Episode 72I – A Rock and a Hard Place – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 72I Show Notes

Source: Greek Mythology

This week on MYTH, we’ll try to survive a trio of murderous monsters. You’ll see that Odysseus was a bondage enthusiast, that Odysseus was a music lover, and that Odysseus doesn’t always say the right thing. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s time for a double helping of sea monster origin story. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 72I, “A Rock and a Hard Place”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Before we get started, I just wanted to share something cool that happened. A short story that I wrote won first place in this month’s contest for the Pulp Factory E-Zine. The January issue, featuring my piece ‘The Library’ is available now for free on the Pulp Factory E-Zine website (I’ll post links on the website and the social media feeds). Check it out if you get a chance. I’m pretty proud of it. Anywho, on the to the Odyssey.
When we left the story last time, we’d picked up just after the end of the Trojan War. . Things had gone bad almost immediately, and wise Odysseus had led his men into disaster after disaster: getting bloodied after raiding a random city for shits and giggles, getting his men stoned on premium lotus, getting men killed in the home of Polyphemus the Cyclops and then getting cursed by said Cyclops because Odysseus was too prideful not to reveal his real name, and almost getting home after some help from the King of the Winds only to get blown off course again because his men can’t stop being greedy while Odysseus naps. Odysseus got most of his men eaten by cannibal giants, leaving only the soldiers on a single black ship alive to journey on. They’d reached what seemed like another deserted island, only to encounter the demigoddess witch Circe, who turned half of the Ithacans into pigs. Odysseus defeated her magic with the help of his magical penis and the god Hermes, earning her help. Odysseus then spent a year having a wild, drunken fling with Circe before finally moving on to next steps (which involve a trip into the Underworld for some advice from a dead seer). There, he met a lot of dead people, got a lot of guilt, and received some helpful if cryptic warnings about the future. He then held a nice little receiving line for the dead shades which doesn’t do much for the plot but offers a lot of tantalizing bits and pieces of other stories for historians. After that, he putzed around in the Underworld for a bit, chatting with some prominent mythic heroes, a few of his dead Trojan War buddies, and even one old comrade who managed to hold a grudge in death before deciding to head back to the living world once more, and having a little ‘congratulations for not dying’ party with Circe.
While the surviving Ithacans were feasting and drinking and generally letting off a little steam after a nerve-racking journey into the literal jaws of death, Circe pulled Odysseus aside for a little debriefing session (but not the fun, euphemistic kind). She asked careful, probing questions about what he had seen in the Underworld and what Tiresias had told him. Once she had digested all of it, she thought for a moment to adjust the course she had plotted for the Greek ship. “You have done well, brave Odysseus, in surviving a journey that few dare attempt, but the danger is far from over. Listen well and heed my warnings. After you leave here, you will have to face many perils before you can make it home again.
“First, you will come to the island of the Sirens, those spellbinding creatures whose ethereal voices can enchant any man alive if they draw too near. For any poor sailor that dares too close and finds their senses ensnared by their song on the wind, there will be no sailing home for him, no wife smiling as he steps onto shore, no giggling children beaming at their father’s return. No, that poor fool will be transfixed by the siren’s song, drawn to their terrible beauty standing amidst the piles of withered, rotting corpses, tattered scraps of clothes and ragged scraps of skin clinging to their bleached bones. Your crew will not be able to help themselves, so you will have to take softened beeswax and stop up their ears with it so that they can’t hear a sound. Honestly, you should do the same for yourself, but after a year together, I know your soul Odysseus and I know that you won’t be happy unless you hear their deadly song, so here’s what you do: have your men lash you to the mast with stout ropes so thoroughly that you can’t possibly escape. Warn them to ignore any pleas or commands to free you that you might make, or you shall all surely perish.
“Once you have safely passed the Sirens, you have a choice to make. This choice is yours and yours alone; I cannot advise you which to take or lead you through it – I can only tell you what lies down each path. Along one side, sheer cliffs soar towards the sky, and against them crash the deadly breakers of Amphirite (goddess-queen of the sea and wife of Poseidon), the Planctae – the Wandering Rocks of legend! No one and nothing can pass their deadly heaving, not even the doves that carry ambrosia back to mighty Zeus. No ship has ever dared those treacherous waters and survived – all that have tried have been smashed to splinters on the unforgiving rocks, men and timbers scattered and crushed by the heaving waves and lethal blasts of fire” (because why not throw fire in there just to keep things interesting, right?). “Only one ship has ever dared these waters and lived to tell the tale, and that only because it was headed the other direction and because they had the help of Hera herself – that ship was the Argo, of the famous tale of Jason and the Argonauts” (and spoiler alert there for a tale we haven’t gotten to yet but, I mean, it is thousands of years old at this point so I think the time limit is up).
“Down the other path loom two towering crags. One thrusts sharply into the heavens like a jagged spear, its peak forever lost in a dark thundercloud and bathed in shadow. No man could scale its sheer height, not even if he had 20 hands and 20 feet to make the attempt – the rocks are so smooth and so sheer. Halfway up that dread height lies a cavern shrouded in mist, gaping towards Erebus, the realm of Death and Darkness that you so recently left, in the west. If you take this way, Odysseus, you should steer your ship away from that terrible cave, for death lurks inside. None of your archers could possibly put a feathered arrow into that yawning cave to fell dread Scylla who dwells inside. That awful monster makes the strangest sound: it yelps, no louder or more terrifying than a newborn puppy, but that admittedly adorable sound is a lie. Scylla is a grisly, murderous monster.
“The beast has twelve legs, writhing and dangling down the sheer precipice where it makes its home, and six long, sinuous necks. Each head is filled with a triple-row of razor-sharp teeth, thick and bristling and deadly. From the waist down, the creature is hidden inside her black cave (which begs the question of how anyone knows what its legs look like), but whenever anyone tries to slip past, those six heads whip out of the bloody pit to drag her prey into the bowels of her cave to devour. Fish, dolphins, men – anything unlucky or unwise enough to wander within range of her jagged teeth meets a grisly end. No ship can boast that they’ve raced past her awful lair without suffering a mortal blow – six men snatched from the decks and dragged to their deaths.
“The other crag (remember that I said there were two?) lies within a bowshot of Scylla’s mountain of death and is crowned with a huge, shaggy fig tree. The tree is just a fig tree, but beneath it lies the awesome Charybdis, and her thirst is terrible. Down in the sunless depths of the sea, she gulps and gulps and gulps the water down. Three times a day, she gulps it down and thrice she vomits it back up. Do NOT be there when she swallows down the sea – the ocean swirls and drops down into an awful whirlpool that drags unlucky ships all the way to the bottom of the vast ocean depths, and not even Poseidon himself can save you then. Your only hope is to hug Scylla’s blood-soaked crag and sacrifice six of your men to her terrible hunger, lest your entire ship be drunk down by Charybdis’ horrible thirst. So you see, Odysseus, terror, danger, and death lurk down each of the paths you might take. You must choose.”
Odysseus was already puzzling and scheming over this new information like the brilliant tactician that he was. “Okay, so – Charybdis. Can’t I make a break past her and fight off Scylla while she tries to attack our ship?” Circe laughed. “Always looking for an edge, Odysseus. Alas, Scylla is not a mortal foe that can be fought with your blade, swift though it is. She is a force of nature, an undying devastation: terrible, savage, and wild. There is no fighting her, no possible defense. The only way to survive her is to flee. If you stand and fight, she’ll seize your men, drag them away, then come back to murder more of them. No, Odysseus, you have no choice but to run from Scylla, to row for your very lives. Perhaps if you invoke Crataeis, Scylla’s mother, she can forestall her next attack.
“If you should survive whichever path you choose, you will come then to the island of Thrinacia, where Helios the sun god grazes his sacred cattle, fat sheep, and sleek oxen. They are immortal, neither dying nor bearing new young, and they are herded by nymphs with golden hair: Phaethusa and Lampetie, daughters of Helios and Naira, herself a nymph. Leave these beasts unharmed, for they are beloved of Helios, and set your mind on home. You and your men may yet all make it back to Ithaca, though more hardships await you, but only if you do not touch the cattle of the sun god.” For those keeping score at home, Odysseus has now had two incredibly powerful figures, famous for possessing hidden knowledge, warn him to leave the cows the fuck alone. That’s what we in the business call foreshadowing.
As Circe finished speaking, Dawn broke over the island. Circe bid Odysseus farewell and returned to her home, leaving Odysseus with his men and his black ship. Considering well her warnings, the Greek captain began to issue commands, ordering the ship back out to sea once more for the next deadly leg of their journey home. The men obeyed at once, taking up their oars and rowing in a familiar rhythm, churning the water to froth. As a final gift to the man who had shared her bed for a year, Circe sent a gentle wind in their wake to speed the black ship along in its journey, allowing the oarsmen to sit back and rest as the sail did the work for a while.
As they headed out to open water, Odysseus wrestled with what to tell his men, with how much of the terrible secrets he had learned from Tiresias and Circe he should share with them. On the one hand, they deserved to know what they were heading into; on the other, he didn’t want to scare them into being unable to do what was necessary for the ship’s survival when the time came. After much deliberation, he decided to tell his men some of the truth, but not all of it.
“My comrades, it wouldn’t be fair for me to be the only one to know the revelations that Circe made to me last night as I discussed what I had learned on our perilous trek into the Underworld. Now that we are on the open sea, where we belong, I will share what I have learned with you so that we can all either thumb our noses at Fate together or die with our eyes open and our swords drawn together. The path home is dangerous, and the next peril we’re heading towards is the island of the Sirens. She warned that I alone should hear their voices (which isn’t really what she said, but it’s what Odysseus wanted to hear), so you will have to bind me to the mast so tightly that I can’t possibly free myself. I will probably beg you to free me, command you to release me, but I am telling you now that I will be under the spell of the Siren’s song and you must not obey! Do not untie those ropes until we are safely past! If I beg you to free me, add more rope instead.” Odysseus didn’t bother to tell them yet what lay beyond the Sirens. One peril at a time was enough and besides: Odysseus hadn’t yet made up his mind which path to take.
Odysseus walked his men through the preparations for the Sirens point by point, driving home the importance of keeping the beeswax firmly shoved in their ears and of ignoring any demands from their captain to untie him. All the while, Circe’s brisk wind carried them along until, in an instant, the wind died into an absolute, deadly calm. Everyone could feel the sense of dread that quivered in the air, made all the more ominous by the lack of wind and the suddenly still ocean, flat and calm as glass. Well-trained, they leapt to strike the sail and break out the oars. While they worked, Odysseus took his sharp sword and sliced a large wheel of beeswax into chunks for every man, then kneaded them down into earplugs with the warmth of his hands and the heat of the sun’s rays. One by one, Odysseus went to each of his men in turn and plugged up their ears himself to make sure it was done right. Once everyone had been protected, they lashed Odysseus to the main mast with thick rope, hand and foot, until he couldn’t even wiggle.
By then, Odysseus could see the island off the forward bow. The ship moved smoothly through the still seas, broken only by the churning of the oars, carrying the ship past the dread isle. When they came within roughly shouting distance of the shore, the Sirens sensed the presence of the black ship and began to sing.
“Come to us, famous Odysseus – pride and joy of Achaea! Come closer, moor your ship on our coast and listen to our song. Never has any sailor passed our shores in his tall black ship without stopping to listen to our honeyed voices, pouring forth from our mouths like sweet wine. Once he has heard our words, once he has listened to his heart’s content, he is a wiser man. We know all the pain that the Achaeans and the Trojans endured over ten years of constant war on the spreading plains of Troy by the will of the gods. All that happens on the earth, all that has been or will be, we know, Odysseus! Come and listen and learn!”
Many scholars have commented on how interesting it is that the Siren song is one of the soul and not of the flesh. In modern stories, the Siren song always seems to drip with sex, but that’s not what they offered here. Instead, they offered Odysseus what he wants most – knowledge and glory. I mean, he’s had himself tied to the mast of the ship, risking his life and his sanity, because he simply had to know what song the Sirens sang as well as the glory of knowing he was the only person ever to hear it and live. Later writers have made the Sirens into cannibals, based primarily on Circe’s description of shriveled, rotting corpses strewn along the rocky shores, but nothing in this story really supports that. It’s far more likely that the sailors who heard their song, singing to them their greatest and most deeply held desires, did exactly as they bid Odysseus do and sailed for the shore. The island where the Sirens dwell has been placed at a number of different places, but all are rocky, dangerous spots for ships to sail and it is likely that many black ships dashed themselves to pieces trying to reach the Sirens. Indeed, the fact that the bodies have been left to rot implies that they have not actually been eaten. Several writers have suggested that the Sirens are like the Sphinx (who we haven’t met yet) but have had their feathers stolen, perhaps by the gods, stranding them on a barren island. They survive without food, being immortal creatures, but even the humans who make it there alive soon starve to death, unwilling or unable to leave the seductive song of the Sirens.
Odysseus heard their call and his heart ached to stay and listen longer, to hear these secrets and mysteries that had been hinted at. What wonderful things could he learn if he had a little more time? Unfortunately for him, the ship was steadily moving away from the island now and soon the song would be lost on the wind. Odysseus struggled to free himself, but his men had done their jobs well and he couldn’t move. He tried to yell at them, to demand his freedom, but they couldn’t hear him any more than they could hear the Sirens through the wax in their ears. He tried to signal them with frowns and contorted facial expressions to let him go, but they looked away and rowed even harder. Perimedes and Eurylochus, his lieutenants, sprang forward to pile more rope on Odysseus to ensure he stayed safely tied to the mast. Only once they had left the awful stillness behind, once Odysseus no longer strained and struggled to reach his own doom did the men untie him and then unstop their ears. They had made it past the danger.
Their relief didn’t last for more than a few moments before Odysseus spied smoke rising up from the water, its source lost in suddenly massive waves. The crashing thunder they made as they broke on the rising cliffs was deafening, and it terrified the previously jubilant Greek sailors. Oars fell from nerveless fingers and clattered to the deck, leaving the ship drifting helplessly on the currents. The last thing they needed right now was to be adrift, so Odysseus went from man to man, offering a clap on the back or a brave word to each as he went. “Friends, we’re no strangers to peril, are we? This new danger is no worse than anything else we’ve survived – certainly no worse than braving the Cyclops in his dank lair! My brilliant leadership and clever tactics got us through that threat and every other we’ve faced, and I’ll see us through this as well, just you watch!” Humility is definitely not one of Odysseus’ virtues, but he’s also not completely wrong and maybe his men really needed someone to believe in right then.
“We will live to remember this day, I guarantee it! What I need all of you to do is listen to me and heed my orders.” He began to call out commands for the oarsmen and the helmsman to keep the ship clear of the rocks and surging breakers and head for the towering cliffs instead. Having seen his men react to the crashing of the Planctae, he now opted to brave Scylla and Charybdis instead. It’s arguably the smarter move, especially considering that, instead of having the favor of a god on his journey, he’s been cursed by ill-fortune from them the entire time. What he definitely did not do was tell his men of the terrible monsters they were sailing towards in place of the Wandering Rocks. He hadn’t realized how soon after the Sirens they would encounter this next threat, and he hadn’t had time to break it to them gently. If he told them now, when their courage was already hanging by a thread, they might break and doom them all.
Believing that Odysseus was driving them away from danger and into the relative safety of the lee between the crags, the men hastened to obey his orders. Odysseus considered Circe’s advice not to arm themselves and try to fight the doom that waited for them in Scylla’s cave, but that just wasn’t his style. He was a soldier and if he was going to stare Death in the face, he would do it with a sword in his hands. Ignoring Circe, he dressed in his armor (which no one wore on the ships most of the time since heavy metal would be a huge problem if you were swept overboard and had to swim), buckled on his sword, and took up his long spears in his hands. With a last, proud look at his soldiers skillfully maneuvering the ship, Odysseus moved up to the prow to watch for the lurking monsters.
Eyes peeled for the bloody ghoul waiting to devour his men, Odysseus waited. He scanned the cliffs until his eyes burned and his head ached, but he couldn’t catch even a glimpse of her dread form. Mist clung to the rocky cliffs, shrouding everything in soft obscurity. By now, the terrible chaos in the ocean that marked Charybdis’ home could be clearly seen by the sailors, and they began to wail in terror at the sight. At first, she spewed up the sea, making the surface seethe and spray like a boiling cauldron and throwing debris clear up to the top off both peaks. As they approached, Charybdis began a new cycle of drinking down the sea, and that was far, far worse. As the sea water coursed down her vast gullet, a hole opened in the ocean, revealing the usually sunless depths clear down to the black sand and bedrock, steaming and boiling with deep-sea magma vents.
The poor Ithacan soldiers stared in horror at the awful maelstrom swirling the sea, far vaster than anything they’d ever imagined, their faces going an ashen gray with sheer terror. Even Odysseus’ eyes were drawn to the impossible sight, and that’s when Scylla struck. She knew the effect Charybdis had on people and knew it would give her an opening. With devastating speed, six heads snatched six sailors from the black ship and dragged them screaming and bleeding into the depths of her cave. Odysseus couldn’t do anything but watch as his sailors screamed and flailed in agony as they sailed over his head. His face was spattered with hot drops of their blood as their raw throats screamed his name, begging their captain to save them with their last breaths. Now, at last, he saw Scylla crouched in the maw of her cave as she gulped down the six men, raw and wriggling. That image was burned into Odysseus’ soul, haunting him more than any other piteous sight he had endured on the high seas during his terrible trip home, according to his own words in the original story.
Fortunately, his sailors had done their jobs well before disaster had struck, and the black ship sailed smoothly between the two terrible creatures and out into the safety of calmer seas once more. Ahead, they could see the verdant Island of the Sun, a veritable paradise after their recently endured horrors. His men needed a break and good solid earth beneath their feet for a while, so they made way for the home of lord Hyperion. It was also where the sun god kept his flocks, tended by his nymphly daughters. As they crossed the open sea for the green island, Odysseus could hear the gentle lowing of cattle. The sound brought to mind the warnings of both Circe and Tiresias. Both had warned him to avoid this island, pleasant though it seemed. Both had made dire, repeated warnings, in fact. He realized that his fate, and the fates of his men, balanced on the edge of a knife, so he did the unthinkable – Odysseus was open and honest with his men.
“Hear me my friends, my comrades, my brothers in hardship! I have had dread prophecy from both Circe and Tiresias – indeed, this is the knowledge that we braved the dark Underworld to find. Both warned me repeatedly to avoid this island, that disaster lurked for us in the tall, lush grasses of the Sun God’s paradise. Both told me to race on past, oars pounding the surf, and avoid this place.”
The men were not happy about this news. They were not happy with Odysseus either. It was Eurylochus who spoke first, the lieutenant who had been so terrified when they first came to Circe’s island and had tried then to lead a mutiny. He had failed to get the support he needed then, but the crew was shocked by their brush with death and the sudden demise of six more of their comrades, and they were shaken. They wanted desperately to relax on a pleasant island, and Eurylochus figured the time was ripe for another mutiny.
“You’re a hard man to serve, Odysseus. Your fighting spirit is stronger than ours, and your stamina never seems to fail. You must be made of solid iron, head to foot, and your heart along with the rest of you. Look at us! We’re falling to pieces, Captain! The men are half-dead with exertion, terribly sleep deprived, and ready to collapse where they stand and now you tell us that it’s too dangerous to set foot on that paradise over there? That we can’t go ashore and catch the first decent meal we’ve had in weeks? Night is falling and we’re dead tired, and you would have us blunder off into the open sea again? Out there, in the mist and the wild winds and the heaving waves, a cyclone could rise from Noteus (the South Wind) or even Zephyrus (the West Wind) and tear us to pieces! Exhausted as we are, we wouldn’t stand a chance against a gale right now. We need rest, Odysseus, real rest! I say we ship our oars for the night and land on the island. If you’re so worried, we can all hang tight by the ship, get a good night’s rest, then set back out in the morning. I’m not asking, Odysseus, I’m telling you – we’re landing.” The men cheered Eurylochus’ words, which echoed their own exhausted, terrified hearts.
Odysseus however could see disaster brewing. This was why he had received multiple repetitions of the warning to avoid this island. It looked nice and safe, but he knew that doom waited in paradise. He knew that he had to convince his men to listen to his warnings and heed his advice to do the right thing rather than the easy thing. “Eurylochus, you’re making a mistake but I can see the writing on the wall. It’s everyone against me, and I can’t make you all follow the warnings of a goddess and a seer if you don’t want to. We’ll make for shore if you all insist, but I beg you to swear your solemn oaths to me, here and now, that if anyone comes across a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep, you won’t lay a fucking finger on them! No one, not a single goddamned one of you, can touch the herds or flocks of the sun god, and you damn sure can’t slaughter one. We’ll make camp on the beach and eat the wonderful food that Circe provided us with before we left her island.”
Each and every man, even Eurylochus, swore the oath that Odysseus required and so, against his better judgment, the black ship dropped anchor on the beach. The exhausted Ithacans disembarked from their black ship, grateful to feel solid land under their feet again. This was a gentle, sweet-smelling island and surely nothing bad could happen here, right? We’re going to let Odysseus and his men lick their wounds for a while here on the beach as we double back a little for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monsters are Scylla and Charybdis.
In the ancient world, the phrase ‘between Scylla and Charybdis’ was used to mean basically the same thing as ‘between a rock and a hard place’. We already saw where they both end up at the end of their tales (usually placed in the modern Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily, but Homer never covers their origin stories; fortunately for us, other ancient writers did. Since Scylla usually comes first in the classic pair, we’ll discuss her first.
Scylla made her first appearance in the Odyssey, in the passages we just covered. It isn’t until Ovid’s Metamorphosis that we learn that, before her sea monster days, Scylla was a beautiful nymph who lived in a coastal town in Calabria in modern Italy now named in her honor. Her parents vary depending on which writer you consult, but most (including Homer and Ovid) agree that her mother was Crataeis, although later accounts claim that this was another name for the goddess Hecate, goddess of witchcraft and crossroads. Neither Homer nor Ovid provides the identity of her father, giving later writers the freedom to declare her father to be variously Apollo, Triton, Typhon, or Phorkys (a primordial sea-god).
Whomever her parents might have been, Scylla grew up to be a beautiful woman (which is often a very dangerous thing in Greek mythology). She soon caught the eye of Glaucus, who is a strange character in and of himself. According to Ovid, Glaucus began life as a mortal fisherman living in Boeotia. He stumbled across a magical herb that could bring fish back to life and, like you do, decided to see what would happen if he ate it himself. The results were…mixed (I know, shocker). On the one hand, it made him immortal and effectively raised him to godhood; on the other, it caused him to grow fins in place of arms and a fish’s tail in place of his legs (though other variants have him just becoming a fairly ugly merman). Either way, he was now doomed to spend his eternal life in the sea. He was initially pretty peeved about it (though he had no one but himself to blame), but after being warmly received by sea Titans Oceanus and Tethys, who taught him the gift of prophecy, he adapted.
Back to Scylla. She was not overly enthused by the amorous advances of this old, slimy fish-man but, as is often the case, he wasn’t interested in hearing the word ‘no’ and persisted. To get away from this obnoxious ass, Scylla went to a place she knew he couldn’t get to her – a high promontory on a sheer cliff face. You begin to see where this is going.
Gluacus, who still wouldn’t get the fucking hint, decides that he needs a little supernatural help and goes to see Circe. Yes, that Circe. He goes to the goddess and begs her for a love potion to make Scylla feel for him the way that he does for her. Given her situation in Homer, I presume that she’s already stuck on her isolated man-free island and every bit as lonely as she is when she meets Odysseus and swings from murderous to horny in seconds. She finds herself catching feelings for Glaucus and suggests that, instead of a nymph who wants nothing to do with a fish-man, maybe he would like to make some salty ocean love with her instead? Glaucus is totally enamored with Scylla however, and he refuses Circe’s advances (utterly unaware of the irony).
Circe’s temper is mercurial at best, and she flipped from horny to murderous in seconds (at least she’s consistently inconsistent). She becomes hatefully jealous of this Scylla bitch and decides to fuck up her day. Instead of a love potion, she brews a vial of poison. Glaucus, who has been watching the object of his obsession in a definitely creepy way, tells Circe that Scylla regularly bathes in the same pool, so the witch dumps her poison into the water there. The magical poison does it’s work quickly, transforming the beautiful woman into a monster that terrifies even herself: a frightful beast with four eyes and six long, sinuous necks with their own gruesome heads filled with triple rows of serrated shark teeth. She has 12 powerful tentacles for legs and a lashing cat’s tail, while her waist is ringed with six snarling dog heads (although Homer’s description is more of a crab-like shell). She hid herself away in her inaccessible cliffside hideaway, emerging only long enough to devour passing food.
Charybdis’ story is also a tragic one, though at least here she gets to play a somewhat active role in the events leading up to her monstrous transformation (while Scylla just happened to get caught in a love triangle she had no desire to be a part of). She was once a naiad, a sea nymph. She is usually considered to be a daughter of Gaia the earth goddess and Poseidon the sea god, which makes sense as she was in charge of the surging tides, especially those after a storm raised by her father.
According to the ancient scholia on the Odyssey, there are two main origins for her existence. In the less interesting one, Charybdis got caught stealing and eating the sheep that Heracles had himself stolen from Geryon during his tenth labor. Zeus is enraged that she’s stealing what his son rightfully stole first (because, as always, sky gods are assholes) and turned her into the ever-thirsting sea monster in punishment.
The other version begins with Charybdis being a loyal, if overzealous, daughter. In a number of myths, Poseidon is gruff and quick to anger befitting his title as lord of earthquakes and stormy seas. He also often resented his brother Zeus’ larger dominion over the earth and sky, and would frequently contest with other gods for dominion of seaside and riverside cities, usually losing (as we saw with Athens back in Episode 26D).
Given his running feud, Charybdis would do her part to try and expand her father’s dominion. During storms and with the surging tides, she would drag beaches, houses, and even whole towns down into the stormy seas to belong to Poseidon’s watery kingdom. Zeus became enraged at her for stealing too much land for the ocean and changed her into a horrible monster. He made her one enormous bladder, all mouth and teeth, with only tiny vestigial flippers for arms and legs, forcing her to stay put on the bottom of the sea and drink it in three times a day, resulting in the devastating whirlpool that Odysseus encounters. Interestingly, there actually is a whirlpool in the Strait of Messina where the currents meet, though it’s actually rather weak and not a danger to any but the smallest boats – it could very well have been something of a terror for a small wooden fishing boat however. So if you ever find yourself in southern Italy, maybe go take a look at this ancient meeting of the monsters – but don’t get too close.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, it’s our annual Valentine’s Day special. You’ll learn where Disney got Mother Goethel from, where witches keep the best veggies, and where princes go to get frisky. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s an old-school romance-themed horror story. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.