Scylla
Scylla is a monster with twelve feet and six long necks, each ending in a head with three rows of teeth, living in a cave in a cliff facing the whirlpool Charybdis. Homer's Odyssey has her seize six of Odysseus's men straight from his ship as it passes, one man per head, an outcome Circe warns is far preferable to risking the whole ship in Charybdis.
Scylla, the six-headed strait monster
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Core Myth
Homer's Odyssey gives Scylla's fullest ancient description, put in the mouth of Circe as she warns Odysseus what lies ahead. Scylla lives inside a cave partway up a smooth, unclimbable cliff, and "yelps" with a voice Circe compares to a young puppy's despite being an enormous, evil monster with twelve misshapen feet and six long necks, each ending in a head packed with three rows of close-set teeth. Circe names her mother as Crataeis; Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, describing the same stretch of sea from the Argonauts' side, instead identifies Crataeis with the goddess Hecate and names Phorcys as the father - two different genealogies for the same monster. When Odysseus's ship passes beneath her cliff, exactly as Circe predicted, Scylla darts out her six necks and seizes six of his men, the best in strength and might, each snatched up screaming and reaching for Odysseus as she devours them at the mouth of her cave. Circe had already told Odysseus not to fight back, since pausing anywhere near Scylla to strike her only risks a second attack for every moment lost, and warned that steering hard toward Charybdis's side of the strait to avoid Scylla entirely would cost the whole ship instead of six men.
How many heads did Scylla have?
Six, according to Homer's Odyssey, each on its own long neck and each packed with three rows of close-set teeth. She also has twelve misshapen feet, giving her a body unlike any other monster in the poem, and a voice Circe compares, oddly, to a young puppy's yelp.
Homer, Odyssey 12.85-100
What happened when Odysseus sailed past Scylla?
Exactly what Circe had warned him: Scylla darted out her six necks and seized six of his men, the strongest in his crew, snatching them straight from the ship's deck. Homer describes them shrieking and stretching out their hands to Odysseus as she devoured them at the mouth of her cave, unable to be saved.
Homer, Odyssey 12.245-259
Why didn't Odysseus just steer around Scylla entirely?
Circe told him plainly that the alternative was worse: hugging the far side of the strait to avoid Scylla meant risking Charybdis, whose whirlpool could swallow the entire ship and crew. Losing six men to Scylla, however painful, was the survivable choice between two dangers neither of which could be avoided outright.
Homer, Odyssey 12.101-110
Was Scylla always a monster, or was she human first?
Depends on the source. Homer's Odyssey never gives her any earlier form; she is simply a monster from the start. Ovid's Metamorphoses, writing centuries later, tells a different story in which Scylla was once a beautiful nymph, transformed into her monstrous shape by a jealous Circe after rejecting the sea-god Glaucus's love.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 14
Who were Scylla's parents?
Homer names only her mother, Crataeis, without naming a father at all. Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica instead identifies Crataeis with the goddess Hecate and adds Phorcys as her father, giving a fuller but different genealogy than Homer's own brief mention.
Homer, Odyssey 12.101-125
Did the Argonauts also have to pass Scylla and Charybdis?
Yes. Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica has the Argo's return route pass directly between Scylla's cliff and Charybdis's whirlpool, with Hera sending the sea-goddess Thetis and her sister Nereids to physically guide the ship safely through the strait.
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
Later Traditions
Ovid's Metamorphoses tells a very different, later story about how Scylla came to look this way at all: originally a beautiful young woman loved by the minor sea-god Glaucus, she rejects him, and Circe - secretly in love with Glaucus herself - poisons the pool where Scylla bathes out of jealousy, transforming her lower body into a ring of monstrous barking dog-heads. Homer's version never gives Scylla any such backstory; the two accounts describe the same eventual monster reaching that state by entirely different routes, one born a monster and one made into one.
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 Scylla here as a hazard survived rather than a fight.
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Connected
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Warning Odysseus about the Wandering Rocks, guarded by "the great wave of Amphitrite," Circe tells him it is safer to risk Scylla instead, since no ship but the Argo has ever survived that route.
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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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In Ovid's later Metamorphoses, jealous Circe poisons Scylla's bathing pool and transforms her into the six-headed monster of the strait, a story Homer's earlier Odyssey does not tell.
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Ovid's Metamorphoses has Galatea narrate the story of Acis's death directly to Scylla, immediately before Ovid tells the separate story of Scylla's own transformation.
Where Accounts Differ
- Scylla's parentage
- whether Scylla was ever human
- Scylla's parentage varies: Homer names only her mother, Crataeis, without a father; Apollonius of Rhodes instead identifies Crataeis with the goddess Hecate and names Phorcys as the father.
- Ovid's account of Scylla as a beautiful nymph transformed by a jealous Circe has no equivalent in Homer, where she is simply described as a monster with no earlier human form.
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Mythology
Appears In
Referenced By
Sources
- Homer, Odyssey 12.85-125
- Homer, Odyssey 12.245-259
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 14
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)