Charybdis in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Charybdis

12 passages from 6 ancient authors that tell of Charybdis, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Charybdis, the whirlpool monster of the Odyssey, forced Odysseus into an impossible choice. Explore her family, her myths, and the misconceptions. For the story in one place, read our article on Charybdis.

Homer (5)

Homer, Odyssey 12.403–453The shipwreck; Charybdis; CalypsoZeus sends a west wind and a thunderbolt, which splits the ship, and the men, thrown out like sea-gulls, are drowned. Odysseus lashes the keel and the mast together and rides them back toward Charybdis, where he clings to a fig-tree till she spews them out again. He drifts for nine days, and on the tenth is thrown on Calypso's island, where she takes him in, and he ends his tale.
Homer, Odyssey 12.1–141Circe's counselAfter they leave the river of Ocean and return to Aeaea, Odysseus buries Elpenor, and Circe comes to them with food and wine. She tells him in private of the dangers ahead: the Sirens, whom they must pass with their ears stopped with wax, and the wandering rocks. She describes Scylla and Charybdis, and tells him to choose Scylla's side, and to leave the cattle of the Sun untouched.
Homer, Odyssey 12.201–259Scylla and CharybdisBeyond the Sirens they see smoke and great waves, and the men drop their oars in terror. Odysseus has not told them of Scylla, and he arms himself and stands on the prow, but she snatches six men from the ship with her six heads. They pass Charybdis, who sucks down the sea three times a day, while Odysseus watches the whirlpool.
Homer, Odyssey 12.260–328The cattle of the SunHaving escaped the rocks, Charybdis and Scylla, they come to the island of the Sun. From the ship Odysseus hears the cattle and the sheep, and recalls the warnings of Teiresias and Circe, and wants to sail past the island. Eurylochus objects, and the men land and swear not to touch the herds, but a south wind blows for a month, and their stores give out.
Homer, Odyssey 23.288–372Odysseus tells his tale; the dawnThey go to bed, and Odysseus tells Penelope the story of his wanderings, the Cicones, the Lotus-eaters, the Cyclops, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, Circe, Hades, the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, the cattle of the Sun, Calypso and the Phaeacians. At dawn he tells Penelope to stay in her room and goes out to the country with Telemachus and the two herdsmen, to see his father, with Athena casting night about them.

Apollodorus (1)

Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome E.7.1–40The wanderings of Odysseus, the suitors and his deathOdysseus leaves Troy and meets the Cicones, the Lotus-eaters and Polyphemus the Cyclops, then Aeolus, the Laestrygonians and Circe. After the visit to Hades, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis and the cattle of the Sun, he reaches Calypso and then the Phaeacians and Ithaca, where the suitors are named and killed. The section ends with his later life among the Thesprotians and the variant accounts of his death at the hands of Telegonus, and of Penelope's fate.

Euripides (1)

Euripides, Trojan Women 406–461First episode: Cassandra foretells the wanderings of OdysseusThe Chorus says that Cassandra smiles at her own sad lot, and Talthybius says that if Apollo had not turned her wits he would not let her send the chiefs off with such ill omens. Cassandra mocks heralds as the hated servants of rulers, and, asked about Hecuba's fate, says that Hecuba will die at Troy and that Odysseus, who does not know what awaits him, will wander ten years beyond the Trojan ones, past Charybdis, the Cyclops and Circe, and descend alive to Hades, before she is led away.

Apollonius Rhodius (1)

Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.783–884Hera and ThetisHera asks Thetis to guide Argo through the Wandering Rocks and past Scylla and Charybdis. Thetis agrees, gathers the Nereids, and secretly tells her husband Peleus to have the heroes sail at dawn.

Ovid (2)

Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–747Aeneas at Delos; Anius' daughters; ScyllaAeneas escapes from Troy with his father and his household gods and comes to Delos, where the king Anius shows them the temple and tells how his three daughters had the power of turning things into corn, wine and oil. Agamemnon tried to take them for the Greek army, and they escaped by prayer to Dionysus (Bacchus), who turned them into doves. Aeneas sails on past Sicily and the straits of Scylla and Charybdis, and the nymph Scylla asks the sea-nymph Galatea why she weeps.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.75–157The Cercopes; the SibylAeneas sails past Scylla and Charybdis, is driven to Libya, where Dido, who loved him, kills herself, and comes to the island of the Pithecusae, where Zeus (Jupiter) turned the Cercopes into apes. At Cumae the Sibyl guides Aeneas to the underworld, and tells him how Apollo wooed her and granted her as many years as the grains of sand in her hand, but she forgot to ask for youth. She is now shrunken, and will in the end be only a voice.

Lycophron (2)

Lycophron, Alexandra 541–693Alexandra 541–693: Quarrelling cousins, the leaders' settlements in the West, and one man's wanderingsThe men at the banquet first tear at each other with jeers and then, as cousins, take up the spear, and two pairs fall, Hades receiving one pair while the other brothers are welcomed to Olympos on alternate days, undying and dead. Cassandra foretells the wanderings of many other leaders, among them Cepheus and Praxandrus, a leader who founds Argyrippa while his comrades are turned into birds, men who sail to the Gymnesian rocks as slingers, and others who reach Iberia and Libya. One man, the sole survivor of his friends, is carried past the one-eyed lion, Charybdis, enchanting nightingales and a dragoness who turns men into swine, and at last goes down to the dark plain of the dead to consult the ancient seer.
Lycophron, Alexandra 694–838Alexandra 694–838: The three singing maidens at the Tyrrhenian shore, the wanderer's homecoming, and a husband's search for his brideThe three daughters of Tethys' son, who imitated their mother's melodies, hurl themselves from the cliffs into the Tyrrhenian sea, and Parthenope, Leucosia and Ligeia come ashore at named places where they are buried and honoured. The wanderer shuts the winds in an oxhide, is burnt by the thunderbolt, clings to a fig-tree above Charybdis, and after a short time with the daughter of Atlas sails a badly made vessel that is smashed. At last he returns alone to find his house plundered by wife-stealers, bears blows and jeers from his own slaves, and dies in old age of a fish's spike after seeing his son called the butcher of his father. Another husband then searches land and sea for the bride snatched from him, visiting the watching-place of Typhon, the city of Myrrha and the towers of Cepheus.