Charybdis
Charybdis is a devouring sea-monster in the form of a whirlpool, lying under a fig tree on a rock opposite Scylla's cliff in the strait Odysseus must pass. Three times a day she sucks down the sea and three times spits it back out; Circe warns Odysseus that losing his whole ship to Charybdis would be worse than losing six men to Scylla on the opposite side.
Charybdis, the devouring whirlpool
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Core Myth
Homer's Odyssey describes Charybdis entirely through what she does rather than what she looks like: Circe tells Odysseus that under a rock crowned with a wild fig tree, opposite Scylla's cliff, Charybdis sucks down the dark water three times a day and spews it back up three times, and that no ship, however lucky, has ever passed over her at the moment she is drawing the sea in. Homer never gives her a body or a face the way he does Scylla; she is, in effect, the sea itself turned momentarily lethal, described entirely by her rhythm rather than her shape. Circe's advice is blunt: steer close to Scylla's side of the strait instead, since losing six men to Scylla's snatching heads is a survivable loss and losing the whole ship into Charybdis is not. Odysseus follows this advice on the way through, but loses his ship soon after anyway, to Zeus's own thunderbolt for a separate offense - his crew's slaughter of the Sun god's cattle - and drifts back to the same strait alone on a piece of wreckage. This second time, with no ship left to lose, he survives Charybdis by clinging to the fig tree above her exactly at the moment she swallows the wreckage, then drops back onto the same timbers as she spits them out again and paddles clear.
What does Charybdis actually do?
According to Homer's Odyssey, she sucks down the dark sea water three times a day and spews it back up three times, creating a whirlpool violent enough to swallow an entire ship. Circe warns that no vessel has ever safely crossed her at the exact moment she is drawing the water in.
Homer, Odyssey 12.101-110
How did Odysseus survive Charybdis the second time he encountered her?
With no ship left, since it had already been destroyed by Zeus's thunderbolt, Odysseus clung to the wild fig tree growing above Charybdis exactly as she swallowed the wreckage of his ship, then dropped back down onto the same timbers the moment she spat them out again and paddled clear on them.
Homer, Odyssey 12.426-446
Why did Circe tell Odysseus to sail closer to Scylla instead of Charybdis?
Because the two dangers were not equal. Scylla could only take a handful of men, one for each of her six heads, in a single pass, while Charybdis threatened to take the entire ship and crew at once if caught in her whirlpool. Circe's advice weighs a survivable loss against a total one.
Homer, Odyssey 12.108-110
Does any ancient source explain where Charybdis came from?
Not among the primary sources behind this page. Homer's Odyssey introduces her purely as a hazard in the strait, with no birth, parentage, or backstory given anywhere in the poem, and no other work in this project's source list supplies one either.
Did the Argonauts face Charybdis too?
Yes. Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica has the Argo's return route pass directly by Charybdis, ceaselessly spouting and roaring beside Scylla's rock, with the sea-goddess Thetis and her Nereid sisters guiding the ship safely through the danger at Hera's request.
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
Is Charybdis a monster or just a natural whirlpool?
Ancient sources treat her as an active, personified monster despite giving her no described body: Homer calls her "she" and describes her sucking and spewing the sea as a deliberate, repeated action rather than a passive natural feature, which is part of what makes her such a distinctive case of Greek personification.
Homer, Odyssey 12.101-107
Later Traditions
Unlike Scylla, Charybdis has no separate origin story in any of the ancient sources this entry draws from: Homer never explains how she came to be, and no surviving telling in the primary corpus behind this page gives her a birth, a parentage, or a punishment that turned her into what she is. Later commentators occasionally speculate, but the whirlpool itself, without a backstory, is the whole of what the earliest and best-attested sources actually say.
Also Connected
6 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.
Enemies
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The Argo passes safely thanks to the Nereids' aid; Apollonius of Rhodes narrates Charybdis here as a hazard survived rather than a fight.
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Connected
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In the same warning, Circe presents the Wandering Rocks guarded by Amphitrite's wave as the alternative to Charybdis's strait, and advises Odysseus to risk Charybdis's side instead.
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Circe is the source of Odysseus's warning about Charybdis, telling him losing the whole ship to her would be worse than losing six men to Scylla.
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Galatea is one of the fifty Nereids Apollonius of Rhodes has guiding the Argo past Charybdis, alongside Scylla, under Thetis's lead, though Apollonius's scene does not name Galatea individually.
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The twin hazards of the same narrow strait, described together in the same episode by both Homer and Apollonius of Rhodes.
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Mythology
Appears In
Referenced By
Sources
- Homer, Odyssey 12.101-110
- Homer, Odyssey 12.426-446
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)