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Circe (Greek mythology, Odyssey)

Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs; one of her Homeric epithets is polypharmakos (“knowing many drugs or charms”).[2] Through the use of these and a magic wand or staff, she would transform her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals.

The best known of her legends is told in Homer’s Odyssey when Odysseus visits her island of Aeaea on the way back from the Trojan War and she changes most of his crew into swine. He forces her to return them to human shape, lives with her for a year and has sons by her, including Latinus and Telegonus. Her ability to change others into animals is further highlighted by the story of Picus, an Italian king whom she turns into a woodpecker for resisting her advances. Another story makes her fall in love with the sea-god Glaucus, who prefers the nymph Scylla to her. In revenge, Circe poisoned the water where her rival bathed and turned her into a dreadful monster.

Source: Circe – Wikipedia

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2 Comments

  1. Tim B.

    “Siduri has been compared to the Odyssey’s Circe. Like Odysseus, Gilgamesh receives directions on how to reach his destination from a divine helper. In this case it is the goddess Siduri, who, like Circe, dwells by the sea at the ends of the earth. Her home is also associated with the sun: Gilgamesh reaches Siduri’s house by passing through a tunnel underneath Mount Mashu, the high mountain from which the sun comes into the sky. West argues that the similarity of Odysseus’s and Gilgamesh’s journeys to the edges of the earth are the result of the influence of the Gilgamesh epic upon the Odyssey.[8]”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siduri

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