Glaucus et Scylla — engraving

"Glaucus et Scylla"

"Glauque Dieu Marin ne pouuant se faire aymer de Scila Nimphe de Galathee, eut recours aux charmes de Circe, qui ayat conceiie une Amour passionnee pour luy, par Ialousie la changea en Monstre, ayant empoysonne son Bain".

From a series of six plates on Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Charybdis and Scylla, sea monsters from the Strait of Messina. Scylla was once a sweet nymph. However, she chose to go to the company of the Nereids. Glaucus, a simple fisherman, once laid a fish on the grass on the shore and the fish immediately returned to the sea. Surprised by this miracle, he tried several branches of the enchanted grass and suddenly felt himself being drawn into deep waves. His body was covered in algae and lost its deadly essence and gained a fish tail. Glaucus took on the appearance of an old man with thick white hair and a damp beard. Poseidon welcomed this new inhabitant of the waters, considering him one of the deities of the Ocean. However, one day Glaucus saw the beautiful Scylla and admired her, he confessed his love for her. The imperturbable nymph despised him and fled to her lair. Enraged and offended, he went to Circe's palace, begging the goddess to make Scylla sensitive to his tenderness. However, the terrible sorceress herself fell in love with this new god of the sea and advised him to forget about Scylla, but Glaucus remained deaf to Circe’s advances. The offended goddess took revenge by pouring poison into the water in which Scylla was bathing. As soon as the nymph stepped into the sea, everything changed for her. She became twelve hands with sharp claws. Surrounding his waist were six dog heads with open mouths and sharp, bloody teeth. Frightened by herself, Scylla threw herself into the sea and turned into a dangerous boulder, where the waves crash and crash with a deafening noise. From that day on, she became a terrible disaster that terrifies gods and mortals. From the hollow of her rock she sticks out her ugly heads and swallows all the ships and sailors that pass near her. In front of Scylla's rock lies a stormy abyss called Charybdis. This daughter of Poseidon and Gaia was struck and turned into an abyss by Zeus because she dared to devour several oxen from the herd of Hercules. These two sea monsters inhabit both sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy, causing the rushing tides to rush in rapid eddies between the rocks of this narrow passage, famous for its shipwrecks. The proverb 'Fall from Charybdis to Scylla', used in ancient times, means 'falling from one danger to another'.

Technique, Material: Copper engraving / Paper
Artist:   Engraver: Francois Chauveau
Date, Publisher: Jacques van Merle, Ile-de-France, 'Recueil de diverces pieces de la Metamorphose d'Ovide', Paris (France), 1630–1676 гг.
Size: sheet 15 x 21,6 cm.