effect great Circe had so truly predicted. And well she might speak of
them, for often she has joined her own enchanting voice to theirs, while
she has sat in the flowery meads, mingled with the Sirens and the Water
Nymphs, gathering their potent herbs and drugs of magic quality: their
singing altogether has made the gods stoop, and "heaven drowsy with the
harmony."

[Illustration: _He would have broken his bonds to rush after them_.]

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 arose 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 clamours 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 Cyclop's cave, yet, Heaven assisting his counsels,
he had delivered them out of that extremity. That he could not believe but
they remembered it; and wished them to give the same trust to the same
care which he had now for their welfare. That they must exert all the
strength and wit which they had, and try if Jove would not grant them an
escape even out of this peril. In particular, he cheered up the pilot who
sat at the helm, and told him that he must show more firmness than other
men, as he had more trust committed to him, and had the sole management by
his skill of the vessel in which all their safeties were embarked. That a
rock lay hid within those boiling whirlpools which he saw, on the outside