Circe

The daughter of Helios and Perse, Circe was a powerful enchantress versatile in the arts of herbs and potions and capable of turning human beings into animals. She did just that to Odysseus’ sailors when they reached her dwelling place, the secluded island of Aeaea. Odysseus, however, managed to trick her with the help of Hermes and, instead of becoming an animal, he became her lover for a year. The couple had three children, one of whom, Telegonus, eventually killed Odysseus.

Who Was Circe in Greek Mythology?

Circe was an immortal enchantress, the daughter of the sun god Helios, who lived alone on the island of Aeaea and could transform men into animals with her potions and her wand. She is best known from Homer’s “Odyssey,” where she turns Odysseus’ crew into pigs and then becomes his ally and lover for a year.

• Parents: Helios, the Titan sun god, and the Oceanid Perse
• Home: Aeaea, a wooded island she ruled alone, surrounded by the men she had transformed
• Powers: herbs, drugs, potions, and a wand – magic learned rather than simply inherited
• Best known for: the pigs, the herb moly, and her three sons by Odysseus

Was Circe a Goddess or a Witch?

Circe was both. Homer calls her a goddess outright, and she is immortal and divinely descended, but everything she actually does is witchcraft: brewing drugs, singing spells, and working transformations.

• She is one of the earliest figures in Western literature to be described practising magic in this way
• Her power comes from knowledge of pharmaka – herbs and drugs – not from a divine office like Athena’s or Apollo’s
• She has no worship, no temple, and no sphere of authority, which separates her from the Olympians
• Her niece Medea and her sister Pasiphae share the same talent, making theirs the great sorcerous family of Greek myth

What Does the Name Circe Mean?

Circe is the Latin form of the Greek Kirke (Κίρκη), a name usually connected either with kirkos, a hawk, or with the verb meaning “to encircle” – the same root that gives English the word circle. Both readings suit an enchantress who binds men with her spells.

• In Greek it is pronounced roughly KEER-kee, not SUR-see as in English
• Her island Aeaea gives her the epithet Aeaean Circe in Homer and later poets
• She is not connected to Cersei of “Game of Thrones,” a modern fictional character whose name is often confused with hers

Circe’s Family and Lineage

Circe was the daughter of Perse, one of the Oceanids, and Helios, the Titan sun god. As such, she was part of a family of formidable sorceresses. Pasiphae, who supposedly charmed both Minos and Procris, was her sister, and the even more notorious enchantress Medea was her niece, since she was the daughter of Circe’s brother Aeetes, the guardian of the Golden Fleece. Circe had another brother, Perses, who was slain by Medea after he had deposed her father Aeetes from the throne of Colchis.

• Father: Helios; mother: Perse, daughter of Oceanus
• Siblings: Aeetes, king of Colchis; Pasiphae, wife of Minos and mother of the Minotaur; and Perses
• Niece: Medea, the most famous sorceress in Greek myth; nephew: Absyrtus
• Children: Agrius, Latinus, and Telegonus, all by Odysseus

Circe and Odysseus in the Odyssey

Circe is best known from the following episode from Homer’s “Odyssey.”

Who Was Circe in the Odyssey?

In the “Odyssey,” Circe is the enchantress of Aeaea who turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, is defeated by Odysseus with the help of the god Hermes, and then becomes his host, lover, and guide for a full year. She is the only figure in the poem who is first an enemy and then an indispensable ally.

• Her episode occupies Book 10, immediately after the disaster with the Laestrygonians
• She is the one who tells Odysseus he must first sail to the Underworld and consult the prophet Teiresias
• She then warns him about the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the cattle of Helios – the advice that gets him home
• She is often confused with Calypso, who keeps Odysseus for seven years on a different island, Ogygia

Reaching Circe’s Island

Disheartened and dispirited from their horrendous encounter with the man-eating Laestrygonians – after which they had been left with only one out of their twelve ships – Odysseus and his remaining men land on Aeaea, Circe’s island.

At first glance, it seems to them like a desolate island, since the only visible sign of life is a column of smoke rising from somewhere deep in the woods. Naturally, Odysseus sends his men to investigate, putting his brother-in-law Eurylochus in charge of the scouting party.

Who Turned Odysseus’ Men into Pigs?

Circe turned Odysseus’ men into pigs. She welcomed the scouting party into her house, served them wine mixed with her drugs, and then struck them with her wand, transforming them into swine while leaving their human minds intact.

• Twenty-two men were transformed; only Eurylochus, who suspected a trap and waited outside, escaped
• They kept their human awareness inside animal bodies, which is what makes the punishment so cruel
• The lions and wolves prowling tamely around her house were earlier victims, transformed the same way
• Circe restored them at swordpoint, and Homer says they emerged younger and taller than before

The Transformation of Odysseus’ Men

After some time, the men reach Circe’s house and are surprised to find many fearsome beasts – mostly lions and wolves – slouching around and acting as domesticated as the tamest pets imaginable. From the inside, they hear a woman’s voice: it’s Circe singing melodiously.

Eurylochus suspects danger, so he chooses to stay outside as Circe comes out of her house and welcomes the rest of the scouting party indoors. Odysseus’ men are treated with some fine-flavored wine they gulp down in a second with the utmost pleasure. However, once they do that, Circe makes a quick move with her wand and, suddenly, all of Odysseus’ men are transformed into pigs. They still have their human brains, so they start grunting and weeping as Circe puts them into her pigsty.

Odysseus Tricks Circe

Eurylochus runs back to Odysseus and tells him the whole story and Odysseus decides to confront Circe. Fortunately, on his way to Circe’s house, he is met by Hermes, who gives him a magical black-rooted white-flowered plant called moly which, the divine messenger says, will make Odysseus immune to Circe’s spells.

As indicated by Hermes, Circe’s wine has no effect on the cunning Greek hero and so, after the enchantress pulls out her wand, Odysseus responds by pulling out his sword. He makes Circe swear that she won’t hurt him and forces her to restore the original form of all his sailors. Circe does precisely that and, furthermore, taken aback by his bravery, offers Odysseus her sincere love and unconditional devotion.

Odysseus accepts them, and, as a result, his men stay in Aeaea for almost a year, after which Odysseus becomes restless to go back to Ithaca and once again see his mortal wife, Penelope.

Did Odysseus and Circe Have a Child?

Yes – Circe bore Odysseus three sons, according to Hesiod: Agrius, Latinus, and Telegonus. The most important of them is Telegonus, who grew up on Aeaea, went looking for the father he had never met, and killed him without knowing who he was.

• Homer never mentions these children; they come from Hesiod’s Theogony and the lost epic Telegony
• Telegonus killed Odysseus with a spear tipped with a stingray barb, fulfilling the prophecy that death would come to Odysseus “out of the sea”
• Latinus was later claimed by the Romans as an ancestor of their own people
• Some late sources add a daughter, Cassiphone, who does not appear in the earlier tradition

Odysseus’ and Circe’s Offspring

If we are to believe Hesiod’s genealogies, however, we must deduce that Odysseus returned to Aeaea once or twice more after this, or at least that he stayed there for a little longer than a year. Since Circe – says Hesiod – bore him no less than three children: Agrius, Latinus, and Telegonus. The last and youngest one of the three ended up killing Odysseus by mistake using a poisoned spear given to him by his mother.

Circe in Other Myths

Circe plays a smaller part in few other myths: she purifies Jason and Medea from a murder, and she transforms Picus and Scylla into a woodpecker and monster respectively.

Jason and Medea

Circe shows up in the second most famous Ancient Greek story of sea adventures, the voyage of the Argonauts. According to Apollonius, after Jason and Medea treacherously and brutally kill the Colchian prince Absyrtus, it is Circe who purifies them from the sin, though she also chases them away from her island once she learns the full gravity of their transgression.

Circe, a Vengeful Lover

Before falling for Odysseus, Circe felt an attraction to at least two other men, the first one a mortal, and the second one a god.

The mortal was Picus, who was too faithful to his wife Canens for his own sake: after fiercely rejecting Circe’s advances, Picus was turned into a woodpecker. Unable to fight through the unbearable sorrow, six days later, Canens threw herself into the river Tiber.

Another time, the sea-god Glaucus asked Circe for a potion which would make the beautiful nymph Scylla fall in love with him. Circe, however, loved Glaucus for herself, so, when he scorned her, she gave him a potion which turned Scylla into the hideous sailor-preying monster Odysseus and his crew had to evade soon after leaving Circe’s island.

How Did Circe Die?

Circe did not die. She was immortal, the daughter of a Titan, and Greek myth gives her no death – she simply outlives the stories she appears in.

• In the Telegony, she survives Odysseus and grants immortality to Penelope and Telemachus after burying him on Aeaea
• Late traditions marry her to Telemachus, and one obscure version has him kill her after a quarrel, avenged in turn by her daughter Cassiphone
• That killing is a very late outlier: in the mainstream tradition Circe remains on Aeaea, ageless and undefeated
• Her modern death scenes come from novels and adaptations, not from any ancient source

Sources

The story of Circe and Odysseus is recounted by Homer in the tenth book of the “Odyssey.” For the episode with Jason and Medea, consult the fourth book of Apollonius’ “Argonautica.”

See Also: Odysseus, Medea, Pasiphae, Scylla, Helios, Aeetes, Telegonus, Hermes, Calypso