Who She Is
Circe is the goddess who lives on the island of Aeaea, daughter of the Sun and sister of Aeetes, in a house of polished stone surrounded by wolves and lions that she has enchanted with drugs. She sings and weaves beside the door, and receives visitors with a banquet and a spell. She is the first adversary whom Odysseus defeats with a god's help, and afterward she becomes his guide: it is she who tells him how to reach the house of Hades, how to pass the Sirens and Scylla, and what to do on the island of the Sun.
Trajectory
In Book VIII, she appears only as a memory: Odysseus shuts the chest of the Phaeacians' gifts with a knot that the lady Circe once taught him, and the poem does not yet tell how.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τό γʼ ἄκουσε πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς, / αὐτίκʼ ἐπήρτυε πῶμα, θοῶς δʼ ἐπὶ δεσμὸν ἴηλεν / ποικίλον, ὅν ποτέ μιν δέδαε φρεσὶ πότνια Κίρκη·(8.446-448), when the long-suffering divine Odysseus heard it, at once he fastened the lid and quickly tied over it an intricate knot, which the lady Circe had once taught him in his mind.
In Book IX, Odysseus tells the Phaeacians that she and Calypso wanted to keep him as a husband without persuading his heart.
In Book X, Circe is the central figure. When Eurylochus and twenty-two companions reach the house, she invites them in, serves cheese, barley meal, and honey in Pramnian wine with deadly drugs so that they forget their homeland, touches them with her staff, and shuts them in pigsties. They have the pigs' bodies, voice, and bristles, but their minds remain firm. Odysseus, warned by Hermes and armed with the herb, drinks the mixture and is not bewitched. She recognizes him by his resistance and invites him to bed. Before going up, Odysseus demands, as Hermes taught him, the great oath of the gods that she will not plot any other harm.
οἱ δὲ συῶν μὲν ἔχον κεφαλὰς φωνήν τε τρίχας τε / καὶ δέμας, αὐτὰρ νοῦς ἦν ἔμπεδος, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ.(10.239-240), they had the heads of pigs, and their voice and bristles and body, but their mind was firm, as before.
ἀλλὰ κέλεσθαί μιν μακάρων μέγαν ὅρκον ὀμόσσαι, / μή τί τοι αὐτῷ πῆμα κακὸν βουλευσέμεν ἄλλο, / μή σʼ ἀπογυμνωθέντα κακὸν καὶ ἀνήνορα θήῃ.(10.299-301), but bid her swear the great oath of the blessed ones, that she will plot no other evil against you, lest she make you, stripped, vile and without manhood.
σοὶ δέ τις ἐν στήθεσσιν ἀκήλητος νόος ἐστίν. / ἦ σύ γʼ Ὀδυσσεύς ἐσσι πολύτροπος,(10.329-330), you have in your breast a mind that enchantment cannot bind. Surely you are Odysseus, the Polytropos, the man of many turns,
After the oath, Circe prepares the bath, the clothing, and the table. Odysseus does not eat: he will do so only when he sees his companions set free. She frees the men, who return younger, more beautiful, and taller than before, and she receives them with a bath and a banquet. They stay a year, and it is the crew who reminds Odysseus when it is time to leave. Circe agrees, with one condition: he must first go to the house of Hades to consult the soul of Tiresias. Odysseus falls weeping on the bed, and she gives him the route of the trench, the libations, and the black rams. At the end, she passes by them unseen and ties a black ram and a black ewe to the ship.
ὦ Κίρκη, τίς γάρ κεν ἀνήρ, ὃς ἐναίσιμος εἴη, / πρὶν τλαίη πάσσασθαι ἐδητύος ἠδὲ ποτῆτος, / πρὶν λύσασθʼ ἑτάρους καὶ ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδέσθαι;(10.383-385), Circe, what man who was just would dare to taste food and drink before freeing his companions and seeing them with his own eyes?
ἀλλʼ ἄλλην χρὴ πρῶτον ὁδὸν τελέσαι καὶ ἱκέσθαι / εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης, / ψυχῇ χρησομένους Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο,(10.490-492), but first you must complete another journey and reach the house of Hades and of dread Persephone, to consult the soul of Tiresias of Thebes,
In Book XI, she sends a favorable wind from behind the prow, a good companion, and her instructions are fulfilled at the edge of the Ocean. She does not appear, but it is the route Odysseus follows with the ram and the trench.
In Book XII, back at Aeaea, she calls the men twice mortal, because the others die only once, and orders them to eat all day. At night she questions Odysseus and describes the trials to come. As for the Sirens, he may hear them if he is tied, and the men must tighten the bonds if he begs to be freed. About Scylla, she says it is an immortal evil that cannot be fought, and that the best course is to flee and lose six men instead of all. About the island of the Sun, she warns that if the cows are left unharmed, they will reach Ithaca, and if they are wounded, he will return late, wretched, and without companions.
ἀτὰρ αὐτὸς ἀκουέμεν αἴ κʼ ἐθέλῃσθα, / δησάντων σʼ ἐν νηὶ θοῇ χεῖράς τε πόδας τε / ὀρθὸν ἐν ἱστοπέδῃ, ἐκ δʼ αὐτοῦ πείρατʼ ἀνήφθω, / ὄφρα κε τερπόμενος ὄπʼ ἀκούσῃς Σειρήνοιιν. / εἰ δέ κε λίσσηαι ἑτάρους λῦσαί τε κελεύῃς, / οἱ δέ σʼ ἔτι πλεόνεσσι τότʼ ἐν δεσμοῖσι διδέντων.(12.49-54), but you yourself, if you wish to hear them, have your companions bind you hand and foot in the swift ship, standing upright at the base of the mast, with the ends of the ropes fastened to the mast itself, so that you may listen with delight to the voice of the two Sirens. And if you beg your companions to release you and order them to do so, then they should bind you with even more bonds.
σχέτλιε, καὶ δὴ αὖ τοι πολεμήια ἔργα μέμηλε / καὶ πόνος· οὐδὲ θεοῖσιν ὑπείξεαι ἀθανάτοισιν; / ἡ δέ τοι οὐ θνητή, ἀλλʼ ἀθάνατον κακόν ἐστι, / δεινόν τʼ ἀργαλέον τε καὶ ἄγριον οὐδὲ μαχητόν· / οὐδέ τις ἔστʼ ἀλκή· φυγέειν κάρτιστον ἀπʼ αὐτῆς.(12.116-120), Obstinate one, once more you are occupied with works of war and toil? Will you not yield even to the immortal gods? She is not mortal; she is an immortal evil, terrible, grievous, savage, and not to be fought; there is no defense; the best course is to flee from her.
τὰς εἰ μέν κʼ ἀσινέας ἐάᾳς νόστου τε μέδηαι, / ἦ τʼ ἂν ἔτʼ εἰς Ἰθάκην κακά περ πάσχοντες ἵκοισθε· / εἰ δέ κε σίνηαι, τότε τοι τεκμαίρομʼ ὄλεθρον, / νηί τε καὶ ἑτάροις· αὐτὸς δʼ εἴ πέρ κεν ἀλύξῃς, / ὀψὲ κακῶς νεῖαι, ὀλέσας ἄπο πάντας ἑταίρους.(12.137-141), If you leave them unharmed and think of the return, you will still reach Ithaca, though suffering evils; but if you harm them, then I foretell your ruin, for the ship and for the companions; and you yourself, if you escape, will come back late and wretched, having lost all your companions.
In Book XXIII, Odysseus includes Circe's arts in the account of the night that he gives to Penelope.
Themes Embodied
Circe embodies Home, exile, and return from the side of temptation: the drug she mixes is made so that men forget their homeland, and the year-long banquet is a mild version of the same forgetting. She embodies Identity, because the transformation into pigs keeps the human mind and imprisons each man within himself.
In Book X, the same woman who turns men into pigs gives them back younger, and the one who holds Odysseus in bed gives him the route back. The poem does not explain the change, but shows what precedes it: Odysseus's resistance and the oath. The sorceress and the guide are the same woman. Her drug is the opposite of the lotus, which gives forgetting without pain, because it leaves men knowing what they have lost.