Herbs infamous, to gain their horrid juice;
And mixes all with Hecatean spells.
Then clothes her in a sable robe, and forth
Through crouds of fawning savage beasts she goes,
From her gay palace. Rhegium's coast she seeks
O'erlooking Zancle's rocks; and on the waves
With fury boiling, steps; o'er them she walks
As on a solid shore, and skims along
The ridgy billows with unwetted feet.

A little pool, bent in a gentle curve,
With peaceful surface oft did Scylla tempt;
And often thither she herself betook
To 'scape from ocean's, and from Phoebus' heat,
When high in noon-tide fierceness short the shade
Was from the head describ'd. Before she came
The goddess poison'd all the pool; she pour'd
Her potent juice, of monster-breeding power,
Prest from pernicious roots, within the waves;
And mutter'd thrice nine times with magic lips,
In sounds scarce audible, her well-known spells.
Here Scylla came, and waded to the waist;
And straight, with barking monsters she espies
Her womb deform'd: at first, of her own limbs
Not dreaming they are part, she from them flies;
And chides them thence, and fears their savage mouths.
But what she flies she with her drags; she looks
To find her thighs, and find her legs, and feet;
But for those limbs Cerberean jaws are found.
Furious the dogs still howl; on their fierce backs
Her shorten'd groin, and swelling belly rest.

The amorous Glaucus griev'd, and spurn'd the love
Of Circe, who so rancorously had us'd
The power of plants. Her station Scylla kept;
And soon as scope for vengeance she perceiv'd,
In hate to Circe, of his comrade crew
Depriv'd Ulysses. Next the Trojan fleet
Had she o'erwhelm'd; but ere they pass'd, transform'd
To stone, she tower'd aloft a flinty rock,
And still do mariners that rock avoid.

The Phrygian ships that danger 'scap'd, and 'scap'd
Charybdis fell, by oars propell'd; but now
Ausonia's shore well nigh attain'd, were driv'n
By adverse tempests to the Libyan coast.
AEneaes then the queen Sidonian took
Most welcome to her bosom, and her dome;
Nor bore her Phrygian spouse's sudden flight,
With calm indifference: on a lofty pile
Rear'd for pretended sacred rites, she stood,
And on the sword's point fell; herself deceiv'd,
She all around outwitted. Flying far
The new-rais'd city of the sandy plains
To Eryx' country was he borne; where liv'd
Acestes