Charybdis and Scylla

Here's a self-indulgent little piece of waffle for fans of English sayings, the French language, Greek mythology, and The Hobbit...

Last night, over dinner with a random flopsy back at my crib, I was siezed by a sudden urge to look up the bit in The Hobbit where Bilbo and the Dwarves are about to leave Beorn's place and head off into Mirkwood (more precisely, I was looking for the description of Beorn's famous twice-baked honey cakes). However, the only copy at hand was my French edition Bilbo le Hobbit (purchased long ago when I was learning French but -- I confess -- never read fully). As Tracy Jordan would say: "a quandary; a QUANDARY!".

Determined to dig out the passage at all costs, I bravely plunged in, hoping my French skills would hold up in this challenging context. I quickly became distracted by the fun of pondering the French chapter titles, and decided to use this as the basis of a quiz for the floozy (whose interest was quite understandably starting to flag at this point). We also dabbled in the game of translating the riddles from Bilbo's contest with Gollum (and then trying to guess the answers). But, to come to my point: my attention was grabbed by a chapter entitled "De Charybdis en Scylla".

Now, my French vocab is not too shabby (for an étranger), but I was drawing a blank here. However, my quasi-encyclopaedic recollection of the English chapter titles quickly suggested that this must be the translation of "Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire". Clearly they weren't translating word for word -- so what was this funky translation all about?

(If, unlike me, you've read The Odyssey -- or happen otherwise to know something about Greek mythology -- you're probably sniggering up your sleeve at my ignorance at this point...)

Looking up "Charybdis" in the French dico, I immediately found that the word exists in French solely as part of the expression "tomber de Charybdis en Scylla", which means (quelle surprise!) "to fall out of the frying pan into the fire". It turns out that, in Greek mythology, Charybdis and Scylla were a particularly nasty pair of monsters that sat across from each other on either side of the Messina strait off the coast of Sicily (supposedly: nowadays there is some debate about the actual location), waylaying hapless sailors as they passed through.

And here's where it gets interesting (poor Flopsy, waiting patiently): looking in my trusty crossword-lovers' Chambers Dictionary, it turns out we have a saying in English based on these guys: "to be between Charybdis and Scylla". Meaning, to use a more common metaphor, "to be between a rock and a hard place".

Wow, cool. From a chapter title in The Hobbit based on an English saying, to its French translation, and finally back to the English language with a different saying. Or, I guess you could say, "There And Back Again"...

As a postscript, this morning when I woke up these words were replaying in my mind and started sounding familiar. Then I hit upon it:

You consider me the young apprentice,

caught between Scylla and Charybdis

There it was all along, in The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger". How many times have I heard that without ever stopping to think about what the heck he was actually saying there?

P.S. If anyone is interested, have a go at these chapter titles (in no particular order):

Une Réception Inattendue

Curieux Logis

Tonneaux en Liberté

Grillade de Mouton

Enigmes dans l'Obscurité

Dans La Montagne et Sous La Montagne

Une Courte Pause

Mouches et Araignées