Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Nisus.
The gallery
Scylla et Nisus (Scylla Cutting Her Father's Lock)
Nicolas-André Monsiau, 1806
A drawing by the French Neoclassical painter Nicolas-André Monsiau (1754–1837), made to illustrate an 1806 Paris edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses. It captures the decisive moment of Nisus's downfall: Nisus, the sleeping king of Megara, lies beneath his daughter Scylla as she severs the single purple lock of hair on which his life and his city's safety depend. Having fallen in love with the besieging Cretan king Minos, Scylla steals the talisman to deliver Megara to him—a betrayal that, in Ovid's telling, ends with Nisus transformed into a sea-eagle. Monsiau renders the scene with restrained Neoclassical line, concentrating on the intimate horror of a child poised over a defenceless father.
Scylla Rejected by Minos After Destroying Her Father
Antonio Tempesta (with Wilhelm Janson), 1606
An etching (plate 73) from Antonio Tempesta's celebrated illustrated cycle of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in Amsterdam by Wilhelm Janson in 1606 and now held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It depicts the aftermath of Nisus's destruction: having cut away her father's protecting lock and handed Megara to Minos, Scylla is spurned by the Cretan king, who recoils in disgust at her parricidal treachery. Though the betrayed king is not the central figure, the scene hinges entirely on his death—the violation of Nisus's sacred lock is the act that has just unmade both his life and his kingdom. The Florentine printmaker Tempesta (1555–1630) condenses Ovid's narrative into a single dramatic confrontation on the Cretan shore.
Scylla Watching Minos from the Castle Walls
Antonio Tempesta (with Wilhelm Janson), 1606
An etching (plate 72) from Antonio Tempesta's 1606 series illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses, published by Wilhelm Janson and preserved at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It shows the opening of the tragedy that will destroy Nisus: from the fortified walls of her father's besieged Megara, the princess Scylla gazes down upon the Cretan king Minos and is inflamed by his beauty (the Latin caption reads Minois pulchritudine inflammatur Scylla). The walls she watches from are Nisus's own ramparts, defended by the purple lock she is about to betray. Tempesta sets the moment of fatal infatuation that precedes the cutting of the talisman and the king's ruin.