the noon of summer
And one ship sailed safely through , even the famous _ Argo _ when she bore Jason and his crew on their voyage from the land of Æetes . All others when they essayed the task perished , and were brought to naught in a whirlwind of foam and fire . `` But if thou takest the other way thou wilt come to another strait , guarded day and night by two sleepless sentinels , Scylla and Charybdis . On one side thereof towers a lofty peak , shrouded , even in the noon of summer , in clouds and thick darkness . No mortal man could climb that steep and slippery rock , not though he had twenty hands and twenty feet ; for the side is smooth as polished marble , and in the midst of the cliff is a shadowy cave overlooking the track by which thou must guide thy ship , Odysseus . Deep down it goes into the heart of the mountain , so that a man in his lusty prime could not shoot an arrow from his ship to the bottom of that yawning pit In the cave dwells Scylla , and yelps without ceasing . Her voice is thin and shrill , like the cry of a hound newly littered , but she herself is a monster horrible to behold , so that neither man nor god could face her without affright .