Circe and the Swine

The episode opens with a crew at its lowest point. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus tells the story himself, and he says he reached Aeaea grieving for the comrades the Laestrygonians had killed. Aeaea was the home of Circe, whom he calls a dread goddess who speaks with human voice, a child of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse (Homer, Odyssey 10.133-139).

The men landed and lay on the shore for two days. On the third morning Odysseus climbed a hill, saw smoke rising from Circe's halls, and killed a great stag on the way back. The crew ate well, but he told them plainly that he saw no way out. Homer says their spirit broke at once, remembering the Laestrygonian Antiphates and the man-eating Cyclops (Homer, Odyssey 10.144-202; compare Odysseus and the Cyclops).

Odysseus split the crew in two and they shook lots in a bronze helmet. The lot fell to Eurylochus, who set out with twenty-two men. Odysseus stayed behind with the rest (Homer, Odyssey 10.203-209).

Eurylochus's party found Circe's house of polished stone in a forest clearing. Wolves and mountain lions prowled around it, and Homer says Circe had bewitched them with drugs. They did not attack. They fawned on the men and wagged their tails, as dogs do around a master who brings scraps from the feast. Inside, someone was singing at a great loom (Homer, Odyssey 10.210-223).

Polites, the crewman Odysseus trusted most, called out, and Circe opened the doors. All the men followed her in except Eurylochus, who suspected a trap and stayed outside. She seated them and mixed a drink of cheese, barley meal, honey and Pramnian wine. Homer says she added baneful drugs, so that the men would utterly forget their native land (Homer, Odyssey 10.224-236).

When they had drunk, she struck them with her wand and drove them into the sties. They had the heads, voices and bristles of swine, but Homer says their minds stayed as they were. They wept in the pen while Circe threw them acorns and cornel fruit, the food of pigs (Homer, Odyssey 10.237-243).

Eurylochus ran back to the ship. Homer says he was so shaken he could not speak at first. When he could, he reported what he had seen: the men had gone in, and none had come out again (Homer, Odyssey 10.244-260).

Odysseus took his sword and bow and ordered Eurylochus to lead him back. Eurylochus clung to his knees and begged him not to go, sure that neither of them would return. Odysseus told him to stay by the ship and eat and drink, and went alone (Homer, Odyssey 10.261-273).

On the way to the house, Hermes met him, disguised as a young man with the first down on his lip. Homer's Hermes says the crew are penned like swine and that Odysseus, if he goes in unprotected, will stay there with them. He then pulled a herb from the ground and told Odysseus how to use it (Homer, Odyssey 10.274-306).

Hermes gave Odysseus his instructions. Take the herb and go in, because it will keep Circe's potion from working. When Circe strikes with her wand, draw the sword and rush at her as if to kill her. When she then invites him to her bed, accept, but first make her swear a great oath by the gods that she will plan no further harm, so she cannot unman him once he is undressed (Homer, Odyssey 10.281-301).

Odysseus followed the plan. Circe gave him the potion in a golden cup. He drank and nothing happened. She struck him with the wand and said, "Begone to the sty, and lie with the rest of your comrades." He drew his sword and rushed at her. She ran under the blade, clasped his knees and asked who he was (Homer, Odyssey 10.310-323).

Circe understood at once. No other man had ever resisted the drug, she said, so he must be Odysseus, whom Hermes had told her would come on his way home from Troy. She offered her bed. Odysseus refused until she swore the oath, and she swore it. Homer's Odysseus then lets her handmaids bathe and feed him, but he sits without touching the food until his men are free (Homer, Odyssey 10.324-380).

Circe went out with her wand, opened the sties and drove the men out in the shape of nine-year-old swine. She anointed each with another charm. The bristles fell away and they became men again, Homer says, younger, taller and handsomer than before. They knew Odysseus, clung to his hands and wept, and the house rang with it. Even Circe was moved to pity (Homer, Odyssey 10.388-399).

She told Odysseus to beach his ship, store his gear in caves and bring the rest of his crew. Eurylochus tried to stop them. He warned that she would turn them all into swine, wolves or lions to guard her house, and he blamed Odysseus's folly for the men lost in the Cyclops's cave. Odysseus considered cutting off his head. The others talked him out of it, and Eurylochus came along anyway, afraid of Odysseus's anger (Homer, Odyssey 10.428-445).

Circe told the whole crew to stop their mourning and eat until they had recovered the spirit they had when they first left Ithaca. They agreed, and they stayed for a full year, feasting on meat and sweet wine. When the seasons had turned, the men asked Odysseus to think of home (Homer, Odyssey 10.449-475).

Here the story turns from Circe's hall to the question of return, or nostos. Circe told Odysseus he could not sail home yet. He first had to travel to the house of Hades and consult the blind seer Tiresias, and she gave him detailed instructions for the rites (Homer, Odyssey 10.487-540). Odysseus wept at the news, and his men wept as well when he told them.

The episode ends with a death. Elpenor, the youngest crewman, had slept on the roof drunk. He heard the men moving, forgot the ladder and fell, breaking his neck (Homer, Odyssey 10.552-560).