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Scylla

In Greek mythology, Scylla[a] (/ˈsɪlə/ SIL; Greek: Σκύλλα, translit. Skýlla, pronounced [skýlːa]) is a legendary monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.

For other uses, see Scylla (disambiguation).

Scylla is first attested in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew encounter her and Charybdis on their travels. Later myth provides an origin story as a beautiful nymph who gets turned into a monster.[2]


Book Three of Virgil's Aeneid[3] associates the strait where Scylla dwells with the Strait of Messina between Calabria, a region of Southern Italy, and Sicily. The coastal town of Scilla in Calabria takes its name from the mythological figure of Scylla and it is said to be the home of the nymph.


The idiom "between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being forced to choose between two similarly dangerous situations.

Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

Apollodorus

(1912), The Argonautica, translated by Robert Cooper Seaton (trans 1912 ed.), W. Heinemann – via Internet Archive

Apollonius Rhodius

Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others, Harvard University Press, 1991.  978-0674995253.

ISBN

Fowler, R. L., Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013.  978-0198147411.

ISBN

Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes:  978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).

ISBN

Hanfmann, George M. A., "The Scylla of Corvey and Her Ancestors" Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 "Studies on Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday" (1987), pp. 249–260.

Fabulae, in The Myths of , edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText.

, Gaius Julius

Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments, Loeb Classical Library, No. 503, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2007, 2018. ISBN 978-0-674-99721-9. Online version at Harvard University Press.

Most, G.W.

Ogden, Daniel (2013). Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Oxford University Press.  9780199557325.

ISBN

in Greek Lyric, Volume III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others. Edited and translated by David A. Campbell. Loeb Classical Library 476. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Stesichorus

Aeneid. Translated by Frederick Ahl: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Virgil

. Theoi Project. – references in classical literature and ancient art.

"Skylla"

. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28.

"Images of Scylla on Classical artefacts (Archive.org link)"

, ed. (1911). "Scylla and Charybdis" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 519.

Chisholm, Hugh