s frequently employing the story, Milton did not use the
proverb.

Not only the story but the proverb, was known to Shakspeare, who makes
Launcelot use it in his plain talk with Jessica:[7]--"Truly, then, I
fear you are damned both by father and mother; thus, when I shun Scylla,
your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are gone both
ways." Malone, in his note to this passage, written in the last century,
says,--"Alluding to the well-known line of modern Latin poet, Philippe
Gaultier, in his poem entitled 'Alexandreis.'" To this note of Malone's,
another editor, George Steevens, whose early bibliographical tastes
inspired the praise of Dibdin, adds as follows:--"Shakspeare might have
met with a translation of this line in many places; among others in the
Dialogue between _Custom and Veretie_, concerning the use and abuse of
Dancing and Minstrelsie:--

"'While Silla they do seem to shun,
In Charibd they do fall.'"

But this proverb had already passed into tradition and speech. That
Shakspeare should absorb and use it was natural. He was the universal
absorbent.

The history of this verse seemed for a while forgotten. Like the
Wandering Jew, it was a vagrant, unknown in origin, but having perpetual
life. Erasmus, whose learning was so vast, quotes the verse in his great
work on Proverbs, and owns that he does not know the author of it. Here
is this confession:--"_Celebratur apud Latinos_ hic versiculus,
quocunque natus auctore, _nam in presentia non occurrit_."[8] It seems
from these words that this profound scholar regarded the verse as
belonging to antiquity: at least I so interpret the remark, that it was
"celebrated among the Latins." But though ignorant of its origin, it is
clear that the idea which it embodies found much favor with this
representative of moderation. He dwells on it with particular sympathy,
and reproduces it in various forms. Here is the equivalent on which he
hangs his commentary: _Evitata Charybdi, in Scyllam incidi_. It is easy
to see how inferior in form this is to the much-quoted verse. It seems
to be a literal translation of some Greek iambics, also of uncertain
origin, although attributed to Apostolius, one of the learned Greeks
scattered over Europe by the fall of Constantinople. There is also
something like it in the Greek of Lucian.[9] Erasmus quotes words of
kindred sentiment from the "Phormio" of Terence: _Ita fugias ne praeter
casam_, which he tells us