Editing Circe (section)

=== Other works ===
Three ancient plays about Circe have been lost: the work of the tragedian [[Aeschylus]] and of the 4th-century BC comic dramatists [[Ephippus of Athens]] and [[Anaxilas (comic poet)|Anaxilas]]. The first told the story of Odysseus' encounter with Circe. Vase paintings from the period suggest that Odysseus' half-transformed animal-men formed the chorus in place of the usual [[Satyr]]s. Fragments of Anaxilas also mention the transformation and one of the characters complains of the impossibility of scratching his face now that he is a pig.<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 theme of Circe turning men into a variety of animals was elaborated by later writers. In his episodic work ''The Sorrows of Love'' (first century BC), [[Parthenius of Nicaea]] interpolated another episode into the time that Odysseus was staying with Circe. Pestered by the amorous attentions of King [[Calchus]] the [[Daunians|Daunian]], the sorceress invited him to a drugged dinner that turned him into a pig and then shut him up in her sties. He was only released when his army came searching for him on the condition that he would never set foot on her island again.<ref>[[Parthenius of Nicaea|Parthenius]], [https://topostext.org/work/550#12 12]</ref>

Among [[Latin]] treatments, [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' relates how Aeneas skirts the Italian island where Circe dwells and hears the cries of her many male victims, who now number more than the pigs of earlier accounts: ''The roars of lions that refuse the chain, / The grunts of bristled boars, and groans of bears, / And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailors' ears.''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.7.vii.html|title=Dryden's translation|publisher=Classics.mit.edu|access-date=2014-03-19}}</ref> In Ovid's 1st-century poem ''[[Metamorphoses]]'', the fourth episode covers Circe's encounter with Ulysses (the Roman name of Odysseus), whereas book 14 covers the stories of Picus and Glaucus.

[[Plutarch]] took up the theme in a lively dialogue that was later to have several imitators. Contained in his 1st-century ''[[Moralia]]'' is the Gryllus episode in which Circe allows Odysseus to interview a fellow Greek turned into a pig. After his interlocutor informs Odysseus that his present existence is preferable to the human, they engage in a philosophical dialogue in which every human value is questioned and beasts are proved to be of superior wisdom and virtue.<ref>Vol. XII of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1957, at the [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Gryllus*.html Chicago University website].</ref>