Scylla Character Analysis in Metamorphoses

Scylla is the daughter of the king of Alcathoe. When Alcathoe is attacked by , Scylla falls in love with him. She battles internally as to whether she should betray her father and her homeland and be with the man she desires. She at last decides to sacrifice her city to Minos and steals the city’s keys from around her father’s neck while he sleeps. When she offers Minos the keys, Minos takes them but rejects Scylla’s love. Ashamed and angry, she jumps in the water and grabs hold of his ship as he sails away. She then transforms into a bird.

Scylla Quotes in Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses quotes below are all either spoken by Scylla or refer to Scylla . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

God helps those
who help themselves, remember, and fortune favors the brave.
Another woman whose passion was blazing as strongly as mine
would now be already destroying whatever opposed her love—
and delight in destroying it. Why should another be braver than I?

Related Characters: Scylla (speaker), Minos

Page Number and Citation: 72

Explanation and Analysis:

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