybdis.

But I held on, dead set ... waiting for her

to vomit my mast and keel back up again—

Oh how I ached for both! and back they came,

late but at last, at just the hour a judge at court,

who's settled the countless suits of brash young claimants,

rises, the day's work done, and turns home for supper—

that's when the limbers reared back up from Charybdis.

I let go—I plunged with my hands and feet flailing,

crashing into the waves beside those great beams

and scrambling aboard them fast     

I rowed hard with my hands right through the straits . . .

And the father of men and gods did not let Scylla see me,

else I'd have died on the spot—no escape from death.