Charybdis
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(n.) A dangerous whirlpool on the coast of Sicily opposite Scylla on the Italian coast. It is personified as a female monster. See Scylla.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Neptune and the Earth.- The myth makes her residence-the Sicilian strait. There is a dangerous eddy there, perhaps more formidable to the light-built ships of the ancients than it appears to us. - Charybdis is represented as, a rapacious woman, who robbed Hercules of his herds, land was therefore hurled into the sea by Jupiter's lightnings, still retaining her old nature. She lived in a rock under an overhanging fig-tree, and threatened. all passers-by with death and destruction. In order to still her hunger she devoured whole ships, with all in them. Three times every day she would swallow the sea-water and throw it out again with a loud noise, drowning everything. that came within reach. On the opposite. shore Scylla also destroyed the ships of mariners. Hence the Latin proverb, "Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdin."
