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Scylla as Spoiler in Metamorphoses 8

CYLLA, THE DAUGHTER OF NISUS, is one of several young women in the central books of the Metamorphoses who are faced with an inner struggle over yielding to an illicit object of desire and express their feelings in a dramatic soliloquy. This character, however, has not garnered a great deal of attention from scholars. In any case, it would be hard to compete with the powerful Medea in the first half of Book 7; among later characters, the incestuous Byblis and Myrrha are not guilty of fratricide or patricide, and the sympathetic Iphis is the victim of circumstances beyond her control. Although not ignoring the serious moral implications underlying her shearing of her father’s magical lock of hair, scholars often consider Scylla naive and mitigate her culpability to some extent. Brooks Otis, for instance, emphasizes Ovid’s “emotional identification of himself with Scylla” by which the poet grants her sympathy, if only to “a very moderate degree.” More recently, Carole Newlands has perceived in Scylla’s situation an implicit criticism of a young woman’s lack of choice in determining her own husband; she considers Scylla as a character far more sympathetic in her second speech, in which the young princess justly criticizes Minos for cynically profiting by her actions and expresses “repentance” for her crime. Chrysanthe Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, by contrast, emphasizes Scylla’s selfserving nature as she builds up to the crime against her father, aligning the young woman through etymological play on her name with a long tradition of morally outrageous females who are figuratively associated with dogs. This article explores Scylla through major literary models, examining how Ovid incorporates allusions first to Tarpeia and Phaedra as the daughter of Nisus becomes enamored of Minos and betrays her father, and then to Ariadne after the Cretan king departs. As I will show, the poet not only reveals Scylla’s underlying character flaws but also implies this self-involved young woman’s awareness of her literary predecessors. Through Scylla’s relation to erotically obsessed females in literary texts as well as her problematic behavior, the poet offers an alternate etymology for her name. It is well known that Scylla’s actions leading up to her decision to betray her city as well as her father by cutting the purple lock of hair fromNisus’ head are mod-