Scylla

minted by Sextus Pompeius|alt=|left The parentage of Scylla varies according to author. Homer, Ovid, Apollodorus, Servius, and a scholiast on Plato, all name Crataeis as the mother of Scylla. Neither Homer nor Ovid mentions a father, but Apollodorus says that the father was either Trienus (probably a textual corruption of Triton) or Phorcus (a variant of Phorkys). Similarly, the Plato scholiast, perhaps following Apollodorus, gives the father as Tyrrhenus or Phorcus, while Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey 12.85, gave the father as Triton, or Poseidon and Crataeis as the parents. Other authors have Hecate as Scylla's mother. The Hesiodic Megalai Ehoiai gives Hecate and Phorbas as the parents of Scylla, while Acusilaus says that Scylla's parents were Hecate and Phorkys (so also scholia on Odyssey 12.85). Perhaps trying to reconcile these conflicting accounts, Apollonius of Rhodes says that Crataeis was another name for Hecate, and that she and Phorcys were the parents of Scylla. Likewise, Semos of Delos says that Crataeis was the daughter of Hecate and Triton, and mother of Scylla by Deimos. Stesichorus (alone) names Lamia as the mother of Scylla, possibly the Lamia who was the daughter of Poseidon, while according to Hyginus, Scylla was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. == Narratives ==

, which is said to be the home of ScyllaAccording to John Tzetzes and Servius' commentary on the Aeneid, Scylla was a beautiful naiad who was claimed by Poseidon, but the jealous Nereid Amphitrite turned her into a terrible monster by poisoning the water of the spring where Scylla would bathe. A similar story is found in Hyginus, according to whom Scylla was loved by Glaucus, but Glaucus himself was also loved by the goddess sorceress Circe. While Scylla was bathing in the sea, the jealous Circe poured a baleful potion into the sea water which caused Scylla to transform into a frightful monster with six dog forms springing from her thighs. In this form, she attacked Odysseus' ship, robbing him of his companions. In a late Greek myth, recorded in Eustathius' commentary on Homer and John Tzetzes, Heracles encountered Scylla during a journey to Sicily and slew her. Her father, the sea-god Phorcys, then applied flaming torches to her body and restored her to life. Homer's Odyssey In Homer's Odyssey XII, Odysseus is advised by Circe to sail closer to Scylla, something he never told the rest of his crew, for Charybdis could drown his whole ship: "Hug Scylla's crag—sail on past her—top speed! Better by far to lose six men and keep your ship than lose your entire crew." She also tells Odysseus to ask Scylla's mother, the river nymph Crataeis, to prevent Scylla from pouncing more than once. Odysseus successfully navigates the strait, but when he and his crew are momentarily distracted by Charybdis, Scylla snatches six sailors off the deck and devours them alive. Ovid's Metamorphoses (c. 1581) According to Ovid, the fisherman-turned-sea god Glaucus falls in love with the beautiful Scylla, but she is repulsed by his piscine form and flees to a promontory where he cannot follow. When Glaucus goes to Circe to request a love potion that will win Scylla's affections, the enchantress herself becomes enamored with him. Meeting with no success, Circe becomes hatefully jealous of her rival and therefore prepares a vial of poison and pours it into the sea pool where Scylla regularly bathed, transforming her into a thing of terror even to herself. The story was later adapted into a five-act tragic opera, Scylla et Glaucus (1746), by the French composer Jean-Marie Leclair. Keats' Endymion In John Keats' loose retelling of Ovid's version of the myth of Scylla and Glaucus in Book 3 of Endymion (1818), the evil Circe does not transform Scylla into a monster but merely murders the beautiful nymph. Glaucus then takes her corpse to a crystal palace at the bottom of the ocean where lie the bodies of all lovers who have died at sea. After a thousand years, she is resurrected by Endymion and reunited with Glaucus. Palaephatus and Heraclitus Paradoxographus Palaephatus, who sought to rationalize Greek mythology, argues that the myth of Scylla originates from a misinterpretation of historical events. According to his account, Scylla was not originally a monstrous being, described in myth as a woman to the navel with the lower body of a serpent, but a swift Tyrrhenian trireme. The vessel bore the name "Scylla", as inscribed on its prow. At the time, Tyrrhenian ships were engaged in plundering the coasts of Sicily and the Ionian Gulf. Owing to its speed and effectiveness, this ship frequently coordinated or assembled other vessels and consequently became widely known. In one incident, Odysseus is said to have escaped pursuit by this ship by exploiting a favorable wind. He later recounted the episode in Corcyra to Alcinous, describing both the vessel and the pursuit. Through repeated retellings, these maritime events were gradually transformed, ultimately giving rise to the mythological figure of Scylla as a monstrous creature. Procopius The Byzantine author Procopius writes that Scylaeum was said by poets to be where Scylla once lived, not because there really existed there a woman in the form of a beast, but rather because a certain fish, formerly called "scylax" and later renamed "cyniscus", has been found in great abundance in this part of the strait from ancient times even down to his time. He then explains that names in the beginning are always appropriate to the things they describe, but rumour, carrying these names to other peoples, produces false opinions through ignorance of the facts. As time goes on, this process becomes a builder of stories and joins with poets as witnesses of things that never happened, because of the licence of their art. He then gives examples of other similar stories from other places, such as those about dog-headed and wolf-headed people. ==Paintings==

's painting of Scylla fleeing inland from the advances of Glaucus (1841) At the Carolingian abbey of Corvey in Westphalia, a unique ninth-century wall painting depicts, among other things, Odysseus' fight with Scylla. This illustration is not noted elsewhere in medieval arts. In the Renaissance and after, it was the story of Glaucus and Scylla that caught the imagination of painters across Europe. In Agostino Carracci's 1597 fresco cycle of The Loves of the Gods in the Farnese Gallery, the two are shown embracing, a conjunction that is not sanctioned by the myth. More orthodox versions show the maiden scrambling away from the amorous arms of the god, as in the oil on copper painting by Filippo Lauri and the oil on canvas by Salvator Rosa in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen. Other painters picture them divided by their respective elements of land and water, as in the paintings of the Flemish Bartholomäus Spranger (1587), now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Some add the detail of Cupid aiming at the sea-god with his bow, as in the painting of Laurent de la Hyre (1640/4) in the J. Paul Getty Museum and that of Jacques Dumont le Romain (1726) at the Musée des beaux-arts de Troyes. Two cupids can also be seen fluttering around the fleeing Scylla in the late painting of the scene by J. M. W. Turner (1841), now in the Kimbell Art Museum. Peter Paul Rubens shows the moment when the horrified Scylla first begins to change, under the gaze of Glaucus (), while Eglon van der Neer's 1695 painting in the Rijksmuseum shows Circe poisoning the water as Scylla prepares to bathe. There are also two Pre-Raphaelite treatments of the latter scene by John Melhuish Strudwick (1886) and John William Waterhouse (Circe Invidiosa, 1892). == Explanatory notes==

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. • • Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others, Harvard University Press, 1991. . • Fowler, R. L., Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. . • Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). • Hanfmann, George M. A., "The Scylla of Corvey and Her Ancestors" Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 "Studies on Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday" (1987), pp. 249–260. • Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText. • Most, G.W., Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments, Loeb Classical Library, No. 503, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2007, 2018. . Online version at Harvard University Press. • • Stesichorus, in Greek Lyric, Volume III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others. Edited and translated by David A. Campbell. Loeb Classical Library 476. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. • Tzetzes, John, Lycophronis Alexandra. Vol. II: Scholia Continens, edited by Eduard Scheer, Berlin, Weidmann, 1881. Internet Archive. • Virgil, Aeneid. Translated by Frederick Ahl: Oxford University Press, 2007. ==External links==