it’s a circle
her home a palindrome
Aeaea ends as it begins
perhaps that’s as it is
with the creatures that roam
around her house
they are softies in the bodies
of wolves and pigs
fawning in visitors’ laps
Circe was no fool
no greater expert was there
in pharmacopoeia
her powers transformative
turning men to beasts
and beasts to men
she’s reinvented herself
circling in space dark
asteroid 34
notes
Circe, a Greek goddess is the daughter of the sun god Helios. She is also the aunt of Medea. Both Medea and Circe are known for their herbal and medicinal skills, though in patriarchal parlance this becomes sorcery or witchcraft. The stories about these women are powerful representations of women in pre-patriarchal society
Circe appears in The Odyssey by Homer. Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Odyssey is a fine new interpretation in which the role of women is neither minimised nor reduced to sexist stereotypes.
Madeline Miller’s novel, Circe is also a great read.
This poem is published in my book The Sacking of the Muses.
I am often wary of later artworks representing ancient women, but William Blake’s painting ‘Comus with His Revellers’ shows Odysseus’s men in their transformed state. A rather wonderful image.
Attribution: William Blake (Lifetime: 1757 –1827), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons