Circe

“ GRYLLUS I see a mass of light brighter than that Which burned in Circe's palace, and beneath it A motley crew, dancing to joyous music. But from that light explosion comes, and flame; And forth the dancers rush in haste and fear From their wide-blazing hall. SPIRIT-RAPPER Oh, Circe! Circe! Thou show'st him all the evil of our arts In more than just proportion to the good. Good without evil is not given to man. Jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill, Gives all unmixed to some, and good and ill Mingled to many—good unmixed to none.{1} Our arts are good. ”

“ There they burned the body of Elpenor, and piled a mound over it, and on the mound set the oar of the dead man, and so went to the palace of Circe.
Ulysses told Circe all his adventures, and then she warned him of dangers yet to come, and showed him how he might escape them. He listened, and remembered all that she spoke, and these two said good-bye for ever. Circe wandered away alone into the woods, and Ulysses and his men set sail and crossed the unknown seas. Presently the wind fell, and the sea was calm, and they saw a beautiful island from which came the sound of sweet singing. ”

“ But come now, I will free thee and preserve thee from evils: take this excellent drug, and keeping it, go to the house of Circe, the power of which will ward off the evil day from you. And I will tell you all the cunning tricks of Circe. She will prepare a mixture for you, and will put drugs in the food. But not even thus will she be able to charm you; for the excellent drug which I will give you, will not permit it: but I will tell you every thing. When Circe strikes you with a long rod, then do thou draw thy sharp sword from thy thigh, and rush at Circe, as if desirous to kill her. ”

“ Sorrowing for their lost friends, the Greeks next landed in the island of Circe, where Ulysses remained with half his men by the ships, while the rest set out to renew their supplies. This party soon discovered the abode of the enchantress Circe, who, aware of their approach, had prepared a banquet and a magic drug. Enticed by her sweet voice, all the men save one sat down to her banquet, and ate so greedily that the enchantress, contemptuously waving her wand over them, bade them assume the forms of the animals they most resembled! ”

“ In Circe’s sacred house, may see each friend
Eating and drinking banquets out of end. ̓
They soon obey’d; all but Eurylochus,
Who needs would stay them all, and counsell’d thus:
̔O wretches! whither will ye? Why are you
Fond of your mischiefs, and such gladness show
For Circe’s house, that will transform ye all
To swine, or wolves, or lions? Never shall
Our heads get out, if once within we be,
But stay compell’d by strong necessity. ”

“ He did as great Circe had appointed. He raised his mast, and hoisted his white sails, and sat in his ship in peace. The north wind wafted him through the seas, till he crossed the ocean, and came to the sacred woods of Proserpine. He stood at the confluence of the three floods, and digged a pit, as she had given directions, and poured in his offering—the blood of a ram, and the blood of a black ewe, milk, and honey, and wine; and the dead came to his banquet; aged men, and women, and youths, and children who died in infancy. ”

“ A pair of coursers born of heav'nly breed,
Who from their nostrils breath'd ethereal fire;
Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire,
By substituting mares produc'd on earth,
Whose wombs conceiv'd a more than mortal birth.
These draw the chariot which Latinus sends,
And the rich present to the prince commends. ”

“ When Ulysses was alone with Circe at night he told her that his men were home-sick, and would fain go to Ithaca. Then Circe said, 'There is no way but this: you must sail to the last shore of the stream of the river Oceanus, that girdles round the world. There is the Land of the Dead, and the House of Hades and Persephone, the King and Queen of the ghosts. ”

“ Circe, my father's sister, taught me to be one, and I could tell you, if I pleased, who was the old woman with the peacock, the pomegranate, and the cuckoo staff, whom you carried over the river; and, likewise, who it is that speaks through the lips of the oaken image, that stands in the prow of your galley. I am acquainted with some of your secrets, you perceive. It is well for you that I am favorably inclined; for, otherwise, you would hardly escape being snapped, up by the dragon. ”

“ To which Circe replied, for she was not insensible to the attractions of the sea-green deity, “You had better pursue a willing object; you are worthy to be sought, instead of having to seek in vain. Be not diffident, know your own worth. I protest to you that even I, goddess though I be, and learned in the virtues of plants and spells, should not know how to refuse you. If she scorns you scorn her; meet one who is ready to meet you half way, and thus make a due return to both at once.” ”

“ She had heard a vague rumour of Swansea’s attentions to Claudia from another quarter and saw no reason to doubt Circe’s news. She was nettled, and felt she was being placed in a false position. It revived old memories. Circe had possessed this trick as a young girl.
“Gilbert is bound to do well,” she said hastily.
“Of course.” Circe lit another cigarette. “But the future—well, it is the future! Futures are like horses—you can never count on them! If they could only invent automatic horses and automatic futures! ”

“ Oh might it please heaven that in these days, as in the past more happy ages, some wise Circe might make herself present who, with plants and minerals working her incantations, would be able to curb nature. ”

“ The world with all its fading sweet comes tempting him, and the old fable fulfils itself—Whoever takes that Circe's cup and puts it to his lips and quaffs deep, turns into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the sorceress for evermore! ”

“ Ulysses?" asked Quicksilver. "Do you not know that this island is enchanted? The wicked enchantress (whose name is Circe, the sister of King Æetes) dwells in the marble palace which you see yonder among the trees. By her magic arts she changes every human being into the brute beast or fowl whom he happens most to resemble." ”

“ When Medea and Jason entered her hall, Circe bade them sit down, and called her bower maidens, fairies of woods and waters, to strew a table with a cloth of gold, and set on it food and wine. But Jason and Medea ran to the hearth, the sacred place of the house to which men that have done murder flee, and there they are safe, when they come in their flight to the house of a stranger. They cast ashes from the hearth on their heads, and Circe knew that they had slain Absyrtus. ”

“ From the jealousy of Circe. Scylla was originally a beautiful maiden, fond of the company of the sea-nymphs; and Glaucus (Sea-green) , a god of [Pg 45] the sea, was in love with her. She did not like him; and Glaucus applied to Circe for help, from her skill in magic. Circe fell in love with the lover, and being enraged with the attractions that made him refuse her, poisoned the water in which Scylla bathed. The result was the conversion of the beauty’s lower limbs into a set of barking dogs. The dogs became part of her ”

“ And quickly from there they passed through the sea, beholding the Tyrrhenian shores of Ausonia; and they came to the famous harbour of Aeaea, and from the ship they cast hawsers to the shore near at hand. And here they found Circe bathing her head in the salt sea-spray, for sorely had she been scared by visions of the night. With blood her chambers and all the walls of her palace seemed to be running, and flame was devouring all the magic herbs with which she used to bewitch strangers whoever came; and she herself with murderous blood quenched the glowing flame, drawing it up in her hands ”

“ With her hat off and her hairpins out, and her tawny-coloured mane tumbling over her heaving shoulders, the superb illusion of maturity vanished. The three men viewed Patrine with clear, unprejudiced eyes. Stripped of the magic cloak of Circe, here was no transformer of Man into the hoofed and rooting mammal, but a great galumphing schoolgirl, pouring out a heartful of trouble, without the least concern for her complexion; mopping her streaming eyes with a little sopping handkerchief ”

“ The same transformation we may note on her artistic side, for she remains always beautiful. The first Circe is that alluring seductive beauty which destroys by catering to the senses; she is that kind of art, which debauches through its appeal to appetite and passion alone. ”

“ This abode of the enchantress Circe has been generally described as an island; whereas it is, in reality, a promontory, united to the continent by a neck of land. The adventures of Ulysses and his companions at this place, with all the extraordinary things which Homer has recorded of Circe, must serve to amuse you between Casa Nuova and Piperno; the road affords no other.
At Piperno, anciently Privernum, you quit Circe, for Virgil’s Camilla, a lady of a very different character, whose native city this is [4] . ”

“ You are well acquainted with the songs of the Sirens, and Circe's cups: of which, if he had foolishly and greedily drunk along with his attendants, he had been an ignominious and senseless slave under the command of a prostitute: he had lived a filthy dog, or a hog delighting in mire.
We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like Penelope's suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous' youth, employed above measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till mid-day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp. ”

“ Circe, dread daughter of the Sun, celebrated for thy many enchantments, poison the potters, and destroy their work. And thou, Chiron, bring thy dire hosts of Centaurs [62] and their victims to aid in the destruction of these places. ”

“ The moon at its bidding falls blood red from the sky. The dead rise up and form into ominous words the night wind that moans through their skulls. Heaven and Hell are in its province; and all forms, lovely and hideous; and love and hate. With Circe’s wand it can change men into beasts of the field, and to them it can give a monstrous humanity. Life and death are in the right hand and in the left of him who knows its secrets. It confers wealth by the transmutation of metals and immortality by its quintessence.”
Margaret could not hear what he said. ”

“ Then the handmaidens of Circe prepared a bath, and I bathed and rubbed myself with olive oil, and Circe gave me a new mantle and doublet. The handmaidens brought out silver tables, and on them set golden baskets with bread and meat in them, and others brought cups of honey-tasting wine. ”

“ Thee the deathful Sirens lie in wait for, that taint the minds of whoever listen to them with their sweet singing. Whosoever shall but hear the call of any Siren, he will so despise both wife and children through their sorceries, that the stream of his affection never again shall set homewards, nor shall he take joy in wife or children thereafter, or they in him."
With these prophetic greetings great Circe met Ulysses on his return. ”

“ Here Art is no benignant goddess, but a Circe who turns her wooers into mewing Toms and Tabbies who linger about the doorsteps of her abode, unmindful of the flying brickbats and boot-jacks of the critics. ”

“ Grecian women are said to change their cold lovers into donkeys, Persian princesses, on the contrary, cause their too passionate adorers to metamorphose into numerous animal shapes and Circe, disgusted with the depraved conduct of the companions of Ulysses, changed them into swine and shut them up in sties. The story of Circe typifies, of course, the fact that man's lower nature is the animal part of him, and the story of Malec Muhammed, which follows, points the same moral. ”

“ To punish her rival, Circe poured the juice of poisonous herbs into the waters of the fountain where Scylla bathed, and no sooner had the nymph entered, than her body, below the {148}waist, was changed into frightful monsters, like dogs, which never ceased barking, while the remainder of her form assumed an equally hideous appearance, being supported by twelve feet, with six different heads, each bearing three rows of teeth. ”

“ The snake remained quiet a moment, then it curled itself round the shrivelled arm of the old woman and disappeared in the sleeve of her sheepskin cloak, which, with a dirty chemise, comprised, I believe, all the dress of this Lithuanian Circe. The old woman looked at us with a little laugh of triumph, like a conjurer who has just executed a difficult trick. Her face wore that mixture of cunning and stupidity which is often noticeable in would-be witches, who are mostly scomidrels and dupes. ”

“ The enchantress was far too cunning to let Ulysses see the mischief which her magic arts had since brought upon the gormandizers.
“As for yourself, valiant sir,” said Circe, “judging by the dignity of your aspect, I take you to be nothing less than a king. Deign to follow me, and you shall be treated as befits your rank.”
So Ulysses followed her into the oval saloon, where his two and twenty comrades had devoured the banquet which ended so disastrously for themselves. But all this while he had held the snow-white flower in his hand, and had constantly smelt of it while Circe was speaking ”

“ As in the old legend, a drop of scalding sweat from the damned soul must shrivel the very skin of those for whom he wrote, to make them wince if not to turn them away from evil doing. To consider his hell a place of physical torture is to take Circe's herd for real swine. ”