They are not named. Six men pulling at the oars one moment, then six men in the air, lifted by the necks of a monster lodged in the cliff above the strait. Their hands grasp at the benches, the gunwales, the men beside them. The oars fall into the sea. The ship bucks under the weight of what is happening. They scream his name. Odysseus, Odysseus, help. He cannot reach them. There is no monster-slaying here. His sword cannot touch her. They are eaten while he watches. Circe had told him to take this loss because the alternative is the whirlpool and losing everyone. He chose. He didn’t tell them. They went to those benches not knowing they had been chosen. The next chapter sits with the silence after: the oars hang in the water because the hands that held them have gone slack, six benches empty, four of the surviving men have brothers among the taken. He says row. He says it twice. They row. No one speaks the names of the six. The retelling treats them as the price of his cunning: cold sacrifice, the cost of being the captain who knew and did not say.
The Six Taken by Scylla
Six unnamed crewmen torn from the oar benches by the six heads of Scylla. Screamed his name as they were lifted. The cold sacrifice.