Where Does Circe Appear In Book Ten Of The Odyssey?

This is so amazing. Here is where Homer describes the enchantress Circe’s house on the island of Aeaea (Aiaia in some versions) where the goddess lives with her many female servants and, it is said, her many rituals, feasts, and all manner of things. After a very difficult stretch of travel during which many terrible things have befallen him and his men, Odysseus and his crew arrive on this island, and after some initial ceremony, Circe turns the men into pigs and they are to live in her house as livestock, one of the most disturbing moments in all of the Odysseia and it occurs in book 10 of the Odyssey.

As for the rest of this part of Homer’s epic, this part of the story is filled with so much detail, so much depth. Even though the transformations of Odysseus’ men into pigs and their subsequent wandering as animals is dark and the beginning of Odysseus’ stay on Circe’s island, Aiaia, to be filled with strange and occasionally brilliant and beautiful elements of story, the end of the time he spent on the island is wonderful and meaningful in its own right. First of all, there is Hermes, the messenger god, and his gift of moly to Odysseus, which makes him immune to Circe’s magic, and then his charge to Odysseus to confront Circe and to warn her that he comes peaceably but also prepared for war. After that, the Odysseus who confronts Circe is very different from the Odysseus who arrived at her island a short time before. The Circe who confronts him is also very different from the Circe who drugged and transformed his men.

In terms of the translation you read, often the episodes are divided up between the books of the Odyssey. So, for example, the chapters with Aeolus and the Laestrygonians would likely be included in Book 10 with the Circe episode, but different translations have arranged the scenes between books in order to create better single volumes of the Odyssey. Thus, it is generally safe to say that the scenes described in Book 10 take place on the island Aeaea and that the Circe episode extends over the better part of the book. Detailed knowledge of specific translations will reveal other variations. But there is enough consistency in the basic events of the episode to allow for recognition of it and particularly of the indispensible scene in which Hermes approaches Odysseus with a sprig of the magic plant moly, protecting the hero from the sorcery of the goddess. This is an extraordinary and much commented-on scene. But it is followed by others, full of much more mundane detail—of a long sojourn on the island of the goddess; of bartered gifts; of a feast given in honor of Odysseus; and of much leisure for intimate conversation with Circe. There is, in addition, much valuable advice given by the goddess to the hero in this long sojourn on her island and he is given clear direction for the balance of his journey in the world below the earth. Thus, while the beginning of the visit of Odysseus to the home of Circe is all dark and dramatic and surely amongst the strangest scenes in all of literature, there follows a long sojourn and, in the end, much hospitality. It is, I should note, a scenario that heralds in an equally dark but, importantly, greatly appreciated episode in Book 11 of the Odyssey, in which the hero of the epic consults with the great prophet of the dead in order to learn the answer to his greatest problem.

Re-reading this section a week or so ago, I realized that in most editions Book 10 begins with and largely comprises the episode at Aeaea, ending with Odysseus’ departure on the black ships to go to the Underworld. That section begins with Odysseus describing how he and his men arrived at Aeaea. After leaving Calypso, they had continued on, sent ahead of them by Odysseus Eurylochus and his men. Eurylochus had led the party into Circe’s domain, where she was at her loom singing a rich song. He had called them in and seated them at a table and they had drunk her drugged potion. Here there was an instant change and Eurylochus had fled in panic. Now it is Odysseus who sets out to find his men, to be accompanied by Hermes who brings Odysseus a magical plant called moly which will protect him from Circe’s wand. The encounter with Circe is fantastic, a balance of malevolent threat and warm, even romantic, seduction. She is merely courteous and even an honorable guest when she loses.

Ok, in most editions of The Odyssey, Robert Fagles’ translation in particular, Book 10 is called “The Grace of the Witch” or “Circe”, which is the episode with the witch Circe on the island of Aeaea. After their hair-raising encounter with the man-eating Laestrygonians, the remaining crew members of Odysseus are washed up on the shore of Aeaea. They come upon Circe’s house in a clearing of a wood and are invited in by her. There they are made drunk by a powerful potion mixed with their cheese and barley and turned into pigs with a flick of her wand. Only Eurylochus had remained outside the house, suspicious as ever, and after a year the men are returned to their true form by Odysseus, armed as he is with some protective herb called moly which he received from Hermes. And in this bizarre episode, Odysseus even becomes the lover of Circe for a year and she releases his crew from her spell. The book is a long narrative of this one episode of the Odyssey of Odysseus’ sojourn with the witch Circe on her island for a year, in which they were entertained by her as guests and Odysseus learned about all the different types of dangerous and enchanted hospitality that there were, in order to prepare him for his travels to the Underworld.

My old classroom copy of Book 10 opens with the survivors of the Laestrygonians in a state of melancholy and they set sail for Circe’s island. Odysseus arrives at the island and sends Eurylochus and twenty-two men to investigate the smoke. They are invited in, seated and served a drunken draught by Circe. She taps each of them on the head and they transform into pigs and are driven off to pens. Eurylochus returns to Odysseus and the hero sets off for Circe’s house alone. On the way he meets Hermes disguised as a young man and is given a moly to eat and told what to do. He goes to Circe’s house, drinks a potion and resists her wand. He throws himself at her feet and she recognizes him as the Odysseus that the prophecies have been talking about. She agrees to help him and after he makes her promise to help him he is restored to his men and they become lovers for a year and then guests. The book ends with a description of their preparations to set off for Hades.