Scylla
Scylla names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Scylla in classical mythology
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in classical mythology, a daughter of Nisus, King of Megara. When Minos came from Crete to take vengeance for the death of his son, Androgeos, his efforts to take the city were fruitless as long as the purple lock on the head of Nisus remained unshorn. Urged by her love for Minos, Scylla cut off the fatal lock, and with it destroyed the life of her father and the safety of the city. According to one version Minos tied Scylla to the stern of his ship and drowned her; but another tale says that she was changed into a fish, which Nisus, transformed into an eagle, constantly pursued. The myth was localized in the names of the port of Nicea and the promontory Scyllæum. The "Odyssey" (xii. 73) speaks of another Scylla, a daughter of Cratæis, as a monster with 12 feet, six necks, and six mouths, each containing three rows of teeth. This being haunted a rock on the Italian coast; a neighboring rock being tenanted by Charybdis, who thrice every day swallowed the waters of the sea, and thrice threw them up again. Like Medusa, Scylla is represented in some legends as having been beautiful, and as having been changed into a monster through the jealousy of Circe or Amphitrite.
Scylla and CHARYBDIS (kar-ib' dis)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
and CHARYBDIS (kar-ib' dis), the former a famous promontory and town of southern Italy, at the entrance to the narrow strait separating Pacific (from Arctic Circle to 40° Italy from Sicily. The promontory is 200 feet high, projecting into the sea, and at its base is the town. The navigation at this place was looked upon by the ancients as attended with immense danger. At the present day the risk is not more than attends the doubling of an ordinary cape. Charybdis (modern name Galofaro) is a celebrated whirlpool in the Straits of Messina, nearly opposite the entrance to the harbor Messina in Sicily, and in ancient writings always mentioned in conjunction with Scylla. The navigation of this whirlpool is, even at the present day, considered to be very dangerous.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The mythology in Collier's 1921 account still stands: the Scylla who cut the purple lock from her father Nisus and the six-headed monster of Odyssey xii remain two distinct figures whom ancient poets themselves confused, and Ovid is still the fullest source for the first. What has moved is the sea. Charybdis, which Collier's still called "very dangerous" to navigate, is understood as a tidal race in the Strait of Messina, where opposing tides meet and produce whirlpools that are charted and predictable; car ferries and hydrofoils cross the two-mile strait on schedule all day, and Italy has repeatedly approved, then shelved, a suspension bridge across it. The town at the foot of the promontory is the modern Scilla in Calabria, a fishing port and beach resort of a few thousand people.
Written for this edition, 2026.