Scylla and Charybdis
Encyclopedia
Dilemma
A dilemma |proposition]]") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable. One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable...
", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Between a Rock and a Hard Place is the autobiography of Aron Ralston. Published in 2004, the book recounts Ralston's experience being trapped in Blue John Canyon in the Utah desert and how he was forced to amputate his lower right arm with a low-quality multitool in order to free himself after his...
" express the same meaning of "having to choose between two evils".
The myth and the proverb
Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monstersSea Monsters
Sea Monsters was a BBC television trilogy which used computer-generated imagery to show past life in Earth's seas. In the U.S. it was known as Chased by Sea Monsters. It was made by Impossible Pictures, the creators of Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts and Walking with Monsters...
noted by Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
; later Greek tradition sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
between Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
and the Italian mainland. Scylla
Scylla
In Greek mythology, Scylla was a monster that lived on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite its counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait were within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass too close to Scylla and vice...
was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Italian side of the strait and Charybdis
Charybdis
Charybdis or Kharybdis was a sea monster, later rationalised as a whirlpool and considered a shipping hazard in the Strait of Messina.-The mythological background:...
was a whirlpool
Whirlpool
A whirlpool is a swirling body of water usually produced by ocean tides. The vast majority of whirlpools are not very powerful. More powerful ones are more properly termed maelstroms. Vortex is the proper term for any whirlpool that has a downdraft...
off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as a sea hazard located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer, Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
was forced to choose which monster to confront while passing through the strait; he opted to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.
Because of such stories, having to navigate between the two hazards eventually entered idiomatic use. There is also another equivalent English seafaring phrase, "Between a rock and a hard place". The Latin line incidit in scyllam cupiens vitare charybdim (he runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis) had earlier became proverbial, with a meaning much the same as jumping from the frying pan into the fire
Jumping from the frying pan into the fire
Jumping from the frying pan into the fire is an idiom with the general meaning of escaping a bad situation for a worse. It was made the subject of a 15th century fable that eventually entered the Aesopic canon.-The story and its use:...
. Erasmus recorded it as an ancient proverb in his Adagia, although the earliest known instance is in the Alexandreis
Alexandreis
Alexandreis is a medieval Latin epic poem by Walter of Châtillon, a 12th-century French writer and theologian. A version of the Alexander romance, it gives an account of the life of Alexander the Great, based on Quintus Curtius Rufus' Historia Alexandri Magni...
, a 12th-century Latin epic poem
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
by Walter of Châtillon
Walter of Chatillon
Walter of Châtillon was a 12th-century French writer and theologian who wrote in the Latin language. He studied under Stephen of Beauvais and at the University of Paris. It was probably during his student years that he wrote a number of Latin poems in the Goliardic manner that found their way...
.
Cultural and popular references
James Gillray
James Gillray , was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.- Early life :He was born in Chelsea...
's Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis (3 June 1793), 'William Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
helms the ship Constitution, containing an alarmed Britannia, between the rock of democracy (with the liberty cap on its summit) and the whirlpool of arbitrary power (in the shape of an inverted crown), to the distant haven of liberty.' The Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
refers to the same constitutional dilemma in the aftermath of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
in his essay A Defence of Poetry
A Defence of Poetry
A Defence of Poetry is an essay by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1821 and first published posthumously in 1840 in Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments [1839]...
(1820): 'The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism'.
A later Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
caricature by John Tenniel
John Tenniel
Sir John Tenniel was a British illustrator, graphic humorist and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories...
, dated 10 October 1863, pictures the Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Lord Palmerston carefully steering the British ship of state between the perils of Scylla, a craggy rock in the form of a grim-visaged Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, and Charybdis, a whirlpool which foams and froths into a likeness of Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
. A shield emblazoned "Neutrality" hangs on the ship's thwarts, referring to how Palmerston tried to maintain a strict impartiality towards both combatants in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. In the United States the equivalent satirical magazine Puck
Puck (magazine)
Puck was America's first successful humor magazine of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was published from 1871 until 1918.-History:...
also used the myth in a caricature by F.Graetz dated November 26, 1884. There the unmarried President-elect Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
rows desperately between snarling monsters captioned Mother-in-law and Office Seekers.
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
refers to the equivalent French idiom (tomber de Charybde en Scylla) in his most popular work, Les Miserables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
(1862) as a metaphor for the staging of two rebel barricades during the climactic uprising in Paris around which the final events of the book culminate. The first chapter of the final book is entitled "The Charybdis of the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Scylla of the Faubourg du Temple."
In Nicholas Monsarrat
Nicholas Monsarrat
Commander Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat RNVR was a British novelist known today for his sea stories, particularly The Cruel Sea and Three Corvettes , but perhaps best known internationally for his novels, The Tribe That Lost Its Head and its sequel, Richer Than All His Tribe.- Early life :Born...
's 1951 war novel, The Cruel Sea, an upper-class junior officer, Morell, is teased by his middle-class - and more progressive - peer, Lockheart, for using the phrase.
"Caught between Scylla and Charybdis" is also a line in the lyrics of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police
The Police
The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For the vast majority of their history, the band consisted of Sting , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland...
See also
- Catch-22 (logic)Catch-22 (logic)A Catch-22, coined by Joseph Heller in his novel Catch-22, is a logical paradox arising from a situation in which an individual needs something that can only be acquired with an action that will lead him to that very situation he is already in; therefore, the acquisition of this thing becomes...
- DilemmaDilemmaA dilemma |proposition]]") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable. One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable...
- Hobson's choiceHobson's choiceA Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. As a person may refuse to take that option, the choice is therefore between taking the option or not; "take it or leave it". The phrase is said to originate with Thomas Hobson , a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England...
- Morton's ForkMorton's ForkA Morton's Fork is a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives , or two lines of reasoning that lead to the same unpleasant conclusion...
- Ulysses (novel)Ulysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
External links
- Odyssey in Ancient Greek and translation from Perseus ProjectPerseus ProjectThe Perseus Project is a digital library project of Tufts University that assembles digital collections of humanities resources. It is hosted by the Department of Classics. It has suffered at times from computer hardware problems, and its resources are occasionally unavailable...
, with hyperlinks to grammatical and mythological commentary