rorantibus oscula figens
persequitur miserae causas exquirere tabis.
nec tamen ante ullas patitur sibi reddere voces,
marmoreum tremebunda pedem quam rettulit intra.
ilia autem "quid me" inquit, "nutricula, torques?
quid tantum properas nostros novisse furores?
non ego consueto mortalibus uror amore."

Scylla does not readily confess. The poet's characterization of her
as she protracts the story to avoid the final confession reveals an
ambitious though somewhat unpracticed art. Carme tries in vain to
dissuade the girl, and must, to calm her, promise to aid her if all other
means fail. The aged woman's tenderness for her foster child is very
effectively phrased in a style not without reminiscences of Catullus
(340-48):

his ubi sollicitos animi relevaverat aestus
vocibus et blanda pectus spe luserat aegrum,
paulatim tremebunda genis obducere vestem
virginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem
inverso bibulum restinguens lumen olivo
incipit ad crebros (que) insani pectoris ictus
ferre manum assiduis mulcens praecordia palmis.
noctem illam sic maesta super morientis alumnae
frigidulos cubito subnixa pependit ocellos.

On the morrow the girl pleads with her father to make peace, with
humorous naivete argues with the counsellors of state, tries to bribe the
seers, and finally resorts to magic. When nothing avails, she secures
Carme's aid. The lock is cut, the city falls, the girl is captured by
Minos--in true Alexandrian technique the catastrophe comes with terrible
speed--and she is led, not to marriage, but to chains on the captor's
galley. Her grief is expressed in a long soliloquy somewhat too
reminiscent of Ariadne's lament in Catullus. Finally, Amphitrite in pity
transforms the captive girl into a bird, the Ciris, and Zeus as a reward
for his devout life releases Nisus, also transforming him into a bird of
prey, and henceforth there has been eternal warfare between the Ciris and
the Nisus:

quacunque illa levem fugiens secat aethera pennis,
ecce inimicus atrox magno stridore per auras
insequitur Nisus; qua se fert Nisus ad auras,
illa levem fugiens raptim secat aethera pennis.[1]

[Footnote 1: These four lines occur again in the _Georgios_, I. 406-9.]

The _Ciris_ with all its flaws is one of our best examples of the
romantic verse tales made popular by the Alexandrian poets of
Callimachus' school. The old legends had of course been told in epic
or dramatic form, bu