ROCK AND PROMONTORY AT SCYLLA, CALABRIA. "Far on the right her dogs foul Scylla hides, Charybdis roaring on the left presides, And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides, The sinking vessel in her eddy draws, ENEID, Book iii. In the mythological ages, we are told that Scylla, a daughter of Phorcys, was beloved by Glaucus; but his addresses being rejected, the god applied to the enchantress Circe. This mischievous being became herself enamoured of his charms, and tried all her arts to induce the lover to forget his mistress, but in vain. Revenge succeeding to affection and tenderness, Circe resolved upon the destruction of her rival's beauty, and, infusing the juice of poisonous herbs into the waters of a fountain where Scylla was bathing, the nymph no sooner entered them, than her lower extremities were changed into hideous monsters, that continued to bark incessantly. Terrified at the metamorphosis, she threw herself into the narrow sea that parts Sicily from Italy; and being further transformed into a monstrous rock, has ever since continued to be the terror of mariner, swho pass that way. In the time of the Abbé Spallanzani, Scylla retained all that appearance of danger, and those sounds of horror, that suggested to the imagination of the poet the fable of Scylla and Charybdis. "Scylla," says the Abbé, "is a lofty rock twelve miles from Messina, rising almost perpendicularly from the sea, on the coast of Calabria, and beyond it is a small city of the same name. Though there was scarcely any wind I began to hear, two miles before I came to the rock, a murmur and noise like a confused barking of dogs, and, on a nearer approach, readily discovered the cause. The rock, in its lower part, contains a number of caverns, one of the largest of which is called by the people on that coast, Dragara. The waves, when in the least agitated, rushing into these caverns, break, dash, throw up frothy bubbles, and thus occasion those various and multiplied sounds. I then perceived with how much truth, and semblance of nature, Homer and Virgil, in their personifications of Scylla, had portrayed this scene, by describing the monster they drew as lurking in the darkness of a vast cavern, surrounded by ravenous mastiffs, together with numerous wolves to increase the horror." Modern navigators, by their skill, and scientific auxiliaries, are enabled to escape from the horrors of Scylla, but still, occasionally, illustrate the truth of the ancient proverb by falling into Charybdis—against the rotatory power of which, a seventy-fourgun ship is scarce able to make resistance, and does not escape without experiencing its force, at least on the surface of the eddy. |