Comparing Odyssey And Circe's Power

      Circe and Calypso, while very tricky and sly, are still very strong feminine characters.  Circe takes Odysseus' crew and turns them into swine; when Odysseus is able to resist her spell, due to the Moly he had been given by Hermes, she is dismayed and takes him as her lover. She is mysterious and seductive and is strong even up against Odysseus.  Calypso is a sea nymph who keeps Odysseus captive for nine years, hoping to make him her husband.  She is a strong-willed temptress whose sultry ways are able to reel in even the most determined man.

This time spent on Circe's island was a test of whether he could resist lust from a goddess, and he fails. At first it appears as though the only reason Odysseus sleeps with Circe is to regain his companions, but she easily persuades them to stay. What makes it worse is the fact that Odysseus is not even the first one ready to go. His men are the ones who urge him to leave: "What ails you now? It is time to think about our own country" (Book X, line 472). At a glance, it appears that Odysseus is merely succumbing to Circe's schemes for reasons related to their health and well being, if we read between the lines, we soon begin to realize that Odysseus is weak in the voracious hands of lust. Odysseus arrives on Calypso's island in her cave. At first, it seems like Odysseus doesn't seem much to mind her taking care of him, but over time it is plainly evident that he is unhappy with her. When Hermes arrives on Calypso's island to give her the message from Zeus to release Odysseus, he is bawling on the beach-- a daylong activity for him. Calypso is holding him with her by force; she has no companions to help him back to Ithaca, nor has she a ship to send him in. Athena pleads with Zeus to give Odysseus good fortune,

Another poor decision Odysseus made was sending half of his men to explore Circe’s island. While Odysseus knew nothing about this thickly wooded island, he still sent half of his men to explore it. Only one of his men came back, claiming a sorceress turned them all into swine. Odysseus is then forced to go search for his men, and ends up staying on the island for “many seasons.” If only Odysseus would have just left and went to a different island in the first place, none of this would had happened. Or, if Odysseus and his men had no other choice, they could have stayed by the sea shore and they would have been safe. Circe caused the men to be distracted for “many seasons” again delaying them from getting

Something common in the two epics about their journey is that both Odysseus and Aeneas are distracted from what they are destined for; by the lust and arousal of women obsessed by love. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is first encountered by Circe’s love and then by the over obsession of Calypso. Circe is an immortal goddess and enchantress who is extremely beautiful and sexy. In the Aeneid, Aeneas after reaching Carthage meets Dido who is a mortal woman and queen of Carthage. She is foreign, exotic, mysterious, sexually and politically potent. Talking about Odysseus, we see that Odysseus is approached by Hermes who warns him against Circe. She offers Odysseus to have sex with her and it happens. Odysseus now distracted, lives with her on her island for a year until his comrades remind him of Ithaca. The longest delay in Odysseus’ journey is at the island of Calypso. Calypso lives alone on an exotic and beautiful island. After Odysseus crash lands here, he is rescued by her and held captive for seven years. Calypso loves Odysseus unconditionally and offers him immortality. Calypso could never impress Odysseus like Circe did. But in the Aeneid, we see that Aeneas loses sight of his mission of founding Rome in Italy. Dido makes Aeneas forget about what he is destined for as they fall in love. Both Dido and Circe keep men away from their

After Odysseus came from the encounter he had with the beautiful witch goddess Circe,, his men are grateful to see him . His men gather around him like a master and a shepherd, his men surrounded him. Odysseus a well respected man who is admired by his men and treated as a mortal god due to his God like qualities . While his crew are stranded in the middle of a cross road without his leadership and guidance, pivoting towards all directions but incapable of moving forward with

This poem begins with the speaker leaving his group of friends (who have been discussing sexual liaisons) for a drunken walk in St. James’s Park, to “cool my head, and fire my heart” (8), whereupon he encounters his lover Corinna being led away by three “knights.” She looks at him disdainfully. His anger towards

In the poem, Circe acknowledges the fact that Odysseus’ men aren’t bad men, but an undisciplined life caused them to act like pigs. However, she and her ladies sweetened them right up. This sweetening up allows the men to rest and recuperate after the

The Odyssey is an epic poem that is taken place after the Trojan War. Odysseus and his men were sailing from Troy to Ithica. The trip lasted 10 years and they had some positives and negatives. So even though they had their ups and downs, throughout the adventure they learned many lessons throughout their journey to Ithica. As Odysseus home from Troy, he changes physically and mentally as he learns the following lessons: cunning overpowers physical strength giving into temptations has negative effects, and loyalty and perseverance are heroic and admirable.

Hermes helps him out and gives him a plan to help save his men. So our hero is saved by the god Hermes from a horrible fate. Still Odysseus is not content to sail on and leave the goddess behind (Odyssey 10:269-532). Here Odysseus lost sight of his goal, thinking he was in full control of the situation. Only after a full year has past does he even ask Circe to help them on their way and only at the urging of his crew. He forgets that it was only by the gods help that he was able to triumph over Circe. There was no other way he could have survived her magic. In a sense he is beat by her because he forgets his voyage home and wastes a year in tarring there. By forgetting the voyage he denies himself, a hero, and forgets his family and subjects in Ithaca. Exactly the same threat that the lotus eaters posed to Odysseus and his men. The temptation that Circe offers is a life of pleasure. Anything you desire: food, sport, beautiful women, anything at all. For a time Odysseus is taken in my her offer but thanks to his men he is able to break free of it and remember his home and family.

The second woman who was responsible for problems that Odysseus faced was Circe. Firstly she turned all but one of Odysseus’ men into pigs and delayed Odysseus’ progress. “Now they had pig’s heads and bristles and they grunted like pigs; but their minds were as human as they had been before,” (Page 131) this quote depicts Circe’s cruelness towards Odysseus’ men. Secondly Circe again stalls Odysseus from completing his journey back to Ithaca. “You are worn out and dispirited, always brooding on the hardships of your travels. Your sufferings have been so continuous that you have lost all pleasure in living.” (Page 136) This quote shows how Circe convinced Odysseus and his men to spend more time on the island. Thirdly Circe made Odysseus and his men take a different route, via the prophet Teiresias, rather than going straight back to Ithaca. “But Circe has marked out a very different route- to the Halls of Hades and the dreaded Persephone.” (Page 139) This makes the rest of Odysseus’ crew very upset. “When I told them they were heart-broken. They sat down where they were and tore their hair out.” (Page 139)

The islands of Circe and Calypso in Homer’s Odyssey are places where Odysseus’ most challenging problems occur. In contrast to battles with men, Cyclops, or animals, sexual battles with women are sometimes much more difficult to win. These two female characters are especially enticing to Odysseus because they are goddesses. Though it is evident that Odysseus longs to return to Penelope in Ithaka, it sometimes appears that he has lost vision of what life was like with a wife, a son, and with thousands of people who regard him as King. Although his experiences on the islands of these goddesses were similar in that he was retained from Ithaka for the longest periods of his adventure, these goddesses and the

The love that the Aiaian queen Circe holds for Odysseus is one that is more based on physical attraction and infatuation than sincere love. It is the shortest-lived of the three romances and also the shallowest.

Women are portrayed as seductresses. Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of Circe, lured in by the sound of her voice. Homer describes her as "Low she sang/ in her beguiling voice,

After the encounters with the Sirens, Odysseus had to face a terrifying creature that he feared of. Circe warned Odysseus about the dangers of Scylla. He is informed that she will snag six of his men and tells him that it is much better than loosing everyone. “Nobody would feel good seeing her, not even a god who crossed her path. She has a dozen feet all deformed, six enormously long necks, with a horrible head on each of them and three rows of teeth packed closed together, full of murky death” (Steele and Alwa, 489). Odysseus knew that in order for his survival and to be able to get to the island, he had to sacrifice his men and escape this monster. “Monsters such as the Sphinx are often represented as female, as if to imply that women are on the borderline between human and “other” than human”(Steele and Alwa, 41). Odysseus also had to deal with his love affair with the witch goddess, Circe. She lived with nymphs on a mythical island. She changed all of Odysseus’s men into animals when he showed up to see her. Hermes helped Odysseus remove the men from the spell. “Many men appear to have felt that they could truly not love women who were not educated well enough to read, write, or engage in informed dialogue with their husbands”(Steele and Alwa, 43). The love between Odysseus and Circe failed due to her lack of ability to engage with men, by

Circe, a powerful sorceress, shows her strength by being in control. Whenever Circe turns Odysseus’s men into pigs she shows her strength by overpowering them. Odysseus’s men underestimate Circe for the powerful sorceress she is because she is a woman. Because they do so, they are turned into pigs.