Circe
Circe
Circe
Western paintings established a visual iconography for the figure, Children Telegonus
but also went for inspiration to other stories concerning Circe that
appear in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The episodes of Scylla and Picus added the vice of violent jealousy to her
bad qualities and made her a figure of fear as well as of desire.
Contents
Classical literature
Homer's Odyssey
Other texts
Later literature
Reasoning beasts
Sexual politics
Parallels and sequels
Visual representations
Ancient art
Portraits in character
Musical treatments
Cantata and song
Classical ballet and programmatic music
Opera
Scientific interpretations
Other influence
In popular culture
See also
References
Bibliography
Ancient
Modern
External links
Classical literature
By most accounts, she was the daughter of Helios, the Titan sun god, and Perse, one of the three thousand
Oceanid nymphs. Her brothers were Aeëtes, keeper of the Golden Fleece, and Perses. Her sister was
Pasiphaë, the wife of King Minos and mother of the Minotaur.[2] Other accounts make her the daughter of
Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft.[3] She was often confused with Calypso, due to her shifts in behavior and
personality, and the association that both of them had with Odysseus.[4]
Homer's Odyssey
Before Odysseus reaches Circe's palace, Hermes, the messenger god sent by Athena, intercepts him and
reveals how he might defeat Circe in order to free his crew from their enchantment. Hermes provides
Odysseus with the herb moly to protect him from Circe's magic. He also tells Odysseus that he must then
draw his sword and act as if he were going to attack her. From there, as Hermes foretold, Circe would ask
Odysseus to bed, but Hermes advises caution, for the treacherous goddess could still "unman" him unless he
has her swear by the names of the gods that she will not take any further action against him. Following this
advice, Odysseus is able to free his men. After they have all
remained on the island for a year, Circe advises Odysseus that he
must first visit the Underworld, something a mortal has never yet
done,[6] in order to gain knowledge about how to appease the gods,
return home safely and recover his kingdom. Circe also advises him
on how this might be achieved and furnishes him with the
protections he will need and the means to communicate with the
dead. On his return, she further advises him about two possible
routes home, warning him, however, that both carry great danger. Annibale Carracci's Ulysses and
Circe (c. 1590) at Farnese Palace
Other texts
Towards the end of Hesiod's Theogony (c. 700 BCE), it is stated that Circe
bore Odysseus three sons: Ardeas or Agrius (otherwise unknown); Latinus;
and Telegonus, who ruled over the Tyrsenoi, that is the Etruscans. The
Telegony, an epic now lost, relates the later history of the last of these. Circe
eventually informed him who his absent father was and, when he set out to
find Odysseus, gave him a poisoned spear. With this he killed his father
unknowingly. Telegonus then brought back his father's corpse to Aeaea,
together with Penelope and Odysseus' other son Telemachus. After burying
Odysseus, Circe made the others immortal.
In his 3rd-century BCE epic, the Argonautica, Apollonius Rhodius relates that Circe purified the Argonauts
for the death of Absyrtus,[8] possibly reflecting an early tradition.[9] In this poem, the animals that surround
her are not former lovers transformed but primeval 'beasts, not resembling the beasts of the wild, nor yet like
men in body, but with a medley of limbs'.[10]
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.72.5) cites Xenagoras, the 2nd-century BCE historian, as claiming that
Odysseus and Circe had three sons: Rhomus, Anteias, and Ardeias, who respectively founded three cities
called by their names: Rome, Antium, and Ardea.
Three ancient plays about Circe have been lost: the work of the tragedian Aeschylus and of the 4th-century
BCE comic dramatists Ephippus of Athens and Anaxilas. The first told the story of Odysseus' encounter
with Circe. Vase paintings from the period suggest that Odysseus' half-transformed animal-men formed the
chorus in place of the usual Satyrs. Fragments of Anaxilas also mention the transformation and one of the
characters complains of the impossibility of scratching his face now that he is a pig.[11]
Some say she was exiled to the solitary island of Aeaea by her subjects and her father Helios for killing her
husband, the prince of Colchis. Later traditions tell of her leaving or even destroying the island and moving
to Italy, where she was identified with Cape Circeo.
The theme of turning men into a variety of animals was elaborated by later
writers, especially in Latin. In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas skirts the Italian
island where Circe now dwells, and hears the cries of her many male
victims, who now number more than the pigs of earlier accounts:
The roars of lions that refuse the chain, / The grunts of bristled
boars, and groans of bears, / And herds of howling wolves that
stun the sailors' ears.[12]
Plutarch took up the theme in a lively dialogue that was later to have several
imitators. Contained in his 1st-century Moralia is the Gryllus episode in
which Circe allows Odysseus to interview a fellow Greek turned into a pig.
There his interlocutor informs Odysseus that his present existence is
preferable to the human. They then engage in a philosophical dialogue in
which every human value is questioned and beasts are proved to be of
superior wisdom and virtue.[14]
Circe and Scylla in John
William Waterhouse's Circe
Invidiosa (1892) Later literature
Giovanni Boccaccio provided a
digest of what was known of Circe during the Middle Ages in his De
mulieribus claris (Famous Women, 1361–1362). While following the
tradition that she lived in Italy, he comments wryly that there are
now many more temptresses like her to lead men astray.[15]
The story of Ulysses and Circe was retold as an episode in Georg Rollenhagen's German verse epic,
Froschmeuseler (The Frogs and Mice, Magdeburg, 1595). In this 600-page expansion of the pseudo-
Homeric Batrachomyomachia, it is related at the court of the mice and takes up sections 5–8 of the first
part.[17]
In Lope de Vega's miscellany La Circe – con otras rimas y prosas (1624), the story of her encounter with
Ulysses appears as a verse epic in three cantos.[18] This takes its beginning from Homer's account, but it is
then embroidered; in particular, Circe's love for Ulysses remains unrequited.
As "Circe's Palace", Nathaniel Hawthorne retold the Homeric account as the third section in his collection of
stories from Greek mythology, Tanglewood Tales (1853). The transformed Picus continually appears in this,
trying to warn Ulysses, and then Eurylochus, of the danger to be found in the palace, and is rewarded at the
end by being given back his human shape. In most accounts Ulysses only demands this for his own men.[19]
In her survey of the Transformations of Circe, Judith Yarnall comments of this figure, who started out as a
comparatively minor goddess of unclear origin, that "What we know for certain – what Western literature
attests to – is her remarkable staying power…These different versions of Circe's myth can be seen as
mirrors, sometimes clouded and sometimes clear, of the fantasies and assumptions of the cultures that
produced them." After appearing as just one of the characters that Odysseus encounters on his wandering,
"Circe herself, in the twists and turns of her story through the centuries, has gone through far more
metamorphoses than those she inflicted on Odysseus's companions."[20]
Reasoning beasts
One of the most enduring literary themes connected with the figure
of Circe was her ability to change men into animals. There was
much speculation concerning how this could be, whether the human
consciousness changed at the same time, and even whether it was a
change for the better. The Gryllus dialogue was taken up by another
Italian writer, Giovan Battista Gelli, in his La Circe (1549). This is a
series of ten philosophical and moral dialogues between Ulysses and
the humans transformed into various animals, ranging from an oyster
Giovanni Battista Trotti's fresco of to an elephant, in which Circe sometimes joins. Most argue against
Circe returning Ulysses' followers to changing back; only the last animal, a philosopher in its former
human form (c. 1610) existence, wants to.[21] English poet Edmund Spenser also makes
reference to Plutarch's dialogue in the section of his Faerie Queene
(1590) based on the Circe episode which appears at the end of Book
II. Sir Guyon changes back the victims of Acrasia's erotic frenzy in the Bower of Bliss, most of whom are
abashed at their fall from chivalric grace, But one above the rest in speciall, / That had an hog beene late,
hight Grille by name, / Repined greatly, and did him miscall, / That had from hoggish forme him brought to
naturall.[22]
Two other Italians wrote rather different works that centre on the
animal within the human. One was Niccolò Machiavelli in his
unfinished long poem, L'asino d'oro (The Golden Ass, 1516). The
author meets a beautiful herdswoman surrounded by Circe's herd of
beasts. After spending a night of love with him, she explains the
characteristics of the animals in her charge: the lions are the brave,
the bears are the violent, the wolves are those forever dissatisfied,
and so on (Canto 6). In Canto 7 he is introduced to those who
experience frustration: a cat that has allowed its prey to escape; an
agitated dragon; a fox constantly on the look-out for traps; a dog that Dosso Dossi's Circe and Her Lovers
bays the moon; Aesop's lion in love that allowed himself to be (c. 1525)
deprived of his teeth and claws. There are also emblematic satirical
portraits of various Florentine personalities. In the eighth and last
canto he has a conversation with a pig that, like the Gryllus of Plutarch, does not want to be changed back
and condemns human greed, cruelty and conceit.[23]
The other Italian author was the esoteric philosopher Giordano Bruno, who wrote in Latin. His Cantus
Circaeus (The Incantation of Circe) was the fourth work on memory and the association of ideas by him to
be published in 1582. It contains a series of poetic dialogues, in the first of which, after a long series of
incantations to the seven planets of the Hermetic tradition, most humans appear changed into different
creatures in the scrying bowl. The sorceress Circe is then asked by her handmaiden Moeris about the type of
behaviour with which each is associated. According to Circe, for instance, fireflies are the learned, wise, and
illustrious amidst idiots, asses, and obscure men (Question 32). In later sections different characters discuss
the use of images in the imagination in order to facilitate use of the art of memory, which is the real aim of
the work.[24]
French writers were to take their lead from Gelli in the following century.[25] Antoine Jacob wrote a one-act
social comedy in rhyme, Les Bestes raisonnables (The Reasoning Beasts, 1661) which allowed him to
satirise contemporary manners. On the isle of Circe, Ulysses encounters an ass that was once a doctor, a lion
that had been a valet, a female doe and a horse, all of whom denounce the decadence of the times. The ass
sees human asses everywhere, Asses in the town square, asses in the suburbs, / Asses in the provinces, asses
proud at court, / Asses browsing in the meadows, military asses trooping, / Asses tripping it at balls, asses in
the theatre stalls. To drive the point home, in the end it is only the horse, formerly a courtesan, who wants to
return to her former state.
Louis Fuzelier and Marc-Antoine Legrand titled their comic opera of 1718 Les animaux raisonnables. It had
more or less the same scenario transposed into another medium and set to music by Jacques Aubert. Circe,
wishing to be rid of the company of Ulysses, agrees to change back his companions, but only the dolphin is
willing. The others, who were formerly a corrupt judge (now a wolf), a financier (a pig), an abused wife (a
hen), a deceived husband (a bull) and a flibbertigibbet (a linnet), find their present existence more agreeable.
Also in England, Austin Dobson engaged more seriously with Homer's account of the transformation of
Odysseus' companions when, though Head, face and members bristle into swine, / Still cursed with sense,
their mind remains alone.[29] Dobson's "The Prayer of the Swine to Circe"[30] (1640) depicts the horror of
being imprisoned in an animal body in this way with the human consciousness unchanged. There appears to
be no relief, for only in the final line is it revealed that Odysseus has arrived to free them. But in Matthew
Arnold's dramatic poem "The Strayed Reveller" (1849),[31] in which Circe is one of the characters, the
power of her potion is differently interpreted. The inner tendencies unlocked by it are not the choice
between animal nature and reason but between two types of impersonality, between divine clarity and the
poet's participatory and tragic vision of life. In the poem, Circe discovers a youth laid asleep in the portico
of her temple by a draught of her ivy-wreathed bowl. On awaking from possession by the poetic frenzy it
has induced, he craves for it to be continued.[32]
Sexual politics
With the Renaissance there began to be a reinterpretation of what it was that changed the men, if it was not
simply magic. For Socrates, in Classical times, it had been gluttony overcoming their self-control.[33] But
for the influential emblematist Andrea Alciato, it was unchastity. In the second edition of his Emblemata
(1546), therefore, Circe became the type of the prostitute. His Emblem 76 is titled Cavendum a
meretricibus; its accompanying Latin verses mention Picus, Scylla and the companions of Ulysses, and
concludes that 'Circe with her famous name indicates a whore and any who loves such a one loses his
reason'.[34] His English imitator Geoffrey Whitney used a variation of Alciato's illustration in his own
Choice of Emblemes (1586) but gave it the new title of Homines voluptatibus transformantur, men are
transformed by their passions.[35] This explains her appearance in the Nighttown section named after her in
James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Written in the form of a stage script, it makes of Circe the brothel madam,
Bella Cohen. Bloom, the book's protagonist, fantasizes that she turns into a cruel man-tamer named Mr
Bello who makes him get down on all fours and rides him like a horse.[36]
By the 19th century, Circe was ceasing to be a mythical figure. Poets treated her either as an individual or at
least as the type of a certain kind of woman. The French poet Albert Glatigny addresses "Circé" in his Les
vignes folles (1857) and makes of her a voluptuous opium dream, the magnet of masochistic fantasies.[37]
Louis-Nicolas Ménard's sonnet in Rêveries d'un païen mystique (1876) describes her as enchanting all with
her virginal look, but appearance belies the accursed reality.[38] Poets in English were not far behind in this
lurid portrayal. Lord de Tabley's "Circe" (1895) is a thing of decadent perversity likened to a tulip, A
flaunting bloom, naked and undivine... / With freckled cheeks and splotch'd side serpentine, / A gipsy among
flowers.[39]
That central image is echoed by the blood-striped flower of T.S.Eliot's student poem "Circe's Palace" (1909)
in the Harvard Advocate. Circe herself does not appear, her character is suggested by what is in the grounds
and the beasts in the forest beyond: panthers, pythons, and peacocks that look at us with the eyes of men
whom we knew long ago.[40] Rather than a temptress, she has become an emasculatory threat.[41]
Several female poets make Circe stand up for herself, using the
soliloquy form to voice the woman's position. The 19th-century
English poet Augusta Webster, much of whose writing explored the
female condition, has a dramatic monologue in blank verse titled
"Circe" in her volume Portraits (1870).[42] There the sorceress
anticipates her meeting with Ulysses and his men and insists that she
does not turn men into pigs—she merely takes away the disguise
that makes them seem human. But any draught, pure water, natural
wine, / out of my cup, revealed them to themselves / and to each
other. Change? there was no change; / only disguise gone from them
The Kingdom of Sorceress Circe by unawares. The mythological character of the speaker contributes at a
Angelo Caroselli (c. 1630) safe remove to the Victorian discourse on women's sexuality by
expressing female desire and criticizing the subordinate role given to
women in heterosexual politics.[43]
Two American poets also explored feminine psychology in poems ostensibly about the enchantress. Leigh
Gordon Giltner's "Circe" was included in her collection The Path of Dreams (1900), the first stanza of which
relates the usual story of men turned to swine by her spell. But then a second stanza presents a sensuous
portrait of an unnamed woman, very much in the French vein; once more, it concludes, 'A Circe's spells
transform men into swine'.[44] This is no passive victim of male projections but a woman conscious of her
sexual power. So too is Hilda Doolittle's "Circe", from her collection Hymen (1921). In her soliloquy she
reviews the conquests with which she has grown bored, then mourns the one instance when she failed. In not
naming Ulysses himself, Doolittle universalises an emotion with which all women might identify.[45] At the
end of the century, British poet Carol Ann Duffy wrote a monologue entitled Circe which pictures the
goddess addressing an audience of 'nereids and nymphs'. In this outspoken episode in the war between the
sexes, Circe describes the various ways in which all parts of a pig could and should be cooked.[46]
Another indication of the progression in interpreting the Circe figure is given by two poems a century apart,
both of which engage with paintings of her. The first is the sonnet that Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote in
response to Edward Burne-Jones' "The Wine of Circe" in his volume Poems (1870). It gives a faithful
depiction of the painting's Pre-Raphaelite mannerism but its description of Circe's potion as 'distilled of
death and shame' also accords with the contemporary (male) identification of Circe with perversity. This is
further underlined by his statement (in a letter) that the black panthers there are 'images of ruined passion'
and by his anticipation at the end of the poem of passion's tide-strown shore / Where the disheveled seaweed
hates the sea.[47] The Australian A. D. Hope's "Circe – after the painting by Dosso Dossi", on the other
hand, frankly admits humanity's animal inheritance as natural and something in which even Circe shares. In
the poem, he links the fading rationality and speech of her lovers to her own animal cries in the act of
love.[48]
There remain some poems that bear her name that have more to do with their writers' private preoccupations
than with reinterpreting her myth. The link with it in Margaret Atwood's "Circe/Mud Poems", first published
in You Are Happy (1974), is more a matter of allusion and is nowhere overtly stated beyond the title. It is a
reflection on contemporary gender politics that scarcely needs the disguises of Augusta Webster's.[49] With
two other poems by male writers it is much the same: Louis Macneice's, for example, whose "Circe"
appeared in his first volume, Poems (London, 1935); or Robert Lowell's, whose "Ulysses and Circe"
appeared in his last, Day by Day (New York, 1977). Both poets have appropriated the myth to make a
personal statement about their broken relationships.[50]
Later scholarship has identified elements from the character of both Circe and especially her fellow
enchantress Medea as contributing to the development of the mediaeval legend of Morgan le Fay.[54] In
addition, it has been argued that the fairy Titania in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1600) is an inversion of Circe.[55] Titania (daughter of the Titans) was a title by which the sorceress was
known in Classical times. In this case the tables are turned on the character, who is queen of the fairies. She
is made to love an ass after, rather than before, he is transformed into his true animal likeness.
William Blake's 1815 watercolour of In the 20th century, the Circe episode was to be re-evaluated in two
Comus and his animal-headed poetic sequels to the Odyssey. In the first of these, Giovanni
revellers Pascoli's L'Ultimo Viaggio (The Last Voyage, 1906), the aging hero
sets out to rediscover the emotions of his youth by retracing his
journey from Troy, only to discover that the island of Eea is deserted. What in his dream of love he had
taken for the roaring of lions and Circe's song was now no more than the sound of the sea-wind in autumnal
oaks (Cantos 16–17).[58]
This melancholy dispelling of illusion is echoed in The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1938) by Nikos
Kazantzakis. The fresh voyage in search of new meaning to life recorded there grows out of the hero's initial
rejection of his past experiences in the first two sections. The Circe episode is viewed by him as a narrow
escape from death of the spirit: With twisted hands and thighs we rolled on burning sands, / a hanging mess
of hissing vipers glued in sun!... / Farewell the brilliant voyage, ended! Prow and soul / moored in the
muddy port of the contented beast! / O prodigal, much-traveled soul, is this your country? His escape from
this mire of sensuality comes one day when the sight of some fishermen, a mother and her baby enjoying the
simple comforts of food and drink, recalls him to life, its duties and delights.[59] Where the attempt by
Pascoli's hero to recapture the past ended in failure, Kazantzakis' Odysseus, already realising the emptiness
of his experiences, journeys into what he hopes will be a fuller future.
Visual representations
Ancient art
Scenes from the Odyssey are common on Greek pottery, the Circe episode
among them. The two most common representations have Circe surrounded
by the transformed sailors and Odysseus threatening the sorceress with his
sword. In the case of the former, the animals are not always boars but also
include, for instance, the ram, dog and lion on the 6th-century BCE Boston
kylix.[60] Often the transformation is only partial, involving the head and
perhaps a sprouting tail, while the rest of the body is human. In describing
an otherwise obscure 5th-century Greek bronze in the Walters Art Museum
that takes the form of a man on all fours with the foreparts of a pig,[61] the
commentator asks in what other way could an artist depict someone
bewitched other than as a man with an animal head.[62] In these scenes Circe
is shown almost invariably stirring the potion with her wand, although the
incident as described in Homer has her use the wand only to bewitch the
sailors after they have refreshed themselves.[63] One exception is the Berlin
amphora on which the seated Circe holds the wand towards a half
transformed man.[64]
In the second scene, Odysseus threatens the sorceress with a drawn sword,
as Homer describes it. However, he is sometimes depicted carrying spears as
well, as in the Athens lekythos,[65] while Homer reports that it was a bow he
had slung over his shoulder.[66] In this episode Circe is generally shown in
Circe on a 490–480 BCE oil
flight, and on the Erlangen lekythos can clearly be seen dropping the bowl
jar, Athens-National and wand behind her.[67] Two curiously primitive wine bowls incorporate
Archaeological Museum the Homeric detail of Circe's handloom,[68] at which the men approaching
her palace could hear her singing sweetly as she worked.[69] In the 5th-
century skyphos from Boeotia an apparently crippled Odysseus leans on a
crutch while a woman with negroid features holds out a disproportionately large bowl.[70] In the other, a pot-
bellied hero brandishes a sword while Circe stirs her potion. Both these may depict the scene as represented
in one or other of the comic satyr plays which deal with their encounter. Little remains of these now beyond
a few lines by Aeschylus, Ephippus of Athens and Anaxilas. Other vase paintings from the period suggest
that Odysseus' half-transformed animal-men formed the chorus in place of the usual satyrs.[71] The reason
that it should be a subject of such plays is that wine drinking was often central to their plot. Later writers
were to follow Socrates in interpreting the episode as illustrating the dangers of drunkenness.[72]
Other artefacts depicting the story include the chest of Cypselus described in the travelogue by Pausanias.
Among its many carvings 'there is a grotto and in it a woman sleeping with a man upon a couch. I was of
opinion that they were Odysseus and Circe, basing my view upon the number of the handmaidens in front of
the grotto and upon what they are doing. For the women are four, and they are engaged on the tasks which
Homer mentions in his poetry'.[73] The passage in question describes how one of them 'threw linen covers
over the chairs and spread fine purple fabrics on top. Another drew silver tables up to the chairs, and laid out
golden dishes, while a third mixed sweet honeyed wine in a silver bowl, and served it in golden cups. The
fourth fetched water and lit a roaring fire beneath a huge cauldron'.[74] This suggests a work of considerable
detail, while the Etruscan coffin preserved in Orvieto's archaeological museum has only four figures. At the
centre Odysseus threatens Circe with drawn sword while an animal headed figure stands on either side, one
of them laying his hand familiarly on the hero's shoulder.[75] A bronze mirror relief in the Fitzwilliam
Museum is also Etruscan and is inscribed with the names of the characters. There a pig is depicted at Circe's
feet, while Odysseus and Elpenor approach her, swords drawn.[76]
Portraits in character
During the 18th century painters began to portray individual actors in scenes from named plays. There was
also a tradition of private performances, with a variety of illustrated works to help with stage properties and
costumes. Among these was Thomas Jefferys' A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and
Modern (1757–72) which included a copperplate engraving of a crowned Circe in loose dress, holding a
goblet aloft in her right hand and a long wand in her left.[77] Evidence of such performances during the
following decades is provided by several portraits in character, of which one of the earliest was the pastel by
Daniel Gardner (1750–1805) of "Miss Elliot as Circe". The artist had been a pupil of both George Romney
and Joshua Reynolds, who themselves were soon to follow his example. On the 1778 engraving based on
Gardner's portrait appear the lines from Milton's Comus: The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup /
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape / And downward fell into a grovelling swine, in compliment to the
charm of this marriageable daughter of a country house. As in the Jefferys' plate, she wears a silver coronet
over tumbled dark hair, with a wand in the right hand and a goblet in the left. In hindsight the frank eyes that
look directly at the viewer and the rosebud mouth are too innocent for the role Miss Elliot is playing.[78]
The subjects of later paintings impersonating Circe have a history of sexual experience behind them, starting
with "Mary Spencer in the character of Circe" by William Caddick, which was exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1780. The subject here was the mistress of the painter George Stubbs.[79] A portrait of "Mrs
Nesbitt as Circe" by Reynolds followed in 1781. Though this lady's past was ambiguous, she had
connections with those in power and was used by the Government as a secret agent. In the painting she is
seated sideways, wearing a white, loose-fitting dress, with a wand in her right hand and a gilded goblet near
her left. A monkey is crouching above her in the branches of a tree and a panther fraternizes with the kitten
on her knee.[80] While the painting undoubtedly alludes to her reputation, it also places itself within the
tradition of dressing up in character.
Soon afterwards, the notorious Emma Hamilton was to raise this to an art form, partly by the aid of George
Romney's many paintings of her impersonations. Romney's preliminary study of Emma's head and
shoulders, at present in the Tate Gallery, with its piled hair, expressive eyes and mouth, is reminiscent of
Samuel Gardener's portrait of Miss Elliot.[81] In the full-length "Lady Hamilton as Circe" at Waddesdon
Manor, she is placed in a wooded landscape with wolves snarling to her left, although the tiger originally
there has now been painted out. Her left arm is raised to cast a spell while the wand points downward in her
right.[82] After Emma moved to Naples and joined Lord Hamilton, she developed what she called her
"Attitudes" into a more public entertainment. Specially designed,
loose-fitting tunics were paired with large shawls or veils as she
posed in such a way as to evoke figures from Classical mythology.
These developed from mere poses, with the audience guessing the
names of the classical characters and scenes that she portrayed, into
small, wordless charades.[83]
A decade earlier, the illustrator Charles Edmund Brock extended into the 20th century what is almost a
pastiche of the 18th-century conversation piece in his "Circe and the Sirens" (1925). In this the Honourable
Edith Chaplin (1878–1959), Marchioness of Londonderry, and her three youngest daughters are pictured in a
garden setting grouped about a large pet goat.[86] Three women painters also produced portraits using the
convention of the sitter in character. The earliest was Beatrice Offor (1864–1920), whose sitter's part in her
1911 painting of Circe is suggested by the vine-leaf crown in her long dark hair, the snake-twined goblet she
carries and the snake bracelet on her left arm.[87] Mary Cecil Allen was of Australian origin[88] but was
living in the United States at the time "Miss Audrey Stevenson as Circe" was painted (1930). Though only a
head and shoulders sketch, its colouring and execution suggest the sitter's lively personality.[89] Rosemary
Valodon (born 1947), from the same country, painted a series of Australian personalities in her goddess
series. "Margarita Georgiadis as Circe" (1991) is a triptych, the central panel of which portrays an updated,
naked femme fatale reclining in tropical vegetation next to a pig's head.[90]
One painting at least depicts an actress playing the part of Circe. This is Franz von Stuck's striking portrait
of Tilla Durieux as Circe (1913). She played this part in a Viennese revival of Calderon's play in 1912 and
there is a publicity still of her by Isidor Hirsch in which she is draped across a sofa and wearing an elaborate
crown.[91] Her enticing expression and the turn of her head there is almost exactly that of Van Stuck's
enchantress as she holds out the poisoned bowl. It suggests the use of certain posed publicity photos in
creating the same iconic effect as had paintings in the past. A nearly contemporary example was the 1907
photo of Mme Geneviève Vix as Circe in the light opera by Lucien Hillenacher at the Opéra-Comique in
Paris.[92] The posing of the actress and the cropping of the image so as to highlight her luxurious costume
demonstrates its ambition to create an effect that goes beyond the merely theatrical. A later example is the
still of Silvana Mangano in her part as Circe in the 1954 film Ulysses, which is as cunningly posed for
effect.
Musical treatments
The most successful treatment of the Ulysses episode in French was Jean-Baptiste Rousseau's poem Circé
(1703), that was specifically written to be a cantata. The different verse forms employed allow the piece to
be divided by the musicians that set it in order to express a variety of emotions. The poem opens with the
abandoned Circe sitting on a high mountain and mourning the departure of Ulysses. The sorceress then calls
on the infernal gods and makes a terrible sacrifice: A myriad vapours obscure the light, / The stars of the
night interrupt their course, / Astonished rivers retreat to their source / And even Death's god trembles in the
dark. But though the earth is shaken to its core, Love is not to be commanded in this way and the wintery
fields come back to life.[95]
The earliest setting was by Jean-Baptiste Morin in 1706 and was popular for most of the rest of the century.
One of its final moralising minuets, Ce n'est point par effort qu'on aime (Love won't be forced) was often
performed independently and the score reprinted in many song collections. The flautist Michel Blavet
arranged the music for this and the poem's final stanza, Dans les champs que l'Hiver désole (In the fields
that Winter wastes), for two flutes in 174.The new setting of the cantata three years later by Francois Collin
de Blamont was equally successful and made the name of its nineteen-year-old composer. Originally for
voice and bass continuo, it was expanded and considerably revised in 1729, with parts for flute, violin and
viol added.[96] Towards the end of the century, the choral setting by Georges Granges de Fontenelle (1769–
1819) was equally to bring its young composer fame.[97]
Rousseau's poem was also familiar to composers of other nationalities. Set for mezzo-soprano and full
orchestra, it was given almost operatic treatment by the court composer Luigi Cherubini in 1789. Franz
Seydelmann set it for soprano and full orchestra in Dresden in 1787 at the request of the Russian
ambassador to the Saxon Court, Prince Alexander Belosselsky. Although he spoke highly of Seydelmann's
work, it is now judged grandiloquent and banal.[98] The later setting by the Austrian composer Sigismond
von Neukomm for soprano and full orchestra (Op. 4 1810) is better regarded.[99]
Recent treatments of the Circe theme include the Irish composer Gerald Victory's radio cantata Circe 1991
(1973–75), David Gribble's A Threepenny Odyssey, a fifteen-minute cantata for young people which
includes the episode on Circe's Isle, and Malcolm Hayes' Odysseus remembers (2003–04), which includes
parts for Circe, Anticleia and Tiresias. Gerald Humel's song cycle Circe (1998) grew out of his work on his
1993 ballet with Thomas Höft. The latter subsequently wrote seven poems in German featuring Circe's role
as seductress in a new light: here it is to freedom and enlightenment that she tempts her hearers.[100]
Another cycle of Seven Songs for High Voice and Piano (2008) by the American composer Martin
Hennessey includes the poem "Circe's Power" from Louise Glück's Meadowlands (1997).[101]
There have also been treatments of Circe in popular music, in particular the relation of the Odysseus episode
in Friedrich Holländer's song of 1958.[102] In addition, text in Homeric Greek is included in the "Circe's
Island" episode in David Bedford's The Odyssey (1976).[103] This was the ancestor of several later electronic
suites that reference the Odysseus legend, with "Circe" titles among them, having little other programmatic
connection with the myth itself.
After classical ballet separated from theatrical spectacle into a wordless form in which the story is expressed
solely through movement, the subject of Circe was rarely visited. It figured as the first episode of three with
mythological themes in Les Fêtes Nouvelles (New Shows), staged by Sieur Duplessis le cadet in 1734, but
the work was taken off after its third performance and not revived.[104] The choreographer Antoine Pitrot
also staged Ulysse dans l'isle de Circée, describing it as a ballet sérieux, heroï-pantomime in 1764.[105]
Thereafter there seems to be nothing until the revival of ballet in the 20th century.
In 1963 the American choreographer Martha Graham created her Circe with
a score by Alan Hovhaness. Its theme is psychological, representing the
battle with animal instincts. The beasts portrayed extend beyond swine and
include a goat, a snake, a lion and a deer.[106] The theme has been described
as one of 'highly charged erotic action', although set in 'a world where sexual
frustration is rampant'.[107] In that same decade Rudolf Brucci composed his
Kirka (1967) in Croatia.
While operas on the subject of Circe did not cease, they were overtaken for a while by the new musical
concept of the symphonic poem which, whilst it does not use a sung text, similarly seeks a union of music
and drama.[110] A number of purely musical works fall into this category from the late 19th century
onwards, of which one of the first was Heinrich von Herzogenberg's Odysseus (Op.16, 1873). A Wagnerian
symphony for large orchestra, dealing with the hero's return from the Trojan war, its third section is titled
"Circe's Gardens" (Die Gärten der Circe).
In the 20th century, Ernst Boehe's cycle Aus Odysseus Fahrten (From Odysseus' Voyage, Op. 6, 1903) was
equally programmatic and included the visit to Circe's Isle (Die Insel der Circe) as its second long section.
After a depiction of the sea voyage, a bass clarinet passage introduces an ensemble of flute, harp and solo
violin over a lightly orchestrated accompaniment, suggesting Circe's seductive attempt to hold Odysseus
back from traveling further.[111] Alan Hovhaness' Circe Symphony (No.18, Op. 204a, 1963) is a late example
of such programmatic writing. It is, in fact, only a slightly changed version of his ballet music of that year,
with the addition of more strings, a second timpanist and celesta.
With the exception of Willem Frederik Bon's prelude for orchestra (1972), most later works have been for a
restricted number of instruments. They include Hendrik de Regt's Circe (Op. 44, 1975) for clarinet, violin
and piano; Christian Manen's Les Enchantements De Circe (Op. 96, 1975) for bassoon and piano; and
Jacques Lenot's Cir(c)é (1986) for oboe d'amore. The German experimental musician Dieter Schnebel's
Circe (1988) is a work for harp, the various sections of which are titled Signale (signals), Säuseln
(whispers), Verlockungen (enticements), Pein (pain), Schläge (strokes) and Umgarnen (snare), which give
some idea of their programmatic intent.
Michael Amann (born 1964) provides notes for his Kirke for voice, violin, piano and percussion (1995). It is
based on four excerpts from Homer's Odyssey and emphasises a variety of vocal uses for the mezzo-soprano
part. He explains that 'the play between the foreseeable (deep structure) and the unexpected (surface) is for
me an analogy of Ulysses (who realises Circe is a sorceress, so that the consequence of her magic is
ineffective) and Odysseus' companions, whom Circe's enchantments take by surprise'.[112] Questioned in an
interview about how this worked in terms of his composition, he explained that this meant disrupting the
musical structure once it was established and that the singer's shift between voice tones, singing and non-
communicative vocalisation equates to the movement from solitude to self-expression.[113] Dominique
Lemaitre's Circé for soprano and eight cellos (1998) is equally programmatic. In it the singer's voice floats
over the instruments, creating much the same the successive emotional effects as those in settings of
Rousseau's poem.[114]
Thea Musgrave's "Circe" for three flutes (1996) was eventually to become the fourth piece in her six-part
Voices from the Ancient World for various combinations of flute and percussion (1998). Her note on these
explains that their purpose is to 'describe some of the personages of ancient Greece' and that Circe was 'the
enchantress who changed men into beasts'.[115] A recent reference is the harpsichordist Fernando De Luca's
Sonata II for viola da gamba titled "Circe's Cave" (L'antro della maga Circe).
Opera
Rolf Riehm wrote an opera with his own libretto based on several texts related to the meeting of Odysseus
and Circe, as told in Homer's Odyssey, by Karoline von Günderrode, Giovanni Pascoli and Isabelle
Eberhardt, illuminating various aspects of the myth. The opera was premiered on 14 September 2014 at the
Oper Frankfurt.[116]
Scientific interpretations
In later Christian opinion, Circe was an abominable witch using miraculous powers to evil ends. When the
existence of witches came to be questioned, she was reinterpreted as a depressive suffering from
delusions.[117]
In botany, the Circaea are plants belonging to the enchanter's nightshade genus. The name was given by
botanists in the late 16th century in the belief that this was the herb used by Circe to charm Odysseus'
companions.[118] Medical historians have speculated that the transformation to pigs was not intended
literally but refers to anticholinergic intoxication with the plant Datura stramonium.[119] Symptoms include
amnesia, hallucinations, and delusions. The description of "moly" fits the snowdrop, a flower that contains
galantamine, which is a long lasting anticholinesterase and can therefore counteract anticholinergics that are
introduced to the body after it has been consumed.[119]
Other influence
The gens Mamilia – described by Titus Livius as one of the most distinguished families of Latium[120][121] –
claimed descent from Mamilia, a granddaughter of Odysseus and Circe through Telegonus. One of the most
well known of them was Octavius Mamilius (died 498 BCE), princeps of Tusculum and son-in-law of
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus the seventh and last king of Rome.
Linnaeus named a genus of the Venus clams (Veneridae) after Circe in 1778 (species Circe
scripta (Linnaeus, 1758) and others).[122]
Her name has been given to 34 Circe, a large, dark main-belt asteroid first sighted in 1855.
There are a variety of chess variants named Circe in which captured pieces are reborn on their
starting positions. The rules for this were formulated in 1968.
The Circe effect, coined by the enzymologist William Jencks, refers to a scenario where an
enzyme lures its substrate towards it through electrostatic forces exhibited by the enzyme
molecule before transforming it into a product. Where this takes place, the catalytic velocity
(rate of reaction) of the enzyme may be significantly faster than that of others.[123]
In popular culture
See also
Nostalgie de la boue
References
1. LSJ s.v. πολυ-φάρμα^κος , ον, (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atex
t%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpolufa%2Frmakos); Homer, Odyssey, 10.276 (http://data.per
seus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-grc1:10.261-10.301).
2. Homer, Odyssey 10.135 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.135&fr
omdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136); Hesiod, Theogony, 956 (http://www.perseus.tufts.
edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+956&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130);
Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3
A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D9%3Asection%3D1);
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica .
3. Grimal; Smith.
4. E., Bell, Robert (1993). Women of classical mythology : a biographical dictionary. New York:
Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195079777. OCLC 26255961 (https://www.worldcat.org/o
clc/26255961).
5. Homer, Odyssey 10.212ff (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.212&f
romdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136).
6. Homer, Odyssey 10.475—541 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atex
t%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D10%3Acard%3D475).
7. Timothy Peter Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth, Cambridge University 1995, pp. 47–48 (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=7LPNHRUlWacC&lpg=PA48&ots=-_sY_Y5iRY&dq=Phauno
s%20Circe&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q=Phaunos%20Circe&f=false).
8. "They escaped neither the vast sea's hardships nor vexatious tempests till Kirké should wash
them clean of the pitiless murder of Apsyrtos" (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, iv. 586–88,
in Peter Grean's translation).
9. See the ancient concept of miasma, a Peter Green's commentary on iv. 705–17, The
Argonautika Apollonios Rhodios, (1997, 2007) p. 322.
10. iv: 659–84 (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/830/830-h/830-h.htm#2H_4_0006). Gutenberg.org.
1997. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
11. John E. Thorburn, FOF Companion to Classical Drama, New York 2005, p. 138 (https://books.
google.com/books?id=k3NnUyqzRNYC&lpg=PA138&ots=sq7kt-2MFW&dq=Aeschylus%2C%2
0%22Circe%22%20%20%22fragment%22&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=Circe&f=false)
12. "Dryden's translation" (http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.7.vii.html). Classics.mit.edu.
Retrieved 2014-03-19.
13. "Online translation" (http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses14.html). Theoi.com.
Retrieved 2014-03-19.
14. Vol. XII of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1957, at the Chicago University website (http://pe
nelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Gryllus*.html).
15. tr. Virginia Brown, Harvard University 2003 ch. 38, pp. 74–76 (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=3Nj04ULC0s8C&lpg=PA76&ots=PJw_ycvL0D&dq=boccaccio%20Circe&pg=PA74#v=one
page&q=boccaccio%20Circe&f=false).
16. John Gower, English Works, 6.1391–1788 (https://archive.org/stream/completeworksofj03gow
euoft#page/204/mode/2up); there is also a modern translation (http://www.ellinanderson.com/
Circe%20and%20Ulysses.html) by Ellin Anderson.
17. The German original is available on Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=KPI6A
AAAcAAJ&pg=PT241).
18. Vega, Lope de (1624). Pages 1–69 (https://books.google.com/?id=3qoS6eckQ-kC&printsec=tit
lepage#v=onepage&q&f=false). Retrieved 2014-03-19.
19. The third section of the Gutenberg edition (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/976/976-h/976-h.htm
#2H_4_0003).
20. Judith Yarnall, Transformations of Circe, University of Illinois, 1994, pp. 1–2 (https://books.goo
gle.com/books?id=75rcKJQ6X-MC&pg=PA152).
21. The English translation of 1754 is available on Google Books (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=zrgFAAAAQAAJe).
22. Book 2.12, stanza 86.
23. There is a French translation in Oeuvres complètes X, Paris 1825, pp. 401–53 (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=KkgTAAAAQAAJ&hl=fr&pg=PA403).
24. The original and its English translation is available online (http://www.tomaszahora.org/Cantus
CircaeusTranslation.htm).
25. Much of the information that follows can be found discussed in Brigitte Urbani, Vaut-il "mieux
mille fois être ânes qu'être hommes"? Quelques réécritures de La Circe de Giovan Battista
Gelli, INT Chroniques 69/70. 2002 pp. 163–81 (http://chroniquesitaliennes.univ-paris3.fr/PDF/6
9-70/69-Urbani.pdf).
26. "The Fables of La Fontaine, by Jean de La Fontaine : Book XII" (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.a
u/l/la_fontaine/jean_de/fables/book12.html#book12.1). ebooks.adelaide.edu.au.
27. Denis, Charles (2018). "Select Fables" (https://books.google.com/books?id=CK4iXvnRAXQC&
lpg=PR7s). Tonson and Draper – via Google Books.
28. Gryll Grange by Thomas Love Peacock (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21514?msg=welco
me_stranger). 2007 – via www.gutenberg.org.
29. Pope's translation of the Odyssey, Book X, lines 279–80 (https://books.google.com/books?id=I
UoIAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PA233&ots=A2clHXZYnt&dq=%22Head%2C%20face%20and%20memb
ers%20bristle%20into%20swine%22&pg=PA233#v=onepage&q=%22Head,%20face%20an
d%20members%20bristle%20into%20swine%22&f=false).
30. Vignettes in Rhyme and other verses, US edition 1880, pp. 206–10 (https://archive.org/stream/
vignettesinrhyme00dobsuoft#page/206/mode/2up/).
31. Matthew Arnold, The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems, London 1849, pp. 11–27 (http://www.
telelib.com/authors/A/ArnoldMatthew/verse/strayedreveller/strayedreveller.html).
32. M. G. Sundell, "Story and Context in "The Strayed Reveller", Victorian Poetry 3.3, West
Virginia University 1965, pp. 161–70 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20171700?seq=3#page_sca
n_tab_contents).
33. Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates Book I, 3.7 (http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Memorabilia.html).
34. "Alciato at Glasgow: Emblem: Cavendum à meretricibus" (http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/a
lciato/emblem.php?id=A46a016). www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk.
35. "Whitney 82" (https://www.mun.ca/alciato/whit/w082.html). www.mun.ca.
36. The text is at Online Literature (http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/15).
37. French text online (http://www.mediterranees.net/mythes/ulysse/epreuves/circe/glatigny.html).
38. French text online (http://www.mediterranees.net/mythes/ulysse/epreuves/circe/menard.html).
39. A Victorian Anthology (http://www.bartleby.com/246/757.html) 1837–95.
40. "T.S. Eliot's 'Harvard Advocate' Poems" (http://world.std.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/
poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html). world.std.com.
41. James E. Miller Jnr, T.S. Eliot: The Making Of An American Poet, Pennsylvania State
University 2005, p. 71 (https://books.google.com/books?id=Aq-lfNXrIDAC&lpg=PA71&ots=XQ
C16Ht7Cw&dq=%22Circe%22%20%20T.S.Eliot&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q=%22Circe%22%2
0%20T.S.Eliot&f=false).
42. The whole text can be read on PoemHunter (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/circe).
43. Christine Sutphin, The representation of women's heterosexual desire in Augusta Webster's
"Circe" and "Medea in Athens", Women's Writing 5.3, 1998, pp. 373–93.
44. The Path of Dreams, p. 54 (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27024/27024-h/27024-h.htm#Page_
54).
45. Hymen, pp. 21–22 (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/doolittle/hymen/1921-circe.html).
46. The World's Wife, London 1999; the text is on the Porkopolis website (http://www.porkopolis.or
g/library/pig-poetry/carol-ann-duffy).
47. Painting and poem are juxtaposed on the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood site (http://preraphaelitesi
sterhood.com/the-wine-of-circe-by-edward-burne-jones-poem-by-dante-gabriel-rossetti); the
letter to Barbara Bodichon is quoted on the Rossetti Archive site (http://www.rossettiarchive.or
g/docs/24-1869.raw.html).
48. A Late Picking – poems 1965–74, quoted in the Australian Poetry Library (http://www.poetrylibr
ary.edu.au/poets/hope-a-d/circe-0417019).
49. Selected Poems, Boston 1976 pp. 201–23 (https://books.google.com/books?id=Vv2dfKp74sA
C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=circe&f=false).
50. Jane Polden, Regeneration: Journey Through the Mid-Life Crisis, London 2002, pp. 124–28 (ht
tps://books.google.com/books?id=nXSWIIugy_0C&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=Louis+Macneic
e,+%22Circe%22&source=bl&ots=9GSBY1K7Nh&sig=uPuMKY4G6oYW1LXCopyl63i9nuU&hl
=en&sa=X&ei=bZdpUPLFJIXF0QX6x4DQAw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Louis%20
Macneice%2C%20%22Circe%22&f=false); "Ulysses is of course one more surrogate for the
poet", Bruce Michelson, Lowell Versus Lowell, Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1983, pp. 22–
39 (http://www.vqronline.org/essay/lowell-versus-lowell).
51. There is a translation on the Gutenberg website (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/615/pg
615.html).
52. Merritt Y. Hughes, Spenser's Acrasia and the Circe of the Renaissance, Journal of the History
of Ideas IV. 4, 1943, p. 383 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707165?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont
ents)
53. Edward Fairfax's 1600 translation is available at the Gutenberg website (http://www.gutenberg.
org/cache/epub/392/pg392.html).
54. Shearer, John Christopher (2017). Masks of the Dark Goddess in Arthurian Literature: Origin
and Evolution of Morgan le Fay (https://encompass.eku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1464&
context=etd). Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond.
55. Paul A. Olson, Beyond a Common Joy: An Introduction to Shakespearean Comedy, University
of Nebraska 2008, pp. 79–82 (https://books.google.com/books?id=_cJE15y9FmIC&lpg=PA81&
ots=4KqlmnUV-B&dq=Titania%20%22Circe%22&pg=PA79#v=onepage&q=Titania%20%22Cir
ce%22&f=false).
56. John G. Demaray, "Milton's Comus: The Sequel to a Masque of Circe," Huntington Library
Quarterly 29 (1966), pp. 245–54.
57. The text is on the Gutenberg website (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19819/19819-h/19819-h.h
tm).
58. The Italian text is at the Fondazioni Pascoli (http://www.fondazionepascoli.it/Poesie/pc22.htm)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20090721115238/http://www.fondazionepascoli.it/Poesi
e/pc22.htm) 2009-07-21 at the Wayback Machine; there is a discussion of the work in Mario
Truglio, Beyond the Family Romance: The Legend of Pascoli, University of Toronto 2007, pp.
65–68 (https://books.google.com/books?id=nlOvSf7Of4MC&lpg=PA65&ots=__Y5Ic6qdw&dq=
Pascoli%20%20%22Circe%22&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q=Pascoli%20%20%22Circe%22&f=fal
se).
59. The translation of Kimon Friar, New York 1958, Book 2, pp. 126–29 (https://www.scribd.com/do
c/10986184/The-Odyssey-A-Modern-Sequel-by-Nikos-Kazantzakis).
60. "Odysseus & Circe – Ancient Greek Vase Painting" (http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T35.6.html).
www.theoi.com.
61. Walters Art Museum, acc. no. 54.1483
62. Hill, "Odysseus' Companions on Circe's Isle" The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 4
(1941:119–22) p. 120.
63. Odyssey Book X lines 198ff (http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odyssey10.htm
#_Toc90267910).
64. "Circe – Ancient Greek Vase Painting" (http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T35.4.html).
www.theoi.com.
65. "Columbia College" (http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/sites/core/files/images/Untitled16.jp
g).
66. "Homer (c. 750 BCE) – The Odyssey: Book X" (http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Gre
ek/Odyssey10.htm#_Toc90267911). www.poetryintranslation.com.
67. "Odysseus and Circe, Athenian red figure lekythos, c. 470 BCE. The Core Curriculum" (http://w
ww.college.columbia.edu/core/content/odysseus-and-circe-athenian-red-figure-lekythos-c-470-
bce). www.college.columbia.edu.
68. Eric Broudy, The Book of Looms, University Press of New England 1939, p. 23 (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=shN5_-W1RzcC&lpg=PA23&dq=%22Circe%22%20pottery&pg=PA23#v=
onepage&q=%22Circe%22%20pottery&f=false)
69. Book X, lines 198ff
70. "Image gallery: skyphos" (https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection
_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=1004121&objectid=399970).
British Museum.
71. John E. Thorburn, FOF Companion to Classical Drama, New York 2005, p. 138 (https://books.
google.com/books?id=k3NnUyqzRNYC&lpg=PA138&ots=sq7kt-2MFW&dq=Aeschylus%2C%2
0%22Circe%22%20%20%22fragment%22&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=Circe&f=false).
72. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 1.10e 'By way of denouncing drunkenness the poet [Homer] . .
changes the men who visited Kirke into lions and wolves because of their self-indulgence'
(trans. Gullick) quoted on the Theoi website (http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Kirke.html).
73. Description of Greece 5. 19. 7 (http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias5B.html).
74. Book X lines 348ff (http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odyssey10.htm#_Toc902
67913).
75. Lessing images (http://www.lessingimages.com/viewimage.asp?i=10010241+&cr=6&cl=1)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20150128113311/http://www.lessingimages.com/viewim
age.asp?i=10010241+&cr=6&cl=1) 2015-01-28 at the Wayback Machine.
76. "The Fitzwilliam Museum" (http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/ancient
_pages/B.34/PIC-I-1-SE-B.34.html). www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk.
77. Published from London, p. 240 (http://www.albion-prints.com/greece-circe-c1760-costume-prin
t-5656-p.asp).
78. "Binding with Briars My Joys & Desires" (https://preraphaeliteoftheforest.tumblr.com/post/1175
5388956/miss-elliott-as-circe-daniel-gardner). preraphaeliteoftheforest.tumblr.com.
79. Egerton, Judy (2007). George Stubbs, Painter: Catalogue Raisonné (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=mFrO5o2X2EcC&pg=PA482). Yale University. pp. 95, 482. ISBN 978-
0300125092.
80. The Smith College Museum of Art: European and American Painting and Sculpture, 1760–
1960, pp. 108–09 (https://books.google.com/books?id=3Yq0IRs_ZZwC&lpg=PA108&ots=SkA7
LRZRgL&dq=%22circe%22%20%22sculpture%22&pg=PA108#v=onepage&q=%22circe%22%
20%22sculpture%22&f=false).
81. Tate. " 'Emma Hart as Circe', George Romney, c. 1782" (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ro
mney-lady-hamilton-as-circe-n05591).
82. Romney, George (23 June 1782). "Lady Hamilton as Circe" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wi
ki/File:George_Romney_-_Lady_Hamilton_as_Circe_2.jpg) – via Wikimedia Commons.
83. Julia Peakman, Emma Hamilton, London 2005, pp. 47–50 (https://books.google.com/books?id
=Lzn6AzBjE7EC&lpg=PA48&ots=_-by5D0Gr3&dq=%22pose%20plastique%22%20emma%20
hamilton&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q=%22pose%20plastique%22%20emma%20hamilton&f=fals
e).
84. Victoria and Albert Museum (http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/16773).
85. "Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Haig as Circe" (http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/port
raitLarge/mw17333/Lady-Alexandra-Henrietta-Louisa-Haig-as-Circe). www.npg.org.uk.
National Portrait Gallery.
86. "Art UK" (https://archive.today/20130419205852/http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/painti
ngs/circe-and-the-sirens-a-group-portrait-of-the-honourable-edith-c). Archived from the original
(https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/circe-and-the-sirens-a-group-portrait-of-the
-honourable-edith-c) on 2013-04-19.
87. "Vera Violetta" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160417075726/http://vintage-ephemera.blogspo
t.co.uk/2012/09/circe-1911.html). Archived from the original (http://vintage-ephemera.blogspot.
co.uk/2012/09/circe-1911.html) on 2016-04-17. Retrieved 2019-03-10.
88. There is a fuller biography in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (http://adb.anu.edu.au/biog
raphy/allen-mary-cecil-5005).
89. "Sketch: Miss Audrey Stevenson as Circe – Mary Cecil ALLEN – NGV – View Work" (http://ww
w.ngv.vic.gov.au/col/work/5828). www.ngv.vic.gov.au.
90. Myshkin, Príncipe (2010). "Origem da Comédia: The Goddess Series" (http://origemdacomedi
a.blogspot.com/2010/07/goddess-series.html).
91. "Turn of the Century: Photo" (https://turnofthecentury.tumblr.com/image/1565153826).
turnofthecentury.tumblr.com.
92. "1907 Theatre – Mme Genevieve Vix as Circe, an opera comique by the Brothers Hillenacher
at the Opera Comique, Paris" (https://www.flickr.com/photos/charmainezoe/5362148286).
2011-01-16.
93. The entire score can be downloaded from Sarge Gerbode's site (http://musickshandmade.co
m/lute/gerbodes/index/La%20Circe/page:1/sort:source/direction:asc) Archived (https://archive.t
oday/20130129071116/http://musickshandmade.com/lute/gerbodes/index/La%20Circe/page:1/
sort:source/direction:asc) 2013-01-29 at Archive.today
94. There is a performance on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsG1mSNHOg0); the
score is also available online (https://archive.org/stream/imslp-di-sospetto-rv-678-vivaldi-antoni
o/WIMA.dd52-Vivaldi_cantata_fLsop#page/n0/mode/2up).
95. Oeuvres de Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, Brussels 1743, Volume 1, pp. 321–24 (https://books.goo
gle.com/books?id=IAQ_AAAAcAAJ&lpg=PA321&ots=5CNT4IqlSm&dq=jean%20baptiste%20r
ousseau%20circ%C3%A9&pg=PA321#v=onepage&q=jean%20baptiste%20rousseau%20cir
c%C3%A9&f=false).
96. Details are on the Philidor site (http://philidor3.cmbv.fr/Parcourir/Oeuvres/COLIN-DE-BLAMON
T-Francois-1690-1760-CIRCE-1725-cantate-francaise) and there is a performance on
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mN1yx7fh3w).
97. Biographical notes on the Musicologie website (http://www.musicologie.org/Biographies/f/fonte
nelle_granges.html).
98. Jacques Chailley, "Les dialogues sur la musique d'Alexandre Beloselskij", Revue des études
slaves 45, 1966, pp. 93–103 (http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/slave_00
80-2557_1966_num_45_1_1911?_Prescripts_Search_tabs1=standard&).
99. The manuscript score is online (http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/d
ocId/15130).
00. "Thomas der Zug Spielzeug | Ein Schlüssel zum Verständnis von Thomas Train Characters ist
eine handliche Thomas Train Character Guide für Jungen und Mädchen zur Auswahl" (http://th
omas-hoeft.de/).
01. "Martin Hennessy: Works Available Through This Site" (http://www.martinhennessy.net/list2.ht
m). www.martinhennessy.net.
02. A performance in German online (http://www.discogs.com/Hanne-Wieder-Und-Friedrich-Meyer
-Mit-Seiner-Studio-Band-Circe-Wiener-Schmarrn/release/957748).
03. Track 9, available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=UG&feature=related&hl=e
n-GB&v=ZljJBAvQzUo).
04. Antoine de Léris, Dictionnaire des Théâtres, Paris 1763,online quotation (http://operabaroque.f
r/DUPLESSIS_FETES.htm).
05. Joseph Marie Quérard, La France littéraire, ou Dictionnaire bibliographique, Paris 1835, p. 196
(https://books.google.com/books?id=Rirytt5V00oC&lpg=PA196).
06. Lisa Allen's photographs of the ballet are available online (http://www.exploredance.com/articl
e.htm?id=514).
07. Jamake Highwater, Dance: Rituals of Experience, Oxford University 1996, pp. 179–81 (https://
books.google.com/books?id=tZOE1wrlweYC&lpg=PA179&ots=QS-3DzM6Nc&dq=Martha%20
Graham%20%20%22Circe%22&pg=PA179#v=onepage&q=Martha%20Graham%20%20%22
Circe%22&f=false).
08. There is an excerpt online (http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/album/boston-modern-orchestra-pr
oject/john-harbison-ulysses/11283351).
09. Hans Dieter Schaal: Stage Architecture Stuttgart and London 2002, pp. 48–51 (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=spVLtZMGWO0C&lpg=PA49&ots=uVfc64U1ni&dq=Gerald%20Humel%2
C%20%22Circe%20und%20Odysseus%22&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q=Gerald%20Humel,%2
0%22Circe%20und%20Odysseus%22&f=false).
10. Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, New York, 1980, 13:544–
545.
11. "Aus Odysseus' Fahrten, Op. 6 (Boehe, Ernst) – IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public
Domain Sheet Music" (http://imslp.org/wiki/Aus_Odysseus'_Fahrten,_Op.6_(Boehe,_Ernst)).
imslp.org.
12. "Michael Amann – Komponist & Musikpädagoge" (http://www.michael-amann.at/?id=11&sprac
he=de&to_include=werk&artcat=4). Michael Amann – Komponist & Musikpädagoge.
13. "Vorarlberg musical documentation centre" (http://www.musikdokumentation-vorarlberg.at/mia
mt001.htm).
14. Available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pA4JgQau-0).
15. "Composer's website" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120717054620/http://www.theamusgrav
e.com/html/voices_from_the_ancient_world.html). Archived from the original (http://www.theam
usgrave.com/html/voices_from_the_ancient_world.html) on July 17, 2012.
16. Brandenburg, Detlef (14 September 2014). "Regie auf Irrfahrt" (https://www.die-deutsche-bueh
ne.de/kritiken/regie-auf-irrfahrt). Die Deutsche Bühne (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2019.
17. "Disbelieving in Witchcraft: Allori's Melancholic Circe in the Palazzo Salviati," Athanor 22
(2004), pp. 57–65 (https://www.academia.edu/7199809/_Disbelieving_in_Witchcraft_Allori_s_
Melancholic_Circe_in_the_Palazzo_Salviati._Athanor_22_2004_57-65).
18. "Enchanter'S Nightshade | Definition of Enchanter'S Nightshade by Lexico" (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20160304064716/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/enchanter's+n
ightshade). Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original (https://www.lexico.com/e
n/definition/enchanter%27s_nightshade) on March 4, 2016.
19. Plaitakis A, Duvoisin RC (March 1983). "Homer's moly identified as Galanthus nivalis L.:
physiologic antidote to stramonium poisoning". Clin Neuropharmacol. 6 (1): 1–5.
doi:10.1097/00002826-198303000-00001 (https://doi.org/10.1097%2F00002826-198303000-0
0001). PMID 6342763 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6342763).
20. Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology.
21. Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, 1:49.
22. Species details (http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=216564); there are
pictures on the Conchology website (http://www.conchology.be/?t=65&family=VENERIDAE).
23. Jeremy M. Berg; John L. Tymoczko; Lubert Stryer (2006). Biochemistry (https://archive.org/det
ails/biochemistry0006berg). New York: Freeman. ISBN 978-0-7167-6766-4.
Bibliography
Ancient
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-
White. Theogony, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.
1914.
Homer. The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes,
Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1919.
Lactantius Placidus, Commentarii in Statii Thebaida.
Ovid, Metamorphoses xiv.248–308.
Servius, In Aeneida vii.190.
Modern
Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology (https://books.google.com/books?id=iOx
6de8LUNAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=fals
e), Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. "Circe" p. 104 (https://books.google.com/
books?id=iOx6de8LUNAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepa
ge&q=Circe&f=false).
Milton, John, A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle [Comus] line 153 "mother Circe".
Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873).
"Circe" (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3
Aalphabetic+letter%3DC%3Aentry+group%3D23%3Aentry%3Dcirce-bio-1).
Miller, Madeline; Circe (http://madelinemiller.com/circe/), Little Brown and Company (2018).
External links
The Theoi Project, "KIRKE" (http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Kirke.html)
"Circe" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student%27s_Reference_Work/Circe).
The New Student's Reference Work. 1914.
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