10.345-387

Water is itself “feminine” in the Greeks’ gendered division of the world, amorphous, flowing across the clean boundaries that define things masculine. Athena twice intervenes to beautify Odysseus, making him look bigger, his hair gleaming with curls like hyacinth blossoms. In both cases, the hero has just emerged from a bath, and the goddess’s gesture adds extra allure at the moment when nakedness might make him vulnerable (6.229–37; 23.152–63). In two other moments when he is bathed but not pumped up by Athena, the peril of being recognized surfaces. When Telemachus visits Sparta in Book 4, Helen tells the story of how she bathed Odysseus at Troy and he revealed his true identity to her; when Penelope orders a young servant girl to bathe his feet in Book 19, he demands that Eurykleia, his old nanny, be the one to wash his feet and even then she comes close to blowing his cover (4.252–56; 19.317–48, 467–90)

Behind this recurrent narrative pattern in the poem, we encounter the shadow of another widespread belief in ancient Greek culture, that having sex with a goddess will render a man impotent at best or even kill him. The author of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, a poem roughly contemporary with the Odyssey, makes excellent use of this anxiety. Anchises, a scion of the Trojan royal family, is out on Mount Ida herding sheep, when Aphrodite, disguised as a young virgin, timidly approaches. He hails her, asking if she is a mortal or a goddess, reeling off a list of deities she resembles. She replies that she is no goddess, just an ordinary girl, the daughter of Otreus, who has been snatched away by Hermes while playing with her girlfriends. The god told her that she is to be Anchises’s wife, and she is acting under a “powerful compulsion” (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 130). But before they consummate their marriage, he should take her back to his parents for their approval and send word to her parents, too. He responds forcefully: She will indeed be his wife, but first, no man or god could keep him from sleeping with her right now! The goddess shyly consents and after the lovemaking resumes her divine form, teasingly waking him. He is appropriately frightened:

ὣς φάθ᾽: ὃ δ᾽ ἐξ ὕπνοιο μάλ᾽ ἐμμαπέως ὑπάκουσεν.
ὡς δὲ ἴδεν δειρήν τε καὶ ὄμματα κάλ᾽ Ἀφροδίτης,
τάρβησέν τε καὶ ὄσσε παρακλιδὸν ἔτραπεν ἄλλῃ:
ἂψ δ᾽ αὖτις χλαίνῃ τε καλύψατο καλὰ πρόσωπα
καί μιν λισσόμενος ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα:
"αὐτίκα σ᾽ ὡς τὰ πρῶτα, θεά, ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν,
ἔγνων ὡς θεὸς ἦσθα: σὺ δ᾽ οὐ νημερτὲς ἔειπες.
ἀλλά σε πρὸς Ζηνὸς γουνάζομαι αἰγιόχοιο,
μή με ζῶντ᾽ ἀμενηνὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἐάσῃς
ναίειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐλέαιρ᾽: ἐπεὶ οὐ βιοθάλμιος ἀνὴρ
γίγνεται, ὅς τε θεαῖς εὐνάζεται ἀθανάτῃσι."

So she spoke. He heard and quickly woke up.
When he saw the neck and lovely eyes of Aphrodite,
he was frightened and turned his eyes away.
Covering his handsome face again with a cloak,
he beseeched her with winged words:
“Right away when my eyes fell upon you, goddess,
I knew you were divine! But you did not tell the truth.
Yet I beg you by Zeus who bears the aegis,
don’t let me be alive but strengthless among men.
Take pity on me, since a man is not potent
who goes to bed with an immortal goddess!”

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 180–90

However we may feel about the sexual power dynamics that underlie this story, the encounter between Anchises and Aphrodite is filled with delicious ironies, generated by reversed gender roles. The manly prince is seduced by a timid virgin, who is in fact the goddess of sexuality, all because Zeus, the number one philanderer in the universe, has taken revenge on the goddess for “making” him sleep with mortal women (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 36–52). Anchises, once he realizes his mistake, hides his face like a virgin with a veil.

The same themes appear in the Circe episode, without the light, comic touch of the hymn poet: the anxiety of mortals in the presence of gods, the male fear of emasculation by powerful female forces. Anchises is spared in the end, because Aphrodite—much to her chagrin—has become pregnant with his son, the hero Aeneas, and she has no interest in parenting (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 256–80). Odysseus escapes harm because Hermes supplies protection for the hero before he meets Circe. As we have seen, the timing of this intervention is integral to the tone of the entire episode. Once the threat of emasculation is removed, the sexual energy between Odysseus and the witch goes with it, leaving little basis for emotional connection between the two, beyond the hero’s gratitude for her help. In this sense, the witch stands in for Athena, a powerful goddess who can help Odysseus but asks for little in return. By contrast, although Calypso says she has come love to her captive, the intensity of their final exchanges is colored by energy from the nymph’s power over Odysseus.

The relative blandness of Circe’s relationship with Odysseus prompts comparison with—surprisingly enough—Penelope. Once the tension between the queen and the anonymous beggar dissipates with her acceptance of his identity as her husband, she becomes a much less vivid character than the resourceful wife who asserts her independence with the contest of the bow. In this sense, the entire Circe episode offers a microcosmic view of the Odyssey’s return story. First, the hero must assert himself in a way that brings recognition of his kleos, putting him in control of the situation in general and a woman in particular. Then he lives comfortably with a beautiful woman who provides him with the comforts of home. Penelope will prove to be far from a two-dimensional character and winning her over will take more than the brandishing of a sword, but the parallels between her and Circe are intriguing. Both are subject to divine influence that makes them easier for Odysseus to win over (Virgil puts this dynamic to a much darker use in his portrayal of Venus’s manipulation of Dido at Aeneid 1.657–94); after the testing of the hero, which results in the reaffirmation of his identity, both companions are affectionate, completely supportive, and—once subdued—not vividly interesting. That much of the energy goes out of the Circe episode once she is neutralized tells us something important about the role of sexual tension in the poet’s portrayal of masculine heroism. In any event, Homer has other uses for the character of Circe, as the parallels to Siduri indicate.

The consolation motif surfaces once more after the elaborate description of dinner preparation in the witch’s household. Odysseus, though seated at the table, will not touch any of the meal until his men are returned to their human form, which is to say, according to the paradigm, until their death as humans is reversed. Circe’s acquiescence marks the end of any existential threat to the guests and the beginning of their extended vacation from danger.

Further Reading

Carson, A. 1990. “Putting Her in Her Place: Women, Dirt, and Desire.” In Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient World. Ed. D. Halperin, J. Winkler, and F. Zeitlin, 135–169. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Dimock, G. 1989. The Unity of the Odyssey, 126–128. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. 

Van Nortwick, T. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey, 57. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.