Odysseus between Scylla and Charybdis

Georg Danek

Abstract

In our Odyssey, this motif of «double danger» is not used when Odysseus passes by the two monsters with his ship and his comrades, as he has already been warned against Charybdis. The message of the episode consists in the dire necessity that Odysseus must sacrifice six men to Skylla, so to save the rest of them. The real choice «between Skylla and Charybdis» has been taken long before, in the dialogue between Odysseus and Kirke. Now we might look for a «simple story» with functional employment of the motif of the «double danger», i.e. some kind of «mythological concept» of the story about Skylla and Charybdis. I would like to suggest this «simple» version: «Odysseus is able to notice Skylla in time, so that he can avoid her contact by a quick side-step; but exactly this manœuvre throws him into the swirl of Charybdis, who is just beginning to operate by surprise and devours his ship so that he alone survives.
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