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May 18
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painting, arts, art
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Henry Fuseli's Romance painting of
Odysseus facing the choice between Scylla and
Charybdis.
Scylla and Charybdis
are two sea monsters of Greek mythology who were situated on
opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, in
Italy.
They were located in close enough proximity to each other that they
posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors;
avoiding Charybdis meant passing too closely to Scylla and vice versa.
====================
Literary references
The phrase between Scylla and Charybdis, although infrequently used
today, has meant having to choose between two unattractive choices,
and is the progenitor of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place."
James Gillray, Britannia
between Scylla and Charybdis (1793)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley used Scylla
and Charybdis in an analogy of how society is poised
between anarchy and despotism in his work, in defence
of poetry. The passage reads:
'The rich have become richer, and the poor have
become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven
between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and
despotism'
/
