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[123] Scylla. Scylla and Charybdis were dangerous places to mariners sailing between Italy and Sicily. Scylla was a huge rock, round which the waves constantly dashing, and throwing up great quantities of foam, the poets, on account of the great noise and roaring always heard in this place, feigned that she was a monster, resembling in the upper part a woman, but from the middle downward surrounded with sea-dogs and wolves, or other noisy harking monsters. They tell us that she was a nymph of Crete, and daughter of Phorcus: that Glaucus the sea-god fell in love with her, and met with an equal return of passion. Circe loved Glaucus at the same time; and being fille! with indignation that her rival Scylla was preferred, poisoned the fountain in which she used to wash herself. The nymph, ignorant of what had been done against her, came to the fountain, according to custom, to bathe; which she had no sooner entered, than she perceived that from the middle downward she was a monster and an object of horror. Deeply regretting the loss of her former beauty, she threw herself into the neighbouring sea, where she was changed into a rock that afterwards became famous for shipwrecks. This is the Scylla most commonly referred to by the poets. But Ovid here seems to confound her with another Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, king of the Megarensians. She, becoming enamored of Minos while he besieged Mesara, betrayed to him her father and country; but he afterwards despised and abandoned her. Hence we have the reason of Medea's saying, “Debuit ingratis Scylla nocere viris:

For she, finding herself east off by Minos, for whom she had done so much, might with reason be supposed an enemy to ungrateful men.

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