In Greek mythology, Scylla ( /ˈsɪlə/ SIL-ə; Greek: Σκύλλα, Skylla) 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 versa.
Traditionally the strait has been associated with the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily. The idiom 'between Scylla and Charybdis' has come to mean being between two dangers, choosing either of which brings harm.
Famous quotes containing the word scylla:
“This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and no.”
—Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)
“The annals of this voracious beach! who could write them, unless it were a shipwrecked sailor? How many who have seen it have seen it only in the midst of danger and distress, the last strip of earth which their mortal eyes beheld. Think of the amount of suffering which a single strand had witnessed! The ancients would have represented it as a sea-monster with open jaws, more terrible than Scylla and Charybdis.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No.”
—Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)