Chapter 18: Other Myths
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♠ Homer, Odyssey 12.124-25
Nay, row past with all thy might, and call upon Crataiis, [125] the mother of Scylla, who bore her for a bane to mortals. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 12.80-100
And in the midst of the cliff is a dim cave, turned to the West, toward Erebus, even where you shall steer your hollow ship, glorious Odysseus. Not even a man of might could shoot an arrow from the hollow ship so as to reach into that vaulted cave. [85] Therein dwells Scylla, yelping terribly. Her voice is indeed but as the voice of a new-born whelp, but she herself is an evil monster, nor would anyone be glad at sight of her, no, not though it were a god that met her. Verily she has twelve feet, all misshapen, [90] and six necks, exceeding long, and on each one an awful head, and therein three rows of teeth, thick and close, and full of black death. Up to her middle she is hidden in the hollow cave, but she holds her head out beyond the dread chasm, [95] and fishes there, eagerly searching around the rock for dolphins and sea-dogs and whatever greater beast she may haply catch, such creatures as deep-moaning Amphitrite rears in multitudes past counting. By her no sailors yet may boast that they have fled unscathed in their ship, for with each head she carries off [100] a man, snatching him from the dark-prowed ship. Greek Text
♠ Hesiod, Megalai Ehoiai (Great Catalogue of Women) fr 262 MW – Fragmenta Hesiodea, p. 128, ed. R. Merkelbach and M.L. West. Oxford 1967.
Schol. Ap. Rhod. 4.828 (p. 295.21 Wendel) “Skylla… whom night-wandering Hekate, the one that they call the Krataiis, bare to Phorkos”
In the great Ehoiai Skylla is the daughter of Phorbas and Hekate. (Transl. E. Bianchelli)
♠ Akousilaos 2F42 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 57, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Scholion at Homer, Odyssey 12.85 – Scholia Graeca in Homeris Odysseam, vol. 2, pp. 536-37, ed. W. Dindorf. Oxford 1855.
♠ Stesichoros 220 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 118 ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
♠ Plutarch, Moralia 398c – vol. 5, pp. 280-81, ed. F. C. Babbitt, Cambridge, Mass., 1957.
Greek Text and English Translation
♠ Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.12.1
The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans. Greek Text
♠ Timotheos 793 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 414 ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
♠ Timotheos 794 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 415 ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
♠ Apollonios of Rhodes, Argonautika 4.825-31
And let them not fall in their helplessness into Charybdis lest she swallow them at one gulp, or approach the hideous lair of Scylla, Ausonian Scylla the deadly, whom night-wandering Hecate, who is called Crataeis, bare to Phoreys, lest swooping upon them with her horrible jaws she destroy the chiefest of the heroes. But guide their ship in the course where there shall be still a hair’s breadth escape from destruction. Greek Text
♠ ApE 7.20 – Apollodoros, Epitome (summary of the last part of the Bibliotheke)
On the one side were the Wandering Rocks, and on the other side two huge cliffs, and in one of them was Scylla, a daughter of Crataeis and Trienus or Phorcus, with the face and breast of a woman, but from the flanks she had six heads and twelve feet of dogs. Greek Text
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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2022.
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