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 enquired, 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. For his conduct after he arrived at Trinacria she
referred him to the admonitions which had been given him by Tiresias.

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, as he had done the terrible
predictions of Tiresias, 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; who by her art
calmed the heavens, and gave them smooth seas, and a right fore wind
(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 devilish
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' 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 past 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 labour'd; whatsoever there
The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain'd:
By those high