1And now the Euboean dweller in the swelling waters had left behind Etna, heaped upon the Giant's jaws, and the fields of the Cyclopes, which know nothing of the rake or the use of the plough and owe nothing to yoked oxen; he had left Zancle too, and the walls of Rhegium opposite, and the ship-wrecking strait which, hemmed in by twin shores, holds the boundary of the Ausonian and Sicilian lands. 8From there, sweeping with mighty strokes through the Tyrrhenian waters, Glaucus came to the grassy hills and the halls of Circe, child of the Sun, full of beasts of every kind. 11As soon as he saw her, and greetings had been given and returned, 'Goddess, pity a god, I beg you!
12for you alone can bring relief to the one before you,' he said, 'if only I seem worthy of it! 14How great is the power of herbs, Titan's daughter, no one knows better than I, who was transformed by them. 16And so that the cause of my madness may not be unknown to you: on the Italian shore, opposite the walls of Messana, I caught sight of Scylla; 18I am ashamed to recount my promises and prayers and endearments, and how my words were scorned. 20But you, if there is any sovereignty in spells, utter a spell with your sacred lips; or if a herb is more potent, use the proven powers of an efficacious herb.
23And I do not ask you to cure me and heal these wounds, nor is there any need of an end to them: let her bear a share of the heat.' 25But Circe (for no woman has a nature more susceptible to such flames, whether the cause of this lies in herself, or whether Venus, offended by her father's informing, brings it about) replies in these words. 28'You would do better to pursue one who is willing and longs for the same and is captured by an equal desire. 30You deserved to be wooed unasked (and surely you could have been), and, if you give any hope, believe me, you will be wooed unasked.
32And do not doubt it, but have confidence in your beauty: see, I, though I am a goddess, though I am the daughter of the shining Sun, though I have such power through herbs and such power through spells too, pray to be yours; 35scorn her who scorns you, repay her who pursues you, and by one act take revenge on two!' 37To her attempts Glaucus said, 'Sooner will leaves grow in the sea and seaweed on the tops of the mountains than my love will change while Scylla lives!' 40The goddess was indignant, and since she could not harm him himself (nor would she wish to, loving him), she is angry with the girl who was preferred to her; and, offended by the rejection of her love, she at once grinds notorious herbs with horrible juices and mixes Hecate's spells with them as they are ground, and puts on a dark-blue robe, and proceeds from the middle of her hall through the throng of fawning beasts; and making for Rhegium, which faces the rocks of Zancle, she enters the waves seething with tides, on which she sets her feet as if on solid ground, and runs over the surface of the sea with dry feet.
51There was a small pool, curving into a bending arc, a pleasant resting place for Scylla; 52she would retreat there from the heat of sea and sky, when the sun was at its strongest in mid-circle and had made the shadows smallest from the zenith. 55This the goddess pollutes beforehand and taints with monster-making poisons; here she sprinkles liquids pressed from a baneful root, and murmurs thrice nine times with magic lips a spell dark with a maze of strange words. 59Scylla came and had gone down as far as her waist, when she sees her loins disfigured with barking monsters; and at first, not believing that they were parts of her own body, she flees and drives off and fears the insolent mouths of dogs; but what she flees she drags along with her, and, searching for her body, her thighs and legs and feet, she finds Cerberean jaws in place of those parts: she stands on the rage of dogs and holds in check the backs of beasts set beneath her, her loins cut short and her belly standing out above.
68Glaucus, who loved her, wept, and fled the embraces of Circe, who had used the power of herbs too hostilely; 70Scylla stayed in that place and, as soon as she was given the opportunity, out of hatred for Circe robbed Ulysses of his comrades; 72soon the same Scylla would have sunk the Trojan ships, had she not first been transformed into a rock, which still stands out, made of stone, today: the sailor shuns the rock too.