SOME MONSTERS (8): SCYLLA

Scylla, Paestan red-figure krater
C4th B.C., J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu

It's true her voice sounds like a new-born pup,
but she's a vicious monster.  Nobody
would feel good seeing her, nor would a god
who crossed her path.  She has a dozen feet,
all deformed, six enormously long necks, 
with a horrific head on each of them,
and three rows of teeth packed close together,
full of murky death.  Her lower body
she keeps out of sight in her hollow cave,
but sticks her heads outside the fearful hole,
and fishes there, scouring around the rock
for dolphins, sword fish, or some bigger prey,
whatever she can seize of all those beasts
moaning Amphitrite keeps nourishing
in numbers past all counting.  No sailors   
can yet boast they and their ship sailed past her
without getting hurt.  Each of Scylla's heads
carries off a man, snatching him away   
right off the dark-prowed ship.

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Scylla's tail. Fragment of a marble group (mid 1st BCE) from the cave of Tiberius showing the ship of Ulysses attacked by Scylla.

She's not human,
but a destroyer who will never die—
fearful, difficult, and fierce—not someone  
you can fight.  There's no defence against her.
The bravest thing to do is run away. 
If you linger by the cliff to arm yourself,
I fear she'll jump out once more, attack you
with all her heads and snatch away six men,
just as before.  Row on quickly past her,
as hard as you can go.  Send out a call
to Crataiis, her mother, who bore her
to menace human beings. 

From Homer's Odyssey Book xii

Translated by Ian Johnston