A
monster in
Greek mythology. Charybdis (pronounced "kar-IB-dis) had once been a
beautiful nymph, a daughter of
Poseidon and
Gaia. She caused
floods in order to expand her father's
kingdom, until she was transformed by
Zeus into a horrifying
sea monster. She was, of course, one half of the
Greek hip pop duo
Scylla and Charybdis, though, like
Andrew Ridgely, she tended to be overshadowed by her more visible partner.
Scylla and Charybdis lived on opposite sides of the narrow
Strait of Messina--
Scylla was the six-headed serpentine beast in a cave high on a cliff, and Charybdis was the rarely-seen one who lived in a
cave down at the water's edge. Three times a day, she would
suck down a huge amount of
water, then spit it back out again, forming a terrific
whirlpool. While Scylla could reach down and snare a half-dozen
sailors from any passing ship, Charybdis was considered the far more
dangerous threat, as she could effortlessly
destroy an entire
ship all by herself. Not even the
gods were capable of saving a ship that got trapped in Charybdis'
maw. Together, Scylla and Charybdis were colossally
deadly, and the Strait of Messina was considered completely impossible to
navigate because of them. Only the
Argonauts had been able to avoid both of the dangers, and that was because they had the guidance of
Thetis, one of the
Nereids.
In "
The Odyssey",
Odysseus was warned by
Circe that his best bet for getting past Scylla and Charybdis was to sail as rapidly as he could and to keep to Scylla's side of the
strait to avoid losing his ship and all his men to Charybdis' whirlpool. Odysseus was able to avoid Charybdis and get through the strait, but at the cost of six of his men, who were carried away by Scylla.
Research from http://www.pantheon.org/articles/c/charybdis.html, Bullfinch's Mythology, and http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Charybdis.html