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SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 519 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS . In See also:

Homer (Od. xii. 73, 235, 430) Scylla is a dreadful See also:sea-See also:monster, daughter of Crataeis, with six heads, twelve feet and a See also:voice like the yelp of a puppy. She dwelt in a sea-See also:cave looking to'the See also:west, far up the See also:face of a huge cliff. Out of her cave she See also:stuck her heads, fishing for marine creatures and snatching the See also:seamen out of passing See also:ships. Within a bowshot of this cliff was another See also:lower cliff with a See also:great fig-See also:tree growing on it. Under this second See also:rock dwelt Charybdis, who thrice a See also:day sucked in and thrice spouted out the sea See also:water. Between these rocks See also:Odysseus sailed, and Scylla snatched six men out of his See also:ship. In later classical times Scylla and Charybdis, whose position is not defined by Homer, were localized in the Straits of See also:Messina—Scylla on the See also:Italian, Charybdis on the Sicilian See also:side (See also:Strabo i. p. 24; vi. p. 268). The well-known See also:line, Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim, occurs in the Alexandreis of See also:Gautier de See also:Lille, a poet of the 12th See also:century.

In 1 This Heracleides is noticed in an See also:

Egyptian See also:papyrus containing a fragment of the historian Sosylus, which alludes, by way of comparison, to the See also:tactical ability displayed by him at the See also:battle of Artemisium (Wilcken in See also:Hermes, xli., 1906, pp. 103 seq.). See also:Ovid (Metam. xiv. 1-74) Scylla appears as a beautiful See also:maiden beloved by the sea-See also:god See also:Glaucus and other deities, and changed by the jealous See also:Circe (or other See also:rival) into a sea-monster; after-wards she was transformed into a rock shunned by fishermen. According to a See also:late See also:legend (Servius on Aeneid, 420), Charybdis was a voracious woman who robbed Heracles of his See also:cattle and was therefore See also:cast into the sea by See also:Zeus, where she retained her old voracious nature. In later See also:poetry and See also:art Scylla was conceived of as a maiden above, with See also:dogs' or wolves' heads growing out of her See also:body, and the tail of a See also:fish. Another Scylla, confounded. by See also:Virgil (See also:Eel. vi. 74) with the sea-monster, was a daughter of See also:Nisus (q.v.), See also:king of See also:Megara. See O. Waser, Skylla and Charybdis in der Literatur and Kunst der Griechen and Romer (1894); and D. See also:Jobst, Skyll¢ and Charybdis (See also:Wurzburg, 1902), who endeavours to show that the Homeric description really referred, as the ancients assumed, to the Sicilian straits.

End of Article: SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

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