ads they sport, and wide around
Lie human bones, that whiten all the ground:
The ground polluted floats with human gore,
And human carnage taints the dreadful shore.
Fly, fly the dangerous coast.

The story at bottom relates to the people above-mentioned; who with their
music used to entice strangers into the purlieus of their temples, and then
put them to death. Nor was it music only, with which persons were seduced
to follow them. The female part of their choirs were maintained for a
twofold purpose, both on account of their voices and their beauty. They
were accordingly very liberal of their favours, and by these means enticed
seafaring persons, who paid dearly for their entertainment. Scylla was a
personage of this sort: and among the fragments of Callimachus we have a
short, but a most perfect, description of her character.

[674][Greek: Skulla, gune katakasa, kai ou psuthos ounom' echousa.]

[Greek: Katakasa] is by some interpreted _malefica_: upon which the learned
Hemsterhusius remarks very justly--[Greek: katakasa] cur Latine vertatur
malefica non video. Si Grammaticis obtemperes, meretricem interpretabere:
erat enim revera [Greek: Nesiotis kale hetaira], ut Heraclitus [Greek: peri
apis]: c. 2. Scylla then, under which character we are here to understand
the chief priestess of the place, was no other than a handsome island
strumpet. Her name it seems betokened as much, and she did not belie it:
[Greek: ou psuthos ounom' echousa]. We may from these data decipher the
history of Scylla, as given by Tzetzes. [Greek: En de proton Skulla gune
euprepes; Poseidoni de sunousa apetheriothe.] _Scylla was originally a
handsome wench: but being too free with seafaring people she made herself a
beast_. She was, like the Sibyl of Campania, said by Stesichorus to have
been the daughter of [675]Lamia. Hence we may learn, that all, who resided
in the places, which I have been describing, were of the same religion, and
of the same family; being the descendants of Ham, and chiefly by the
collateral branches of Chus, and Canaan.

The like rites prevailed in Cyprus, which had in great measure been peopled
by persons of these [676]families. One of their principal cities was
Curium, which was denominated from [677]Curos, the Sun, the Deity, to whom
it was sacred. In the perilous voyages of the antients nothing was more
common than for strangers, whether shipwrecked, or otherwise distressed, to
fly to the altar of the chie