And appease Hecate, the only child of Perses, pouring from a cup the hive-work of bees. Then, once you have won the goddess over, remembering all this, draw back from the pyre; and let no sound of feet make you turn around, or the barking of dogs, so that you do not ruin everything and fail to come back yourself in good order to your comrades.

Hecate is μουνογενής, "the only child," as in Hesiod's hymn to her (Theogony 426, 448), and Περσηίς, daughter of Perses; LSJ cites Apollonius for the title. The libation is honey, "the hive-work of bees." Mooney compares Circe's instruction to Odysseus to pour first a mixture of honey and milk (Odyssey 10.519), and the milk, wine and honey poured for the dead in Euripides' Iphigenia among the Taurians (159–166). The rule against looking back belongs to rites for the powers below, and Mooney collects it: in Sophocles, after the offering to the Eumenides one withdraws without turning (Oedipus at Colonus 490); in Theocritus, Tiresias orders that whoever scatters the ashes come back without turning round (24.93–96); Ovid has a goddess forbid those at her rite to look back (Fasti 6.164).