will so despise both wife and children through their sorceries that the stream of his affection never again shall set homewards, nor shall he take joy in wife or children thereafter, or they in him.”

With these prophetic greetings great Circe met Ulysses on his return. He besought her to instruct him in the nature of the Sirens, and by what method their baneful allurements were to be resisted.

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They are sisters three," she replied, "that sit in a mead (by which your ship must needs pass) circled with dead men's bones. These are the bones of men whom they have slain, after with fawning invitements they have enticed them into their fen. Yet such is the celestial harmony of their voices accompanying the persuasive magic of their words, that, knowing this, you shall not be able to withstand their enticements. Therefore, when you are to sail by them, you shall stop the ears of your companions with wax, that they may hear no note of that dangerous. music; but for yourself, that you may hear, and yet live, give them strict command to bind you hand and foot to the mast, and in no case to set you free till you are out of the danger of the temptation, though you should entreat it, and implore it ever so much, but to bind you rather the more for your requesting to be loosed. So shall you

escape that snare."

Ulysses then prayed her that she would inform him what Scylla and Charybdis were, which she had taught him by name to fear. She replied: "Sailing from Ææa to Trinacria, you must pass at an equal distance between two fatal rocks. Incline never so little either to the one side or the other, and your ship must meet with certain destruction. No vessel ever yet tried that pass without being lost but the Argo, which owed her safety to the

sacred freight she bore, the fleece of the golden-backed ram, which could not perish. The biggest of these rocks which you shall come to, Scylla hath in charge. There in a deep whirlpool at the foot of the rock the abhorred monster shrouds her face; if she were to show her full form, no eye of man or god could endure the sight. Thence she stretches out all her six long necks, peering and diving to suck up fish, dolphins, dog-fish, and whales, whole ships and their men, whatever comes within her raging gulf.

"The other rock is lesser, and of less ominous aspect; but there dreadful Charybdis sits, supping the black deeps. Thrice a day she drinks her pits dry, and thrice a day again she belches them all up; but when she is drinking, come not nigh; for, being once caught, the force of Neptune cannot redeem you from her swallow. Better trust to Scylla, for she will but have for her six necks six men: Charybdis in her insatiate draught will ask all."

Then Ulysses inquired, in case he should escape Charybdis, whether he might not assail that other monster with his sword; to which she replied that he must not think that he had an enemy subject to death, or wounds, to contend with, for Scylla could never die. Therefore, his best safety was in flight, and to invoke none of the gods but Cratis, who is Scylla's mother, and might perhaps forbid her daughter to devour them.

Ulysses having communicated her instructions, as far as related to the Sirens, to his companions, who had not been present at that interview, but concealing from them the rest, that they might not be deterred by fear from pursuing their voyage - the time for departure being come, they set their sails, and took a final leave of great Circe. She by her art calmed the heavens, and gave them smooth seas,

and a right forewind (the seaman's friend) to bear them on their way to Ithaca.

They had not sailed past a hundred leagues before the breeze which Circe had lent them suddenly stopped. It was stricken dead. All the sea lay in prostrate slumber. Not a gasp of air could be felt. The ship stood still. Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off, and that they had charmed the air so with their magic singing. Therefore he made him cakes of wax, as Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears of his men with them; then causing himself to be bound hand and foot, he commanded the rowers to ply their oars and row as fast as speed could carry them past that fatal shore. They soon came within sight of the Sirens, who sang in Ulysses's hearing :

"Come here, thou, worthy of a world of praise,
That dost so high the Grecian glory raise,—
Ulysses! Stay thy ship, and that song hear
That none pass'd ever, but it bent his ear,
But left him ravish'd, and instructed more
By us than any ever heard before.
For we know all things,—whatsoever were
In wide Troy labor'd; whatsoever there
The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain'd,
By those high issues that the gods ordain'd:
And whatsoever all the earth can show,

To inform a knowledge of desert, we know."

These were the words, but the celestial harmony of the voices which sang them no tongue can describe; it took the ear of Ulysses with ravishment. He would have

broken his bonds to rush after them; and threatened, wept, sued, entreated, commanded, crying out with tears and passionate imprecations, conjuring his men by all the ties of perils past which they had endured in common, by

fellowship and love, and the authority which he retained among them, to let him loose; but at no rate would they obey him. And still the Sirens sang.

Ulysses made signs, motions, gestures, promising mountains of gold if they would set him free; but their oars only moved faster. And still the Sirens sang. And still the more he adjured them to set him free, the faster with cords and ropes they bound him, till they were quite out of hearing of the Sirens' notes, whose effect great Circe had so truly predicted. And well she might speak of them, for often she had joined her own enchanting voice to theirs, while she sat in the flowery meads, mingled with the Sirens and the Water Nymphs, gathering their potent herbs and drugs of magic quality. Their singing all together has made the gods stoop, and “heaven drowsy with the harmony."

Escaped that peril, they had not sailed yet a hundred leagues farther, when they heard a roar afar off, which Ulysses knew to be the barking of Scylla's dogs, which surround her waist and bark incessantly. Coming nearer they beheld a smoke ascend, with a horrid murmur, which rose from that other whirlpool, to which they made nigher approaches than to Scylla. Through the furious eddy, which is in that place, the ship stood still as a stone; for there was no man to lend his hand to an oar: the dismal roar of Scylla's dogs at a distance, and the nearer clamors of Charybdis, where everything made an echo, quite taking from them the power of exertion.

Ulysses went up and down encouraging his men, one by one, giving them good words; telling them that they were in greater perils when they were blocked up in the Cyclops' cave, yet, heaven assisting his counsels, he had delivered them out of that extremity ;-that he could not believe but