y sea-tide seeks;
For in all cities thereabout abide the evil Greeks.
There now have come the Locrian folk Narycian walls to build;
And Lyctian Idomeneus Sallentine meads hath filled 400
With war-folk; Philoctetes there holdeth Petelia small,
Now by that Meliboean duke fenced round with mighty wall.
Moreover, when your ships have crossed the sea, and there do stay,
And on the altars raised thereto your vows ashore ye pay,
Be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye,
Lest 'twixt you and the holy fires ye light to God on high
Some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill.
Now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this worship thus fulfil,
And let thy righteous sons of sons such fashion ever mind.
But when, gone forth, to Sicily thou comest on the wind, 410
And when Pelorus' narrow sea is widening all away,
Your course for leftward lying land and leftward waters lay,
How long soe'er ye reach about: flee right-hand shore and wave.
In time agone some mighty thing this place to wrack down drave,
So much for changing of the world doth lapse of time avail.

It split atwain, when heretofore the two lands, saith the tale,
Had been but one, the sea rushed in and clave with mighty flood
Hesperia's side from Italy, and field and city stood
Drawn back on either shore, along a sundering sea-race strait.
There Scylla on the right hand lurks, the left insatiate 420
Charybdis holds, who in her maw all whirling deep adown
Sucketh the great flood tumbling in thrice daily, which out-thrown
Thrice daily doth she spout on high, smiting the stars with brine.
But Scylla doth the hidden hole of mirky cave confine;
With face thrust forth she draweth ships on to that stony bed;
Manlike above, with maiden breast and lovely fashioned
Down to the midst, she hath below huge body of a whale,
And unto maw of wolfish heads is knit a dolphin's tail.
'Tis better far to win about Pachynus, outer ness
Of Sicily, and reach long round, despite the weariness, 430
Than have that ugly sight of her within her awful den,
And hear her coal-blue baying dogs and rocks that ring again.

Now furthermore if Helenus in anything have skill,
Or aught of trust, or if his soul with sooth Apollo fill,
Of one thing, Goddess-born, will I forewarn the