Circe

Hermes, the messenger god and son of Zeus, arrives on the island, explaining that no one cares if she is visited—she just cannot leave the island of Aiaia. He informs her that her voice, for which she has always been mocked, is a mortal’s voice rather than a goddess’. They soon engage in a casual sexual relationship. Hermes is a shrewd god, more interested in a good story than connection, but that is enough for Circe at the moment: “He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves” (95).

He updates her on the news, if only to see her reaction and gossip, and enlightens her of discomfiting truths. He explains that the gods love to intentionally make humans miserable to get more offerings. This surprises her at first, but she comes to agree. He also tells her that Scylla has been eating sailors; Circe feels guilt over their deaths but she refuses to show him. Hermes goes on to tell her that he has heard a prophecy that one of his descendants, a man called Odysseus, will one day come to her island. After he leaves, Circe discovers the flower called moly, a famous, powerful, curse-breaking plant, and counts herself lucky that it grows in the place of her exile.

Daedalus, the famous inventor Circe had seen in Crete, sails to the island. He says that Pasiphaë is pregnant and asking for her to attend the birth. This shocks Circe: “There has never been love between [her and her] sister and me” (103). Then there is the matter of her exile, but Daedalus tells her that Helios said her exile was lifted for this one case. Circe decides to go to show her cruel sister that she is now a powerful witch in her own right and will no longer succumb to her traps. Daedalus explains that Pasiphaë ordered them to come through the straight where Scylla is and that she has already eaten twelve of his men. Circe realizes this is Pasiphaë’s cruel way of ensuring that Circe will come to prevent more mortal lives from being lost. As she boards the ship, the figurehead—a touching image of a girl in a dancing dress with great depth of expression—impresses her. This too is Pasiphaë’s boast, showing off her pet inventor who makes such wonders. Circe observes the sailors, seeing the differences in humans up close for the first time, and wonders how anyone can stand the endless variations they present without going mad. Daedalus mentions that Pasiphaë has something of his, so he cannot leave even if he could escape her “employ.”

Circe considers herself the villain for what she did to Scylla and reminisces about who she was before she transformed Scylla into a monster. The old law states that “no god may undo what another has done” (111), but she hopes that she can undo what she has done herself. As they come upon Scylla, Circe creates an illusion of Perses, whom Scylla had once loved. She throws a cure into one of Scylla’s mouths but it does not work. They escape with their lives, but Circe realizes that Scylla is insane and cannot ever be restored to her original form. The sailors are grateful and offer to make sacrifices to Circe every day, but she is disgusted by their “imbecile gratitude” and explains that she was the one who made Scylla into a monster in the first place “for pride and vain delusion” (117). In a fit of guilt, she wishes the sun would scorch her to the bone.

When they reach the palace, Daedalus apologizes for offending her with his thanks and for what she is about to see. Despite the pain of childbirth, Pasiphaë taunts Circe about trying to change Scylla back and the mortal lives lost in the journey: “You made a monster and all you can think of is how sorry you are. Alas, poor mortals, I have put them in danger!” (120). Then she insists that Daedalus cut the baby out of her because it has not moved despite days of labor. At her sister’s instruction, Circe reaches in to pull the baby out, but it bites her, so she panics and pulls it out abruptly. The baby, which has the head of a bull, bites off two of Circe’s fingers and part of a third, eating them immediately. She holds it down and sends Daedalus to fetch a cage.

Circe asks Pasiphaë what the baby is and refuses to stitch her up until she explains. Instead, Pasiphaë orders Daedalus to answer, attributing the fault to him. He states that a sacred white bull was brought to them, but it was skittish and easily scared away. He built a wooden cow for Pasiphaë to climb into to observe the bull, but he had not expected what happened. Pasiphaë impatiently interrupts, announcing that she had sex with the bull, resulting in the monstrous child. Circe is horrified and says the gods will punish her, but her sister only laughs, saying, “Don’t you know? The gods love their monsters” (126).

Feeling responsible, Daedalus sets about building a cage, and Circe seeks to determine if the monster can be killed. In milling about her sister’s workroom, she has a realization: “My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch” (127). She goes to Mount Dicte, birthplace of Zeus, to collect the ingredients she needs to bind the monster’s taste for flesh. While there, she uses the prophecy gift from her father and asks the water to show her the creature’s death. It reveals the monster’s fate and that it dies as an adult. She meets her niece, Ariadne, a sweet, soft-spoken girl and the model for the boat’s figurehead. Ariadne brings her to Daedalus, and Circe announces that a mortal can kill the creature, but not until adulthood. She says that her spell can stop its hunger for human flesh, containing it for three seasons a year, but it must be fed every year at the harvest. Despite his monstrous ways, Ariadne pities the baby she considers her brother.

Circe finally understands that Pasiphaë did all of this to rise to prominence again, since her siblings are more famous than her. One brother raises the dead, another tames dragons, and Circe transformed Scylla, so no one talks about the queen of Crete—but they will talk about her now that she is the mother of the flesh-eating bull.

Daedalus informs Circe that Minos named the monster “the Minotaur,” making it seem as though he was not cuckolded but the “great king who begets monsters and names them after himself” (138). She uses the draught on the Minotaur, suppressing its hunger for flesh, and feels sympathy for the creature born out of nothing but hatred and ambition. She laments that there “was nothing it might ever have in the world except hatred and darkness and its teeth” (139).

Daedalus invites Circe to dine with him, and she meets his 4-year-old son, Icarus. His obvious love for his son is endearing, but Circe understands that his sister exploits it to keep him trapped. He asks her how she deals with being responsible for a monster. She answers that she just does the best she can.

Circe realizes that her sister hatefully orchestrated everything—creating the Minotaur for fame and to hurt Minos’ pride, arranging Daedalus’s unknowing complicity, and ensuring Circe’s return to clean up her mess and be subjected to mockery. She confronts her sister, who scorns her for still naively believing that obedience deserves reward despite growing up under Helios. Pasiphaë tells her that the gods only care for power: “They take what they want, and in return they give you only your own shackles” (146). She says that she always thought Circe would finally say that enough was enough and bid good riddance to the family, but she never did.

To Circe’s great surprise, Pasiphaë hates their family too. She points out that Circe has no idea what her life has been like, or what she has had to do to keep Perses happy, or how Zeus and Helios would let Minos do whatever he wanted if she had no poisons to keep him in check. She says Circe was too stupid to realize that Aeëtes never loved her or any woman; he only tolerated her presence because she fawned over him. Further, Pasiphaë says that Circe is just like their father, “stupid and sanctimonious, closing your eyes to everything you do not understand” (148).

Daedalus becomes Circe’s lover until she has to return to Aiaia. He gives her an ingenious, one-of-a-kind loom that he made as a parting gift. Years later, Hermes returns and tells her that Daedalus built wings for himself and his son and escaped Crete. Icarus, however, was too excited and flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax that held the feathers together. He fell into the ocean and drowned. Daedalus died not long after his son. Circe mourns him in her own way.

After her return from Crete, Aiaia feels more like a cage than ever. Daedalus’s words—“a golden cage is still a cage” (155)—ring in her ears. She considers whether her mother was a witch, with powers of charisma and seduction. She wonders what her sister hoped to gain by sending for her and how their relationship might be different if they had grown up elsewhere. She hears her sister’s voice in her mind, saying, “You are weak and blind, and it is worse because you choose it. You will be sorry in the end” (157).

Hermes returns and reveals that Artemis has killed her niece, Ariadne. Unimpressed by Circe’s grief, he reminds her that “if you cry every time some mortal dies, you’ll drown in a month” (159). Circe sends him away. She realizes that mortals like her sweet niece die no matter what, but cruel, petty gods live forever. During his next visit, Hermes shares that Minos used to order women to bed with him in front of Pasiphaë, so the spell she had proudly referenced in Crete was a curse that turned his seed into snakes and scorpions that stung the women to death from the inside. Circe remembers her sister saying she killed a hundred girls that way, and she’s horrified by the cruelty of it. Circe announces that she is done with her family and that she will think of them no more.

A ship arrives at Aiaia bearing a man and woman who beg for Katharsis, the cleansing of smoke and prayer, water and blood. They are tainted by miasma, the effect of deeds done against the gods and unsanctified spilling of blood. Circe has experienced it herself but was washed by the waters of Dicte. It is against the rules to ask to be cleansed of their transgressions—she can only say yes or no. Circe agrees and cleanses them.

After the ceremony, the woman reveals herself to be Aeëtes’s daughter, Medea. The man is Jason, a hero sent to get the golden fleece from Aeëtes, with whom Medea had fallen in love. She helped him get the fleece with her magic, enraging her father, and took her little brother as they escaped. Aeëtes pursued their ship, so Medea killed and chopped up her little brother, throwing the pieces into the ocean so her father would have to stop chasing them to collect the body of his heir for a proper burial. Circe is horrified and says she would not have cleansed them if she had known. Medea goes on to explain that her father is a sadist who was going to marry her off to Perses, who is also a sadist. Blinded by her love for Jason, Medea cannot see that Jason is already wary of her. Circe tries to warn her that the future she insists will be—where she is queen and mother of his children, happy forever—may not come to pass because she is a witch and a foreigner, so his people will despise her. Circe invites Medea to stay and offers to teach her magic, but Medea calls her pathetic and lonely. Circe realizes that this blind, childish stubbornness must have been what her grandmother saw when she plead on Glaucos’s behalf. Much like young Circe, Medea “would fight the whole world” (173) for her dream of a future with her love. Medea will not hear the truth, and so they leave.

Aeëtes arrives, and Circe is instinctually thrilled to see him, but he is furious that she did not imprison his daughter. He states that he should punish her. Circe shocks him by asserting he does not have the power to do so on her island: “No. In Colchis you may work your will. But this is Aiaia” (175).