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Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". [1] Several other idioms such as " on the horns of a dilemma ", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings. [ 2 ]
The Latin equivalent was the seafaring idiom of Scylla and Charybdis, 'He runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis' (incidit in scyllam cupiens vitare charybdim), a parallel pointed out by Edmund Arwaker in the moral that follows his verse treatment of the fable. [7]
"On one side lay Scylla and on the other divine Charybdis." [ 12 ] Odysseus was forced to choose between Scylla and Charybdis , two mythical sea monsters , an expression commonly known as Between Scylla and Charybdis .
Next was the pass of Scylla and Charybdis where he lost part of his ship's crew. The rest landed in the isle Thrinacia, sacred to Helios (the Sun) where he kept sacred cattle. Though Odysseus warned his men not to (as Tiresias had told him), they killed and ate some of the cattle after Zeus placed Odysseus in his sleep to test his crew.
Odysseus faced both Charybdis and Scylla while rowing through a narrow channel. He ordered his men to avoid Charybdis, thus forcing them to pass near Scylla, which resulted in the deaths of six of his men. Later, stranded on a raft, Odysseus was swept back through the strait and passed near Charybdis.
Line 70, describing how Ulysses sailed between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, is matched in the second passage by line 165 which describes how the fertile zone is located between the cold north and torrid south. There are also more subtle connections between the two.
This may be so, but as the lesson of the Scylla & Charybdis myth is to choose the lesser of two evils (viz. Homer), and the modern idiom implies going from a bad situation to worse one, the comparison is unhelpful. So I have taken it out: As it is, the Latin, with the translation, is self-explanatory.
Scylla and Charybdis are the names of two reductio arguments offered by Simon Blackburn against response-dependence theories (particularly of secondary qualities and value) in his "Circles, Finks, Smells, and Biconditionals", in Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 7, Language and Logic (1993), pp. 259-279.