bear to those of the Thousand and One Nights. Odysseus and Kirké remind us at once of king Bedr and queen Láb; and the Kyklópes and the Læstrygonians will find their parallel in the adventures of Sindibad. Are these, it may be asked, mere coincidences, or did the tales of the West find their way to the East? On this question we have offered some remarks elsewhere, to which we must refer the curious.1 Zeipĥves. Sirenes. Sirens. Leaving the Eæan isle on their homeward voyage, Odysseus and his companions came first to the island of the Sirens. These were two maidens 2 who sat in a mead close to the sea, and with their melodious voices so charmed those who were sailing by, that they forgot home and everything relating to it, and abode there till their bones lay whitening on the strand. By the directions of Kirké, Odysseus stopped the ears of his companions with wax, and had himself tied to the mast, and thus was the only person who heard the song of the Sirens and escaped. 3 Hésiod described the mead of the Sirens as blooming with flowers (àveμóeσσa), and their voice he said stilled the winds. Their names were said to be Aglaiophémé (Clear-speaker) and Thelxiepeia (Magic-speaker); and it was feigned that they threw themselves into the sea with vexation at the escape of Odysseus." But the author of the Orphic Argonautics places them on a rock near the shore of Ætna, and makes the song of Orpheus end their enchantment, and cause them to fling themselves into the sea, where they were changed into rocks. It was afterwards fabled that they were the daughters of the river-god Achelóos by the Muse Terpsichoré or Kalliopé, or by Steropé, daughter of Portháón. Some said that they sprang from the blood which ran from him when his horn was torn off by Héraklés. Sophoklés calls them the daughters of Phorkys; and Euripidés terms them the children of Earth.10 Their number was also increased to three, and their names are given with much variety. According to some they were called Leukosia, Ligeia 8 i Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 125. 3 Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 892. 5 Sch. Od. xii. 39. 7 2 Od. xii. 52, 167. 6 Orph. Argon. 1284 seq.: comp. Nonn. xiii. 312 seq. Apoll. Rh. iv. 895. Eudocia, 373. Theon Sophista. Apollod. i. 3, 4. Ov. Met. v. 552. 9 Ap. Plut. Sympos. ix. 14. Tzetz. Lyc. 712. 10 Hel. 168. and Parthenopé,1 while others named them Thelxiopé or Thelxinoé, Molpé, Aglaophonos; 2 and others, again, Peisinoé, Aglaopé, Thelxiepeia. One was said to play on the lyre, another on the pipes, and the third to sing. Apollónios gives them as companions to Persephoné in her maiden-days.5 Contrary to the usual process, the mischievous part of the character of the Sirens was in process of time left out, and they were regarded as purely musical beings with entrancing voices. Hence Plató in his Republic places one of them on each of the eight celestial spheres, where their voices form what is called the music of the spheres; and when (Ol. 94, 1) the Lakedæmonians had laid siege to Athens, Dionýsos, it is said, appeared in a dream to their general, Lysander, ordering him to allow the funeral rites of the new Siren to be celebrated, which was at once understood to be Sophoklés, then just dead." Eventually, however, the artists laid hold on the Sirens, and furnished them with the feathers, feet, wings, and tails of birds. The ordinary derivation of the word Siren is from σeípa, a chain, to signify their attractive power. To us the Semitic Shîr (→), song, seems more likely to be the true root, and we regard them as one of the wonders told of by the Phœnician mariners.9 Σκύλλη καὶ Χάρυβδις. Scylla et Charybdis. Having escaped the Sirens, and shunned the Wandering Rocks, which Kirké had told him lay beyond the mead of these songsters, 1 Eudocia, 373. Tzetz. Lyc. 712. The tomb of Parthenopé gave name to the city afterwards called Neapolis (Naples). Milton thus alludes to these names of the Sirens: By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, And fair Ligea's golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks, Sleeking her soft alluring locks.—Comus, 877. We may observe how he confounds them with the Teutonic mermaids. 2 Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 892. Eudocia, 373. 4 Tzetz. ut sup. Serv. En. v. 864. 6 Lib. x. p. 617. Comp. Milton, Arcades 62 seq. 3 Tzetz. ut sup. 5 Arg. iv. 896. 7 Paus. i. 21, 1. Plut. Numa, 4. Zoporλéovs Bíos. Plin. Nat. Hist. vii. 29. 8 So they are described by Apollónios, iv. 898. 9 Many of the names placed in the West by the poet of the Odyssey appear to be of Semitic origin. Thus, beside the one in the text, the Elysian Plain may be fairly derived from 'álass (?) to rejoice; Erebos from 'ereb (7) evening; Kimmerians from kámar (5) to be dark. In Hindú cosmology the south pole, the abode of Yama, the Hindú Hadés, is named Kúmerú, i. e. Lower Merú; but this is a mere coincidence of sound. Odysseus came to the terrific Skylla and Charybdis, between which the goddess had informed him his course lay. She said he would come to two lofty cliffs opposite each other, between which he must pass. One of these cliffs towers to such a height that its summit is for ever enveloped in clouds, and no man even if he had twenty hands and as many feet could ascend it. In the middle of this cliff, she says, is a cave facing the west, but so high that a man in a ship passing under it could not shoot up to it with a bow. In this den dwells Skylla (Bitch), whose voice sounds like that of a young whelp: she has twelve feet, and six long necks, with a terrific head and three rows of close-set teeth on each. Evermore she stretches out these necks and catches the porpoises, sea-dogs, and other large animals of the sea which swim by, and out of every ship that passes each mouth takes a man. The opposite rock, the goddess informs him, is much lower, for a man could shoot over it. A wild fig-tree grows on it, stretching its branches down to the water: but beneath, 'divine Charybdis three times each day absorbs and regorges the dark water. It is much more dangerous, she adds, to pass Charybdis than Skylla. As Odysseus sailed by, Skylla took six of his crew; and when, after he had lost his ship and companions, he was carried by wind and wave, as he floated on a part of the wreck, between the monsters, the mast by which he supported himself was sucked in by Charybdis. He held by the fig-tree till it was thrown out again, and then resumed his voyage. Such is the earliest account we have of these monsters, in which indeed it may be doubted if Charybdis is to be regarded as an animate being. The whole fable is evidently founded on the wonderful tales of sailors respecting the distant regions of the Mediterranean. The ancients, who were so anxious to localise all the wonders of Homer, made the straits of Messina the abode of Skylla and Charybdis; but as there is no whirlpool' there at all resembling Charybdis, the most that can be said is, that that strait may have given occasion to the fable. Homer, however, would seem to place the cliffs of Skylla and Charybdis somewhere between the Wandering Rocks and the Thrinakian isle (if this last be Sicily); for it is after passing those rocks that Odysseus comes to the latter island, on which the oxen of the Sun grazed. In Homer the mother of Skylla is named Kratæis; but her sire is not mentioned; Stésichoros called her mother Lamia. Hésiod said she was the daughter of Phorbas and Hekaté; * 1 Od. xii. 73. 3 Eudocia, 377. 2 2 Od. xii. 124. R Arkesiláos said, of Phorkys and Hekaté;1 while others asserted that Tritón was her sire.2 Later poets feigned that Skylla was once a beautiful maiden, who was fond of associating with the Néréides. The sea-god Glaukos beheld and fell in love with her;3 and being rejected, applied to Kirké to exercise her magic arts in his favour. Kirké wished him to transfer his affections to herself; and filled with rage at his refusal, she infected with noxious juices the water in which Skylla was wont to bathe, and thus transformed her into a monster. According to another account the change in Skylla's form was effected by Amphitríté, in consequence of her intimacy with Poseidón.5 Charybdis was said to have been a woman who stole the oxen of Héraklés, and was in consequence struck with thunder by Zeus, and turned into a whirlpool." Φαέθουσα καὶ Λαμπετίη ἐν νήσῳ Θρινακίῃ. Phaethusa et Lampetie in Thrinakia insula. 7 Both Teiresias and Kirké had straitly charged Odysseus to shun the Thrinakian isle, on which the flocks and herds of the Sun-god fed, under the care of his daughters Phaëthusa and Lampetié, and to which he would come immediately after escaping Skylla and Charybdis. Odysseus was desirous of obeying the injunctions which he had received; but as it was evening when he came to the island, his companions forced him to consent to their landing and passing the night there. They promised to depart in the morning, and took an oath to abstain from the cattle of the Sun. During the night a violent storm came on; and for an entire month afterwards a strong south-east wind (Euros and Notos) blew, which confined.them to the island. When their provisions were exhausted, they lived on such birds and fish as they could catch. At length, while Odysseus was sleeping, Eurylochos prevailed on them to slaughter some of the sacred oxen in sacrifice 1 Id. ib. and Sch. Od. xii. 85. 2 Eudocia, 377. 3 The poetess Hédyla said (Athén. vii. 297) that he used to come to Skylla's cave. Η κόγγου δώρωμα φέροντα Ερυθραίας ἀπὸ πέτρης, τῇ νύμφῃ δυσπείστῳ ἀθύρματα. Δάκρυ δ ̓ ἐκείνου 5 Tzetz. Lyc. 650. 4 Ov. Met. xiv. 1 seq. Hygin. 199. • Serv. Æn. iii. 420. The root of Charybdis may be khárab (37) 'to dry up,' used of streams and of water in general. She might be indebted for her origin to the Phoenician accounts of the floods and ebbs of the tide in the Ocean. 7 Od. xi. 106; xii. 127. See above, p. 50. to the gods, and to vow by way of amends a temple to Hélios.1 Odysseus on awaking was filled with horror and despair at what they had done; and the displeasure of the gods was manifested by prodigies; for the hides crept along the ground, and the flesh lowed on the spits. They fed for six days on the sacred cattle; on the seventh the storm fell, and they left the island; but as soon as they had lost sight of land, a terrible west-wind, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and pitch-darkness, came on. Zeus struck the ship with a thunderbolt: it went to pieces, and all the sacrilegious crew were drowned, The resemblance between Thrinakia and Trinakria,2 a name of Sicily, has induced both ancients and moderns to acquiesce in the opinion of the two islands being identical. Against this opinion we will observe, that the Thrinakian was a desert isle (vñσos épýμn),3 that is, an uninhabited isle; and that during the whole month that Odysseus and his men were in it they did not meet with any one, and could procure no food but birds and fish; that it is called the excellent isle of the god, whose peculiar property it therefore must have been; that according to the analogy of the Odyssey it must have been a small island, for such were the Eæan, the O'gygian, and all the other isles we meet with ;-not one of which circumstances agrees with Sicily. It seems therefore the more probable supposition, that the poet regarded the Thrinakian isle as an islet of about the same size as those of Kirké and Kalypsó, belonging to the Sun-god, and tenanted only by his flocks and herds, and his two daughters their keepers. He must also have conceived it to lie much more to the west than Sicily, for it could not have been more than the third day after leaving the Ææan isle that Odysseus arrived at it. Καλυψὼ ἐν νήσῳ Ωγυγίῃ. Calypso in Ogygia insula. Odysseus, when his ship had gone to pieces, fastened the mast and keel together, and placed himself on them. The wind changing to the south-east (vóros) carried him back to Skylla and Charybdis. As he came by the latter, she absorbed the mast and keel, but the 1 The episode (xii. 374-390) of the complaint of Hélios to Zeus was rejected by the ancient grammarians. We may observe that the cosmology in it is at variance with that of the Odyssey, for Hélios menaces a descent to Erebos: Δύσομαι εἰς ̓Αΐδαο, καὶ ἐν νεκύεσσι φαείνω. 2 Thukydidés (vii. 1) is we believe the first writer who uses the name Trinakria. 3 Od. xii. 351. + Od. xii. 261. Θρινακία may possibly be connected with θέρω, θέρος, Depivós, and other terms expressive of heat, summer, etc. |