Circe in Antiquity
Circe enticing Ulysses, Angelica Kauffmann, 1786
Circe, one of the earliest and most enduring powerful females appears
in Homer (late 8th century bce). In the Odyssey,
she is a sorcerer, a magical enchantress; we know her today as a Greek goddess
and witch. She dwells alone among her magically calm lions and wolves
(enchanted humans) refining spells and collecting herbs. Then, Odysseus
arrives. Circe displays powers of many kinds: she transforms Odysseus’ men into
swine with her wand, she deprives men of their virility, she practices
necromancy to summon spirits from the Underworld. Homer provides the template
for a powerful female with a complex personality. While there is little mention
of flight or night activity, Homer’s Circe has both light and dark elements
within her character.
The darker aspects are gradually woven into her myth and literary
tradition over the centuries. In Argonautica, Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century
bce) focuses more specifically on Circe’s darker elements; in addition
to knowledge of poisons, she is surrounded by shapeless creatures and performs
a blood sacrifice for Jason and Medea to purify them after they murder Medea’s
brother Absyrtus. Specifically, Circe suffers with nightly visions
that leave her terrified.
The grim aspects of fear and night activity in association with
Circe are present in Apollonius, but these elements will dominate entirely in
the Latin language portrayals. When the Romans create the literary version of
Circe from the Greek myth and oral tradition, she retains only diabolic
aspects. Virgil’s account in the Aeneid (30 bce) provides only the
fearsome aspect of “Circe, cruel goddess.” As
Aneas’ ship approaches her island, the moans and laments of the beasts she has
transformed offer a sinister warning to Neptune who steers the ship away from
impending danger.
In Virgil, her presence foretells danger; Circe is one-sided as
only dread remains. The idea of night flight often includes a metamorphosis or
shapeshifting into a range of animals, often birds, in texts from late
antiquity to the high Middle Ages. Ovid details the vengeful power possessed by
Circe in Metamorphoses (8 ce) book XIV. While she can transform the shape of
humans with poisons of ground herbs while speaking enchantments and the spells
of Hecate, Circe accomplishes the transformation of Latin King Picus into a
bird with movement alone. Circe's great power to create change with no need of herbs is shown as Picus, changed into a bird, flies away.
Bibliography
Judith Yarnall, Transformations of Circe: the history of an
enchantress (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).
Homer, Odyssey, trans. A. T. Murray, New edition /
revised by George E. Dimock. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014
[1919]), book 10.
Apollonius, Argonautica, trans. William H. Race
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), Book 4.
Virgil, Aeneid: Books 7-12, trans. H. R. Fairclough, ed. G. P. Goold (Harvard University Press, 1918), book 7.
Marina Montesano, Classical Culture and Witchcraft in
Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cham: Springer International Publishing,
2018).
Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller,
revised by G.P. Goold ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014
[1916]), book 14.
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