Circe, The Enchantress
“Are you kids ready to show some
respect?”
“Yes, Grandpa.”
“Very well, I shall continue my
story… Where did we leave off?”
“You had just sailed away from the
island of the Cyclops.”
“Ah yes, we had just left the
Island of the Cyclops, and we ended up on the island of Aeolus, who was
the keeper of the wind. We told him our story, and after a few days he
gave us a breeze in the right direction to Ithaca, as well as giving me
bag of storms to use when I needed them.
We were within sight of Ithaca
after a few days. We were so close that I could already feel the grass
under my
feet, and we thought surely, nothing could go wrong. At least that’s
what I
thought, so I took a nap.
A nap sounds good right about now. I am old
you know. I need to keep up my strength just to make it through the
day. Often I will take three or four naps in one day.”
“Grandpa, are you going to finish
the story, or keep talking about napping?”
“Napping? I wasn’t talking about
napping. Although now that you mention it…”
“Grandpa! Please finish the story.”
“Oh, alright. So I had decided to
take
a nap after such a long journey, when my jealous crew, feeling that I should not have been
the only one to have any treasure and not knowing exactly what it was, decided to open
up my bag of storms, unleashing a terrible hurricane that blew us back
to Aeolus. We arrived there but
Aeolus refused to help us further, saying we had abused his friendship,
and
we were sent off to find home the old-fashioned way.
We set sail from his island and
after some time, and some more death at the hands of wild people, there
was one ship left, my ship. We landed on an island so I split the
crew in half and we drew lots to see who would go ashore and explore.
My group did
not have to go, so we stayed behind and guarded the boat.
After some time, my crew had not
returned, and we all became worried. Our fears would be confirmed when
Eurylochus came running back screaming. He informed us that the island
belonged to the evil witch Circe, and that after giving my men
food
and drink she turned them into PIGS!
Being the brave man that I still am
today, I decided to go and confront Circe and get my men back.
Fortunately for me, Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, caught me along the
path and warned me of what was to come. He told me that she would try
to turn me into something as well, and would succeed if I didn’t follow
his instructions. Hermes gave me an herb called moly, which tasted a
bit like a breath mint. The moly would
protect me from a potion that Circe would try to make me drink. If I
drank the potion, I would be under her control, but now I had the moly,
which would protect me, so Hermes told me I could try the potion if I
wanted to... he said it would taste good. Hermes then told me that
after I drink the potion, I should play along with Circe's scheme and
wait for her to use her magic wand. At the moment she tried to use her
wand, Hermes told me to get my sword and stop her.
I arrived at the house of Circe,
and everything happened as Hermes said it would. I took the potion,
which tasted like strawberries, and
when she drew her wand, I drew my sword and pressed it against her
neck. She fell to the floor and begged to be my friend and lover, and
being the generous and merciful person that I am, I accepted. She then
threw a great feast for me, turned my pig-men back into men-men, and
I then sent for my remaining men left on my ship, and we had a great
time,
rejoicing that we were all together, and none of us were pigs, well at
least none of us were the animal kind of pig, I couldn’t speak for all
of my men - there were a few that were rather swinish.
After many months, my men reminded
me of home, and we prepared to depart once again for Ithaca when Circe
came to me and told me that the only way to get home was to journey to
the
underworld and allow the blind prophet Tiresias to plot our return
course to Ithaca. So we prepared for our journey to the underworld, but
that is a story for after you finish your chores. Now run along, while
I take a nap.”
Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus
John William Waterhouse
Augustine
and Culture Seminar
"The Illustrated Odyssey" by Joel Skidmore Website: Mythweb Web Source: The Illustrated
Odyssey: Book Ten
Author’s Note: I had originally planned to do this story, and that of
the Sirens at the same time, but after reading through this part a
little more I decided that leaving them separate would be best. This
part of the story is pretty important. It shows just how things have
gone wrong in their journey that they seem to get close enough to see
people on the shores of Ithaca and then are turned away. They get
close, but Odysseus lets his guard down just a little too much and the
journey continues. This part is also important because it tells of how
they finally find out how to get home with the help of Circe. This is
again set with Odysseus telling the story of his journeys to small
children, and again I brought up his fascination of sleeping. Along
with that I added some extra dialogue between Odysseus and his
grandson, where Odysseus asks where they left off the story the last
time. Along with all of this I tried to reinforce Odysseus’ arrogance
and his very high opinion of himself as the best and bravest. I tried
to accomplish this by
getting him to use words like “I am” and things like that to give the
impression that he still believes that he is the best.
Back to Grandpa's
Odyssey