Character Catalog

Book XII of the Odyssey is the primary source on Charybdis. Homer describes in detail the monster's behavior, Circe's warning, and Odysseus's two passages past the whirlpool — the second of which is a solitary fight for survival.

Hesiod codifies the genealogy of Greek gods and monsters, including the sea creatures born from Poseidon's unions. This work establishes the cosmogonic framework within which Charybdis takes her place as a primordial force.

In this Hellenistic epic, Jason and the Argonauts sail past the strait of Scylla and Charybdis on their return voyage with the Golden Fleece, demonstrating the myth's enduring vitality three centuries after Homer and its integration into other heroic cycles.

Virgil revisits the passage of Charybdis during Aeneas's journey fleeing Troy for Italy. Book III of the Aeneid ensures the transmission of the Greek myth into Latin culture and, through it, into the entire Western literary tradition.

Ovid evokes Scylla and Charybdis in his tales of monstrous transformations, helping to spread and fix their image in the Roman imagination and in later medieval iconography.

"Below, you will see the other rock, Odysseus. It is lower; the two are close together, within bowshot of each other. There grows a great wild fig tree thick with leaves; beneath it, divine Charybdis sucks down the black water. Three times a day she spews it forth, and three times she gulps it down in a terrible manner."

"When Charybdis had drunk down the salt water of the sea, I dropped down into it, and swam swiftly through the water between the two rocks."

Hesiod alludes to the unions of Poseidon and the monsters born of marine gods, placing Charybdis among the primordial powers descended from Gaia and the deities of the sea.

"They were already passing the rock of Scylla and the deadly whirlpool of Charybdis, whose churning waters roared with a terrible sound."

"On the right, Scylla; on the left, insatiable Charybdis: three times she swallows the waves down to the abyss, and three times she hurls them back toward the stars in a mass of foam."

The mythical home of Charybdis, this strait stretching roughly 32 km separates Sicily from mainland Italy. Complex currents and whirlpools have been documented here since antiquity, giving rise to the myth.

It is on this island that the sorceress Circe warns Odysseus of the dangers of Charybdis and Scylla, giving him precise instructions for navigating the strait. She plays a key role in transmitting the myth within the Odyssey.

Odysseus's final destination, it is to reach this Greek island in the Ionian Sea that he must face Charybdis twice. Ithaca is the symbolic anchor of the Homeric journey.

The island where Odysseus's companions slaughter the sacred Cattle of the Sun, triggering Zeus's wrath and the shipwreck that leaves Odysseus alone to face Charybdis. Ancient tradition identifies it with Sicily.

A Greek colony founded in the 8th century BCE across from Messina, Rhegion was the starting point for sailors approaching the treacherous strait. Its inhabitants passed down accounts of the dangers posed by the currents.