InGreek mythology,Scylla[a] (/ˈsɪlə/ ⓘSIL-ə;Ancient Greek:Σκύλλα,romanized: Skýlla,pronounced[skýlːa]) is a legendary, man-eating monster that lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart, the sea-swallowing monsterCharybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid the whirlpools of Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.
Scylla is first attested inHomer'sOdyssey, whereOdysseus and his crew encounter her and Charybdis on their travels. Later myth provides an origin story as a beautiful nymph who is transformed into a monster.[2]
Book Three ofVirgil'sAeneid[3] associates the strait where Scylla dwells with theStrait of Messina betweenCalabria, a region ofSouthern Italy, andSicily. The coastal town ofScilla in Calabria takes its name from the mythological figure of Scylla and it is said to be the home of the nymph.
TheByzantine encyclopediaSuda describes Scylla as having the appearance of a beautiful woman up to the eyes, with six dog heads on each side, and a serpent body below.[4]
The idiom "between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being forced to choose between two similarly undesirable or risky outcomes, similar to "between a rock and a hard place".[5][6]
The parentage of Scylla varies according to author.[7]Homer,Ovid,Apollodorus,Servius, and a scholiast on Plato, all nameCrataeis as the mother of Scylla.[8] Neither Homer nor Ovid mentions a father, but Apollodorus says that the father was either Trienus (probably a textual corruption ofTriton) or Phorcus (a variant ofPhorkys).[9] Similarly, the Plato scholiast, perhaps following Apollodorus, gives the father as Tyrrhenus or Phorcus,[10] whileEustathius on Homer,Odyssey 12.85, gave the father as Triton, orPoseidon and Crataeis as the parents.[11]
Other authors haveHecate as Scylla's mother. TheHesiodicMegalai Ehoiai gives Hecate andPhorbas as the parents of Scylla,[12] whileAcusilaus says that Scylla's parents were Hecate and Phorkys (so also scholia onOdyssey 12.85).[13]
Perhaps trying to reconcile these conflicting accounts,Apollonius of Rhodes says that Crataeis was another name for Hecate, and that she and Phorcys were the parents of Scylla.[14] Likewise,Semos of Delos[15] says that Crataeis was the daughter of Hecate and Triton, and mother of Scylla by Deimos.Stesichorus (alone) names Lamia as the mother of Scylla, possibly theLamia who was the daughter of Poseidon,[16] while according toHyginus, Scylla was the offspring ofTyphon andEchidna.[17]
According toJohn Tzetzes[18] andServius' commentary on theAeneid,[19] Scylla was a beautifulnaiad who was claimed by Poseidon, but the jealousNereidAmphitrite turned her into a terrible monster by poisoning the water of the spring where Scylla would bathe.
A similar story is found inHyginus,[20] according to whom Scylla was loved byGlaucus, but Glaucus himself was also loved by the goddess sorceressCirce. While Scylla was bathing in the sea, the jealous Circe poured a baleful potion into the sea water which caused Scylla to transform into a frightful monster with six dog forms springing from her thighs. In this form, she attacked Odysseus' ship, robbing him of his companions.
In a late Greek myth, recorded inEustathius' commentary on Homer and John Tzetzes,[21]Heracles encountered Scylla during a journey to Sicily and slew her. Her father, the sea-godPhorcys, then applied flaming torches to her body and restored her to life.
In Homer'sOdyssey XII,Odysseus is advised by Circe to sail closer to Scylla, for Charybdis could drown his whole ship: "Hug Scylla's crag—sail on past her—top speed! Better by far to lose six men and keep your ship than lose your entire crew."[22] She also tells Odysseus to ask Scylla's mother, the river nymphCrataeis, to prevent Scylla from pouncing more than once. Odysseus successfully navigates the strait, but when he and his crew are momentarily distracted by Charybdis, Scylla snatches six sailors off the deck and devours them alive.
...they writhed
gasping as Scylla swung them up her cliff and there
at her cavern's mouth she bolted them down raw—
screaming out, flinging their arms toward me,
lost in that mortal struggle.[23]
According toOvid,[24] the fisherman-turned-sea god Glaucus falls in love with the beautiful Scylla, but she is repulsed by his piscine form and flees to apromontory where he cannot follow. When Glaucus goes to Circe to request a love potion that will win Scylla's affections, the enchantress herself becomes enamored with him. Meeting with no success, Circe becomes hatefully jealous of her rival and therefore prepares a vial of poison and pours it into the sea pool where Scylla regularly bathed, transforming her into a thing of terror even to herself.
In vain she offers from herself to run
And drags about her what she strives to shun.[25]
The story was later adapted into a five-act tragic opera,Scylla et Glaucus (1746), by the French composerJean-Marie Leclair.
InJohn Keats' loose retelling of Ovid's version of the myth of Scylla and Glaucus in Book 3 ofEndymion (1818), the evil Circe does not transform Scylla into a monster but merely murders the beautiful nymph. Glaucus then takes her corpse to a crystal palace at the bottom of the ocean where lie the bodies of all lovers who have died at sea. After a thousand years, she is resurrected byEndymion and reunited with Glaucus.[26]
At the Carolingianabbey of Corvey in Westphalia, a unique ninth-century wall painting depicts, among other things, Odysseus' fight with Scylla.[b] This illustration is not noted elsewhere in medieval arts.[27]
In theRenaissance and after, it was the story of Glaucus and Scylla that caught the imagination of painters across Europe. InAgostino Carracci's 1597 fresco cycle ofThe Loves of the Gods in theFarnese Gallery, the two are shown embracing, a conjunction that is not sanctioned by the myth.[c] More orthodox versions show the maiden scrambling away from the amorous arms of the god, as in theoil on copper painting byFilippo Lauri[d] and the oil on canvas bySalvator Rosa in theMusée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.[e]
Other painters picture them divided by their respective elements of land and water, as in the paintings of the FlemishBartholomäus Spranger (1587), now in theKunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.[f] Some add the detail ofCupid aiming at the sea-god with his bow, as in the painting ofLaurent de la Hyre (1640/4) in theJ. Paul Getty Museum[g] and that ofJacques Dumont le Romain (1726) at theMusée des beaux-arts de Troyes.[29] Two cupids can also be seen fluttering around the fleeing Scylla in the late painting of the scene by J. M. W. Turner (1841), now in theKimbell Art Museum.[h]
Peter Paul Rubens shows the moment when the horrified Scylla first begins to change, under the gaze of Glaucus (c. 1636),[30] whileEglon van der Neer's 1695 painting in theRijksmuseum shows Circe poisoning the water as Scylla prepares to bathe.[i] There are also twoPre-Raphaelite treatments of the latter scene byJohn Melhuish Strudwick (1886)[31] andJohn William Waterhouse (Circe Invidiosa, 1892).[32]
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