Circe
Circe is a minor goddess and sorceress, daughter of the sun god Helios, living alone on the island of Aeaea. She turns Odysseus's crew into pigs with drugged food and a touch of her wand, but an herb from Hermes lets Odysseus resist her magic, free his men, and become her lover for a year before she warns him about the dangers still ahead, including Scylla and Charybdis.
Circe, Sorceress of Aeaea
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Core Myth
Homer's Odyssey introduces Circe as "a dread goddess of human speech," daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse, living alone on the island of Aeaea with only wild animals - once men she had drugged - for company. When Odysseus's scouting party reaches her house, she welcomes them, serves food and wine laced with drugs, and touches each man with her wand, turning them all into pigs who keep their human minds while trapped in animal bodies. Only Eurylochus, who stayed outside out of suspicion, escapes to warn Odysseus. Odysseus sets out alone to confront her, but Hermes intercepts him on the way and gives him an herb called moly, which makes him immune to her drugs. When Circe's wand fails against him, Odysseus draws his sword, and Circe, recognizing him from a prophecy as the one man her magic could not hold, offers her bed instead of a fight. Odysseus makes her swear an oath not to harm him before accepting, and stays on Aeaea as her lover for a year. When his men finally press him to leave, Circe not only agrees but tells Odysseus he must first sail to the edge of the underworld to consult the dead prophet Tiresias about his journey home, and gives him precise instructions for finding the way there.
Why did Circe turn Odysseus's men into pigs?
Homer's Odyssey gives no motive beyond her established practice: Circe lives alone on Aeaea and habitually drugs and transforms any men who reach her house, keeping the resulting animals, who retain their human minds, around her grounds. Odysseus's landing party is simply the latest crew to fall for her hospitality.
Homer, Odyssey 10.135-139
How did Odysseus resist Circe's magic?
Hermes met him on the way to her house and gave him an herb called moly, black-rooted with a milk-white flower, which made him immune to her drugged food and wine. When her wand failed to transform him, Circe recognized him as the one man a prophecy had warned her about.
Homer, Odyssey 10.302-306
Did Odysseus and Circe have a relationship?
Yes. After forcing Circe to swear an oath not to harm him, Odysseus accepted her offer and stayed on Aeaea as her lover for a full year, until his own men eventually urged him to remember his voyage home and pressed him to leave.
Homer, Odyssey 10.480-486
What did Circe tell Odysseus about Scylla and Charybdis?
She told him plainly that the two dangers were not equal: hugging Charybdis's side of the strait risked losing the entire ship to the whirlpool, while passing close to Scylla's cliff would cost only six men, one for each of her heads. Circe's advice was to accept the smaller, survivable loss.
Homer, Odyssey 12.101-110
Is Circe responsible for what happened to Scylla?
In one tradition, yes. Ovid's Metamorphoses tells a story in which Circe, jealous over the sea-god Glaucus's love for the nymph Scylla, poisons Scylla's bathing pool and transforms her into a monster. Homer's earlier Odyssey never mentions this and treats Scylla as a monster with no such backstory.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 14
Later Traditions
After the visit to the underworld, Odysseus returns to Aeaea, and Circe gives him a second, longer set of warnings before he sails on: how to survive the Sirens' song by having his men bind him to the mast, and how to choose the lesser of two evils by passing close to Scylla's cliff rather than risking the whirlpool Charybdis. Ovid's Metamorphoses tells a separate, later story about Circe's jealousy: when the sea-nymph Scylla rejects the sea-god Glaucus's love, Circe - secretly in love with Glaucus herself - poisons the pool where Scylla bathes, transforming her into the six-headed monster of the strait. The two stories give Circe two very different roles in the same stretch of myth: the source of the knowledge that gets Odysseus through the strait, and, in Ovid's telling, the reason the strait is so dangerous to begin with.
Lineage
See the full family tree1 recorded relation, each with the ancient line behind it.
Parents
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Homer names Circe's mother as the Oceanid Perse, and names her brother as Aeetes, keeper of the Golden Fleece.
Also Connected
3 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.
Connected
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Circe is the source of Odysseus's warning about Charybdis, telling him losing the whole ship to her would be worse than losing six men to Scylla.
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Circe hosts Odysseus for a year on Aeaea and gives him the instructions that let him survive the Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis.
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In Ovid's later Metamorphoses, jealous Circe poisons Scylla's bathing pool and transforms her into the six-headed monster of the strait, a story Homer's earlier Odyssey does not tell.
Where Accounts Differ
- whether Circe caused Scylla's transformation
- Homer's Odyssey never connects Circe to Scylla's transformation; that link comes only from Ovid's later Metamorphoses, writing centuries afterward.
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Mythology
Related Terms
Sources
- Homer, Odyssey 10.135-139
- Homer, Odyssey 10.302-306
- Homer, Odyssey 10.480-486
- Homer, Odyssey 12.101-110
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 14
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)