And Scylla also left—but too afraid
to face the deep, she took the shoreward way.
Unclothed, she roamed the porous sands or else,
when weary, sought some sheltered pool; and in
secluded waters, she refreshed her limbs.
But now a new inhabitant has cleaved
the waters of the deep: he’d only found
his sea-shape recently, close to Anthedon,
Latin [882–905]
a port that faced Euboea: he is Glaucus.
He reaches shore; he sees the girl; he wants
to have her; and he utters all those words
that—so he thinks—can hold her back. And yet
she flees and does not slow her flight; indeed,
her fear incites her speed; now she has reached
a mountainside that rises from the beach.
It stretches from the waters to the sky,
a massive rise that ends in one sharp peak
whose height commands a spacious stretch of sea.
It’s here that Scylla stops; from this safe spot,
not sure if she is looking at a god
or at a monster, Scylla stares in wonder:
she marvels at his color, at the hair that wraps
around his shoulders, falls across his back;
and she’s amazed to see the way in which,
down from the groin, he tapers—like a fish.
And Glaucus senses her dismay; he grips
a rocky spur nearby, in time to say:
“I’m not a monster or a savage beast;
dear girl; I am a god who rules the deep;
my powers as a sea-lord fully match
the claims of Proteus and Triton and
Palaemon, son of Athamas. I was
a mortal man before, but even then
deep waters were my world; my life was spent
upon the sea. Now I would draw in nets
that, in their turn, drew in the fish; and now,
seated upon some shoals, I plied my rod
and line. There is a shoreline bordered by
green meadows; water lies upon one side
and, on the other, grass and plants; there, too,
horned cattle never grazed; no quiet sheep
and shaggy she-goats ever foraged there;
and there, no bee had ever gathered pollen;
and no one ever gathered feast-day garlands;
no hand that held a scythe had ever passed.
Latin [905–30]
I was the first who ever sat upon
that turf: I dried my damp nets in the sun;
and on the shore I tallied up the fish
that I had caught by chance and those I’d tricked
and caught with my curved hooks. And now—although
I know the tale I tell will seem untrue
(but what have I to gain by fooling you?)—
no sooner had I spread my catch along
the grass, than all that crowd of fish began
to stir, to flop from side to side, and then
to move on land as if at sea. Amazed,
stopped cold, I stared as all those fishes made
straight for the water; they deserted me—
they left their new lord, leaped into the sea.
I’m stunned and stilled; it takes me long before
I probe the cause of this. Was it the work
of some god, or the juice within the grass?
‘But is there any herb that has such force?’
I asked; and then I plucked a tuft of grass,
and clutching it, I let my teeth sink in.
No sooner had my throat felt that strange sap,
than—suddenly—I felt my innards shake;
within my heart I felt a fierce desire
to live another life. I could not check
that longing, and I cried: ‘O earth, farewell,
I never will return to you’; I plunged
into the waves. The sea-gods welcomed me;
they took me in and asked Oceanus
and Tethys now to purge whatever was
still mortal in me. Purifying me,
they chant nine times the sacred song that frees
the body from impurities; I’m told
that I must let a hundred rivers’ waters flow
across my chest. At once, from all directions,
those rivers poured their waters over me.
That much I can recall, that much I tell.
But I don’t know what happened then to me.
I lost my senses; and when I awoke,
Latin [930–58]
I’d changed completely from what I had been
so recently: my body had been changed
in full, and, too, my mind was not the same.
And then I saw this dark green beard I’d gained,
this flowing hair that sweeps across long waves,
these massive shoulders and these azure arms,
these legs that merge and taper, ending in
the pointed body of a fish with fins.
And yet, what use is this astounding shape,
what good, that I have pleased the gods who rule
the sea and am myself a deity—
if all these things don’t stir you in the least!”
Such were his words, and Glaucus would have said
much more, if cruel Scylla had not fled,
not left him there alone. Repulsed, enraged,
the sea-god heads for Circe’s wondrous isle,
the daughter-of-the-Sun’s enchanted halls.
Latin [958–68]