Can someone explain to me what had happened in the part with Scylla and Charybdis in the novel, The Odyssey, b

Answer 1

In classical mythology, Scylla was a horrible six-headed monster who lived on a rock on one side of a narrow strait. Charybdis was a whirlpool on the other side. When ships passed close to Scylla’s rock in order to avoid Charybdis, she would seize and devour their sailors. Aeneas, Jason, and Odysseus all had to pass between Scylla and Charybdis.

The full story of this section of the Odyssey you can see at the attached Bartleby link below.

Answer 2

To get home, Odysseus has to sail between two monsters. Charybdis is a kind of sea-monster that sucks down water--if he sails too close to it, Odysseus and his ship will get sucked into the stomach of Charybdis. But to stay far away from Charybdis, he has to sail near Scylla, a six-headed monster that will certainly kill six of his men as they sail past. He has to sacrifice those six men to save the ship as a whole. As I recall, he does not tell his men what they will face.