The whirlpool
Circe describes Charybdis as a terror that swallows the dark water three times a day and spits it up again. A ship caught in the vortex is lost. She tells Odysseus to steer toward Scylla rather than risk the whirlpool, and he follows her advice.
The description is one of the poem’s most vivid pieces of natural terror. Charybdis has no personality and no purpose; she is the sea as an indifferent force, and the poem’s personification of her is minimal.
The fig tree
After the crew eats the cattle of Helios and Zeus destroys the ship, Odysseus alone survives. He is swept back to the strait and clings to a fig tree above Charybdis, waiting for the whirlpool to spit out the mast and keel. He drops onto the wreckage and paddles away.
The scene is the lowest point of the wanderings. Odysseus has lost everything except his life and his cunning, and the whirlpool is the image of a destruction that cannot be argued with or outwitted.
Relations
Backlinks 2
The following entries mention “Charybdis”.