Translated by A. Z. Foreman - The Odyssey - Scylla and Charybdis lyrics

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Translated by A. Z. Foreman - The Odyssey - Scylla and Charybdis lyrics

On we went wailing away at the oars And steered into the strait, dire Scylla to port And to starboard the wrathspawned seascourge Charybdis Swallowing the salt tide smashing all courage And belching it back: a boiling kettle Seething over flames. The spume she spewed Went spraying the crests of cliffs on the narrows. When she s**ed down the sea you could see her roiling, Hear the roar of the rock all round, as the sand Gaped black from bedrock. My men blanched in trauma, Eyes fixed on that d**hmaw, in fear of glutting. And then Scylla struck, whisked up six of my men, Our six strongest hands. As I spun my eyes aft At good craft and dear crew I caught sight of their feet And hands adangle overhead. Their voices Cried out in hellhorror, calling me by name That one last time. The way a fisherman Crouched on a headland casting his fell bait, His hook sheathed in horn, in his hands feels the thrash Of a fish on his rod and rips it from the waves To wriggle through the air, so my writhing men Cruelly were carried to the cavern's mouth. And there in her den she dined on them them raw, My six toughest men, screaming and reaching Their arms toward me in an endlife grapple As a grisly grief gashed my spirit. I witnessed naught worse in my warring heart In all my quests across the strange sea.