And now the sea grew calmer, and the sun shone out once more, and the
heroes thrust the ship off the sand bank, and rowed forward on their
weary course, under the guiding of the dark witch maiden, into the
wastes of the unknown sea.
Whither they went I cannot tell, nor how they came to Circe's isle. Some
say that they went to the westward, and up the Ister[A] stream, and so
came into the Adriatic, dragging their ship over the snowy Alps. And
others say that they went southward, into the Red Indian Sea, and past
the sunny lands where spices grow, round AEthiopia toward the west; and
that at last they came to Libya, and dragged their ship across the
burning sands, and over the hills into the Syrtes, where the flats and
quicksands spread for many a mile, between rich Cyrene and the
Lotus-eaters' shore. But all these are but dreams and fables, and dim
hints of unknown lands.
[Footnote A: The Danube.]
But all say that they came to a place where they had to drag their ship
across the land nine days with ropes and rollers, till they came into an
unknown sea. And the best of all the old songs tells us, how they went
away toward the north, till they came to the slope of Caucasus, where it
sinks into the sea; and to the narrow Cimmerian Bosphorus,[A] where the
Titan swam across upon the bull; and thence into the lazy waters of the
still Maeotid Lake.
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