Editing Circe (section)

===Ancient art===
[[File:NAMA Circé & Ulysse.jpg|thumb|Circe on a 490–480 BC oil jar, Athens-National Archaeological Museum|alt=|upright]]

Scenes from the ''Odyssey'' are common on Greek pottery, the Circe episode among them. The two most common representations have Circe surrounded by the transformed sailors and Odysseus threatening the sorceress with his sword. In the case of the former, the animals are not always boars but also include, for instance, the ram, dog and lion on the 6th-century BC Boston [[kylix (drinking cup)|kylix]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T35.6.html|title=Odysseus & Circe – Ancient Greek Vase Painting|website=www.theoi.com}}</ref> Often the transformation is only partial, involving the head and perhaps a sprouting tail, while the rest of the body is human. In describing an otherwise obscure 5th-century Greek bronze in the [[Walters Art Museum]] that takes the form of a man on all fours with the foreparts of a pig,<ref>Walters Art Museum, acc. no. 54.1483</ref> the commentator asks in what other way could an artist depict someone bewitched other than as a man with an animal head.<ref>Hill, "Odysseus' Companions on Circe's Isle" ''The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery'' '''4''' (1941:119–22) p. 120.</ref> In these scenes Circe is shown almost invariably stirring the potion with her wand, although the incident as described in Homer has her use the wand only to bewitch the sailors after they have refreshed themselves.<ref>''Odyssey'' Book X [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odyssey10.htm#_Toc90267910 lines 198ff].</ref> One exception is the Berlin [[amphora]] on which the seated Circe holds the wand towards a half transformed man.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T35.4.html|title=Circe – Ancient Greek Vase Painting|website=www.theoi.com}}</ref>

In the second scene, Odysseus threatens the sorceress with a drawn sword, as Homer describes it. However, he is sometimes depicted carrying spears as well, as in the [[Athens]] [[lekythos]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/sites/core/files/images/Untitled16.jpg|title=Columbia College}}</ref> while Homer reports that it was a bow he had slung over his shoulder.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odyssey10.htm#_Toc90267911|title=Homer (c. 750 BC) – The Odyssey: Book X|website=www.poetryintranslation.com}}</ref> In this episode Circe is generally shown in flight, and on the [[Erlangen]] lekythos can clearly be seen dropping the bowl and wand behind her.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/odysseus-and-circe-athenian-red-figure-lekythos-c-470-bce|title=Odysseus and Circe, Athenian red figure lekythos, c. 470 BC. The Core Curriculum|website=www.college.columbia.edu}}</ref> Two curiously primitive wine bowls incorporate the Homeric detail of Circe's handloom,<ref>Eric Broudy, ''The Book of Looms'', University Press of New England 1939, [https://books.google.com/books?id=shN5_-W1RzcC&pg=PA23 p. 23]</ref> at which the men approaching her palace could hear her singing sweetly as she worked.<ref>Book X, lines 198ff</ref> In the 5th-century [[skyphos]] from Boeotia an apparently crippled Odysseus leans on a crutch while a woman with African features holds out a disproportionately large bowl.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=1004121&objectid=399970|title=Image gallery: skyphos|website=British Museum}}</ref> In the other, a pot-bellied hero brandishes a sword while Circe stirs her potion. Both these may depict the scene as represented in one or other of the comic [[satyr plays]] which deal with their encounter. Little remains of these now beyond a few lines by [[Aeschylus]], [[Ephippus of Athens]] and Anaxilas. Other vase paintings from the period suggest that Odysseus' half-transformed animal-men formed the chorus in place of the usual satyrs.<ref>John E. Thorburn, ''FOF Companion to Classical Drama'', New York 2005, [https://books.google.com/books?id=k3NnUyqzRNYC&pg=PA138 p. 138].</ref> The reason that it should be a subject of such plays is that wine drinking was often central to their plot. Later writers were to follow Socrates in interpreting the episode as illustrating the dangers of drunkenness.<ref>Athenaeus, ''[[Deipnosophistae]]'' 1.10e 'By way of denouncing drunkenness the poet [Homer] . . changes the men who visited Kirke into lions and wolves because of their self-indulgence' (trans. Gullick) [http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Kirke.html quoted on the Theoi website].</ref>

Other artefacts depicting the story include the chest of [[Cypselus]] described in the travelogue by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]]. Among its many carvings "there is a grotto and in it a woman sleeping with a man upon a couch. I was of opinion that they were Odysseus and Circe, basing my view upon the number of the handmaidens in front of the grotto and upon what they are doing. For the women are four, and they are engaged on the tasks which Homer mentions in his poetry".<ref>''Description of Greece'' [http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias5B.html 5. 19. 7].</ref> The passage in question describes how one of them "threw linen covers over the chairs and spread fine purple fabrics on top. Another drew silver tables up to the chairs, and laid out golden dishes, while a third mixed sweet honeyed wine in a silver bowl, and served it in golden cups. The fourth fetched water and lit a roaring fire beneath a huge cauldron".<ref>Book X [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odyssey10.htm#_Toc90267913 lines 348ff].</ref> This suggests a work of considerable detail, while the [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan]] coffin preserved in [[Orvieto]]'s archaeological museum has only four figures. At the centre Odysseus threatens Circe with drawn sword while an animal headed figure stands on either side, one of them laying his hand familiarly on the hero's shoulder.<ref>[http://www.lessingimages.com/viewimage.asp?i=10010241+&cr=6&cl=1 Lessing images] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128113311/http://www.lessingimages.com/viewimage.asp?i=10010241+&cr=6&cl=1 |date=2015-01-28 }}.</ref> A bronze mirror relief in the [[Fitzwilliam Museum]] is also Etruscan and is inscribed with the names of the characters. There a pig is depicted at Circe's feet, while Odysseus and [[Elpenor]] approach her, swords drawn.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/ancient_pages/B.34/PIC-I-1-SE-B.34.html|title=The Fitzwilliam Museum|website=www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk}}</ref>