Odysseus never asks her, and Homer doesn’t tell us. It has historically been treated as something inexplicable: she does it because she’s eeeeeevil. Except Homer carefully tells us that she’s not. After she and Odysseus come to an understanding, she becomes one of the most helpful deities he meets. She entertains him and his men on her island for a year, helping them through their emotional and physical exhaustion. Then, when Odysseus wants to leave (actually, he doesn’t want to leave, his men have to give him a nudge), she provides him with the supplies and knowledge needed for the dangers ahead.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
"With Circe, it was the mystery of why she was transforming men to pigs. How did she start doing such a thing? "
Madeline Miller talks about her new novel: