Charybdis - The Mythological Background

The Mythological Background

In Greek mythology, Charybdis or Kharybdis was once a beautiful naiad and the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia. She takes the form of a huge bladder of a creature whose face is all mouth and whose arms and legs are flippers. She swallows a huge amount of water three times a day before belching it back out again, creating large whirlpools capable of dragging a ship underwater. In some variations of the tale, Charybdis is just a large whirlpool rather than a sea monster. Charybdis was very loyal to her father in his endless feud with Zeus; it was she who rode the hungry tides after Poseidon had stirred up a storm, and led them onto the beaches, gobbling up whole villages, submerging fields, drowning forests, claiming them for the sea. She won so much land for her father's kingdom that Zeus became enraged and changed her into a monster.

The myth has Charybdis lying on one side of a narrow channel of water. On the other side of the strait was Scylla, another sea-monster. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis will pass too close to Scylla and vice versa. The idiom 'between Scylla and Charybdis' has therefore come to mean being between two dangers, choosing either of which will bring harm.

Traditionally, the location of Charybdis has been associated with the Strait of Messina off the coast of Sicily and opposite the rock on the Italian mainland identified with Scylla. The vortex there is caused by the meeting of currents but is seldom dangerous.