Scylla and Charybdis
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Scylla and Charybdis are two sea monsters of Greek mythology who were situated on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy. They were located in such proximity to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too closely to Scylla and vice versa.
Scylla was a creature who dwelt in a rock, had six heads and ate people, while Charybdis had a single gaping mouth that sucked in huge quantities of water and belched them out, thus creating whirlpools. In Homer's The Odyssey, Odysseus is forced to choose which monster to confront while passing through the strait: rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool, he elects to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors.
Scylla is one of the few place names used in the Odyssey which have persisted unchanged till the present day. At the entry to the Straits of Messiana, the city of Scylla, perched on a cliff 'that beetles o're his base into the sea' still dominated the treacherous strip of water separating Sicily from the mainland The name 'Scylla' is derived from a Semitic word skoula and the full title of the promontory was Skoula Kart's, the sheer rock. The phrase "between Scylla and Charybdis," although only occasionally used today, has come to mean having to choose between two unattractive choices, and is believed to be the progenitor of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place."
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[edit] Popular Culture References
- "Caught between the scylla and charybidis" is a lyric in the song Wrapped Around Your Finger, by The Police.
[edit] See Also
- Catch-22
- Dilemma
- Hobson's choice
- Morton's Fork
- Sophie's choice
[edit] External links
- Odyssey in Ancient Greek and translation from Perseus Project, with hyperlinks to grammatical and mythological commentary
- Greek Myth: the Odyssey
- [http://www.researchrecap.com/index.php/2008/04/10/research-roundup-yahoo-heats-up/ Use of the term in analysis of business strategy.
