‘But no sooner had we passed the Island than I saw smoke arising and heard the roaring of the sea. My company threw down their oars in terror. I went amongst them to hearten them, and I made them remember how, by my device, we had escaped from the Cave of the Cyclops. I told them nothing of the monster Scylla, lest the fear of her should break their hearts. And now we began to drive through that narrow strait. On one side was Scylla and on the other Charybdis. Fear gripped the men when they saw Charybdis gulping down the sea. But as we drove by, the monster Scylla seized six of my company—the hardiest of the men who were with me. As they were lifted up in the mouths of her six heads they called to me in their agony. But I could do nothing to aid them. They were carried up to be devoured in the monster’s den. Of all the sights I have seen on the ways of the water, that sight was the most pitiful.’
Scylla is a six-headed monster, her body confined to a cave, who will extend her terrible necks and pluck six men from a ship, devouring them with ease, coming back for seconds if the ship does not pass quickly.
Charybdis is a deep, dark whirlpool that swallows ships whole.
Odysseus chooses to pass Scylla. He does not tell his crew his plan. Six men are eaten but they avoid Charybdis all together.
This Shadow puppet sequence was a first look at this story by the BC Upper School Students in the Spring Intensive