Do You Fear the Poets?

By Sage Groves

“We sailed away from there with heavy hearts,

grieving for dear companions we had lost,

though glad we had avoided death ourselves, 

until we reached the island of Aeaea, 

home of that dread goddess, fair-haired Circe, 

Who possessed a human voice—blood sister 

to murderous Aeetes, both children 

of sun god Helios, who gives men light.”

—The Odyssey, Book Ten

I had done it so many times that it had become easier than breathing. Cheese as soft as butter, bread baked but never burned, meat cooked so that it slid off the bone and into the lips of men who entered my home. And the wine was wonderfully tannic when I poured it between their insatiable teeth. There were times when I felt guilt bubble in my belly, but why should they be able to come to my island, have their way with my immortal body, and leave as they please?

I knew my home so well that every boot that dug into the sand of my shores was like a step into my skin. I prepared the wine as soon as the ship settled in the sea’s shallows. 

It was like any other breath. I led the pigs, stuffed and scared, into the pen in the yard but when I returned a person was sitting in my silver-studded chair. I was not afraid, and after all I am a wonderful host, and so I placed a half full golden cup of my wine in front of them and sat opposite my favorite chair. “What is your name?” 

“Odysseus,” said the person. I was stunned by their voice; it fluttered into my ear like a dove whereas I had expected it to growl like a bear. It was then that I noticed that they had yet to pinken and oink. Perhaps in my perpetual routine, I had forgotten to lay my golden gaze on the person I craved to change. I locked eyes with the woman in front of me—how long had it been since a mortal woman had graced her eyes upon my ageless flesh? “Did you know that your magic only works on men?”

“I have never needed to know,” I said. With hands weathered by ropes and sea, she reached for the bottle and poured another glass. I said, “you are Odysseus?”

“So you’ve heard of me?”

“I have heard all about Troy.” I smiled. “Caused quite the commotion between the Olympians. They amuse me. But certainly you are not the Odysseus with the swift black ships that Hermes speaks of.”

“Unfortunately, I am afraid my reputation precedes me,” she chuckled, sipping a swig of the last of my magic. “I am Odysseus, King of Ithaca.”

I wonder if she noticed my lips tighten and my breath deepen. “You are a woman with the name of a man.”

I certainly noticed her lips part and her chest heave. “And you are a goddess with the voice of a mortal.” My heart has beat the same since I was born and will beat the same for the rest of forever, but in that moment I could have sworn it stopped. 

“And so I see you have heard about me too,” I chuckled. 

The woman licked the wine that spotted her lips. “Hermes is quite the gossiper, Circe.”

In my attempt not to blush, I changed the subject. “Will you tell me about Troy?”

Odysseus leaned back in her chair and removed the band that was holding up her long braids. They swung around the tired face that produced a curious grin. “I thought Hermes told you about Troy.”

“He did. I want to hear it from you.”

“And why is that, Circe?” I had never heard my name be pronounced with such respect and without the expectation of something more. The way the sounds sat on her tongue as if she was savoring the sweetness of my God-given name. 

“You were named the Best of the Greeks.”

Odysseus raised her brow ever so slightly. “Is the daughter of a Titan impressed by my ephemeral status?”

“More like intrigued by it. My mind longs to know why a woman would spend such a short life at war. Hermes tells me you have a wife and a child. Do you not wish to be with them? Glory, pride, confidence—these are all qualities that men idolize.”

Heavy silence weighed down on us. Finally Odysseus spoke, her voice laced with the traces of Olympian blood from her grandfather. Her voice had more God in it than mine ever had, and that tugged at the strings of my heart. Perhaps if I had a voice like hers, my words would not fall on deaf ears. If I had a voice like hers, perhaps I would not have to speak harmful incantations in order to be listened to. “Are you not confident in your magic? Is a mother not proud of her family? Is it not glorious for a woman to be able to live and be happy amongst men who view her as property? All humans strive for greatness, Circe. The only difference between us all is the manner in which greatness satisfies our goals. I have a thirst for glory, as do my men, and that insatiable lust for praise is a result of my descendancy from an Olympian. The gods have proven to me that my place is here.”

I am a god. If anyone knows about the gods’ tenacious meddling in human affairs, it is me. It was in that moment when my mind flirted with the idea of destiny. I had never known it. I had fallen victim to eternity, and so glory had never mattered to me and my island and my herbs and my spells. But to my lovely Odysseus, destiny was her world. And I realized that I would be a part of that, but unlike Athena or Hermes, I would not control her fate. I simply was a thread in the tapestry of her life, just as she was in mine, but in no way did I wish to be the weaver. 

“Resourceful Odysseus,” I whispered. Her eyes were tired, rimmed with a permanent layer of salt. My words had wings. “You speak of glory but all I see is despair.” 

“You did turn my men into pigs, Circe.”

I placed my glass to my stained lips and sipped sweet wine for too long. “Your men hollered at me from my gates.”

“Yes, that seems like something they would do,” she chuckled. “Many men are pigs, Circe, and I understand why you use your magic in such ways. The poets speak of the dangerous witch Circe. I do think you are dangerous, but only because you have had to be. Men see powerful women and are so intimidated that they must write them into demons.”

I couldn’t stop looking at her. Odysseus was a trickster, I heard the gossip myself. And for a moment I thought perhaps I was the one being bewitched. “You are a powerful woman, Odysseus. Do you not fear that poets will write epics of you and turn you into a monster?”

A curious look flashed across her dark face. “It’s possible,” she shrugged. “But many details of language get lost in translation. And after all, I do have the name of a man. The things that women are demonized for are things that men tend to be praised for.”

I had no words to respond. A sticky vine of jealousy curled up my body, sprouting from the knowledge that I had no such luck. I was and always will be Circe, Daughter of Helios. 

“Will you allow my men to return to their human form so that I may continue my journey home, or will you keep me here?” The words most certainly belonged to Hermes, that wretched Olympian. 

“This island is not your prison,” I said as I poured another glass of wine for the two of us; the only magic was the electric love that hummed in my heart. “Nor am I your jailer. I shall return your men to you, Odysseus.”

“Simple as that? No trick, no negotiation?”

“You have been tormented enough by the gods, I do not want to contribute to your suffering.”

“So then you will assist me?” 

Lingering in the forefront of my mind like one of the tigers in my yard was the thought of her destiny—or perhaps our destiny. Perhaps my eternal condition would not have been hindered by the mortal woman but I think about her all these centuries later, children read about her in school, her story will be told for eternity and I will live knowing that she is in the Underworld beneath my unkillable feet. And so maybe that is my destiny; I thought then, is this what I am meant for? To aid mortals in their fruitless quests for glory? While I sit at my loom and grow herbs in my garden and sing incantations to myself? “No,” was what I told her. “I told you, Odysseus, that I would not contribute to your suffering. If I tell you how to complete your quest for home, more pain will come to you.” Her eyes looked as mad as my sister’s half-bull child. I could see the ruthlessness in her eager face. I was not afraid, but I could see the Olympian blood underneath her mortal skin, and I knew instantly why she was praised among the Greeks. “I will, however, tell you my stories, if you will listen. You can take them as you will, but I infer that you will put my centuries of knowledge to good use.”

Had Odysseus been like her men, she may have tried to draw the sharp sword on her side and charge at me as if intent on murder. But she remained in cool stillness and gazed at my golden eyes, the anger melting from her own. She understood what I was saying, and a part of me wants to believe that she was even grateful for my refusal to infringe on her quest. 

Odysseus and I traded stories for four seasons; we barely had time to breathe between tales of Troy and of Ithaca, of my time with my father and with my siblings. She told me of Penelope and their son, she told me of Achilles and Patroclus and the formidable Hector. I shared stories of the monsters that I knew the gods would place in her path home—Scylla, the sirens—and although I never explicitly stated that they would interfere with her travels, Odysseus clung to every word I said. The woman was a trickster, yes, and I knew that she was noting every detail to use for her journey, but I also know that she enjoyed listening to my voice, as mortal as her own. And although I was descended from a Titan and she an Olymian, there was never a moment in which I could see us being adversaries. 

After she left Aeaea, I heard the stories of how she finally returned to Ithaca—all of her men had survived and I like to think that was because she knew every way that she could protect them from my stories—and how she slaughtered Penelope’s suitors. Hermes had told me the events in fascinating detail, like he always did, but nothing could ever compare to the enrapturing ruse of Odysseus’s storytelling. 

I often wonder if she thought of me after returning home. Surely she would have recognized that I was a golden thread in her fate’s tapestry, and surely she would have been grateful that I did not weave that thread myself like so many of the gods did. 

On a lonely summer night, Hermes asked why I had never warned Odysseus of the horrors that faced him, why I had only spoken in story. I said, “She was not like the brash men that travel to Aeaea and expect everything of me. Odysseus spoke, and she listened, not because I am a god, but because she cared for what I had to say.” Hermes did not understand, and I did not attempt to explain further. We sat in silvery silence, and my mind drifted, like it so often does, to the woman with the name of a man.