Scylla and Charybdis

Cultural  

1. In classical mythology, Scylla was a horrible six-headed monster who lived on a rock on one side of a narrow strait. Charybdis was a whirlpool on the other side. When ships passed close to Scylla's rock in order to avoid Charybdis, she would seize and devour their sailors. Aeneas, Jason, and Odysseus all had to pass between Scylla and Charybdis.

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Example Sentences

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Scylla and Charybdis

But so are the sirens, in many tellings, along with the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis.

From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2026

Without any winking irony or condescension to our ancient forebears in storytelling, the writer-director aims to rekindle our fascination with these oft-told tales: the Trojan Horse, the Sirens’ song, Scylla and Charybdis.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

Especially when contemplating prospects for life on distinctly alien worlds such as the ocean moons of the outer solar system, researchers must carefully navigate between these two interlinked hazards—the Scylla and Charybdis of astrobiology.

From Scientific American ● Jul. 16, 2021

Scylla and Charybdis were sea monsters who assumed the forms of a rocky shoal and a whirlpool respectively on either side of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2015

In those waters was that most perilous strait guarded by Scylla and Charybdis, which the Argonauts had succeeded in passing only because Thetis helped them and where Ulysses had lost six of his men.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton