Editing Circe (section)

===Reasoning beasts===
[[File:G.B.Trotti Circe.jpg|thumb|[[Giovanni Battista Trotti]]'s fresco of Circe returning Ulysses' followers to human form (c. 1610)|left]]

One of the most enduring literary themes connected with the figure of Circe was her ability to change men into animals. There was much speculation concerning how this could be, whether the human consciousness changed at the same time, and even whether it was a change for the better. The Gryllus dialogue was taken up by another Italian writer, [[Giovan Battista Gelli]], in his ''La Circe'' (1549). This is a series of ten philosophical and moral dialogues between Ulysses and the humans transformed into various animals, ranging from an oyster to an elephant, in which Circe sometimes joins. Most argue against changing back; only the last animal, a philosopher in its former existence, wants to. The work was translated into English soon after in 1557 by [[Henry Iden]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gelli |first=Giovanni Battista |title=La Circe |publisher=Iohn Cawoode |location=London |publication-date=1557 |language=en-UK |translator-last=Iden |translator-first=Henry |trans-title=Circes of Iohn Baptista Gello, Florentyne |lccn=28-8681 |oclc=56617464}}</ref> Later the English poet [[Edmund Spenser]] also made reference to Plutarch's dialogue in the section of his ''[[Faerie Queene]]'' (1590) based on the Circe episode which appears at the end of Book II. Sir Guyon changes back the victims of Acrasia's erotic frenzy in the Bower of Bliss, most of whom are abashed at their fall from chivalric grace, ''But one above the rest in speciall, / That had an hog beene late, hight Grille by name, / Repined greatly, and did him miscall, / That had from hoggish forme him brought to naturall.''<ref>Book 2.12, stanza 86.</ref>

Two other Italians wrote rather different works that centre on the animal within the human. One was [[Niccolò Machiavelli]] in his unfinished long poem, ''[[The Golden Ass (Machiavelli)|L'asino d'oro]]'' (''The Golden Ass'', 1516). The author meets a beautiful herdswoman surrounded by Circe's herd of beasts. After spending a night of love with him, she explains the characteristics of the animals in her charge: the lions are the brave, the bears are the violent, the wolves are those forever dissatisfied, and so on (Canto 6). In Canto 7 he is introduced to those who experience frustration: a cat that has allowed its prey to escape; an agitated dragon; a fox constantly on the look-out for traps; a dog that bays the moon; Aesop's [[The Lion in Love (fable)|lion in love]] that allowed himself to be deprived of his teeth and claws. There are also emblematic satirical portraits of various Florentine personalities. In the eighth and last canto he has a conversation with a pig that, like the Gryllus of Plutarch, does not want to be changed back and condemns human greed, cruelty and conceit.<ref>There is a French translation in ''Oeuvres complètes'' X, Paris 1825, [https://books.google.com/books?id=KkgTAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA403 pp. 401–53].</ref>

The other Italian author was the esoteric philosopher [[Giordano Bruno]], who wrote in Latin. His ''Cantus Circaeus'' (''The Incantation of Circe'') was the fourth work on memory and the association of ideas by him to be published in 1582. It contains a series of poetic dialogues, in the first of which, after a long series of incantations to the seven planets of the [[Hermeticism|Hermetic tradition]], most humans appear changed into different creatures in the scrying bowl. The sorceress Circe is then asked by her handmaiden Moeris about the type of behaviour with which each is associated. According to Circe, for instance, ''fireflies are the learned, wise, and illustrious amidst idiots, asses, and obscure men'' (Question 32). In later sections different characters discuss the use of images in the imagination in order to facilitate use of the [[art of memory]], which is the real aim of the work.<ref>The original and its English translation is available [http://www.tomaszahora.org/CantusCircaeusTranslation.htm online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190222002259/http://www.tomaszahora.org/CantusCircaeusTranslation.htm |date=2019-02-22 }}.</ref>

French writers were to take their lead from Gelli in the following century.<ref>Much of the information that follows can be found discussed in Brigitte Urbani, ''Vaut-il "mieux mille fois être ânes qu'être hommes"? Quelques réécritures de La Circe de Giovan Battista Gelli'', INT Chroniques 69/70. 2002 [http://chroniquesitaliennes.univ-paris3.fr/PDF/69-70/69-Urbani.pdf pp. 163–81].</ref> [[Antoine Jacob]] wrote a one-act social comedy in rhyme, ''Les Bestes raisonnables'' (''The Reasoning Beasts'', 1661) which allowed him to satirise contemporary manners. On the isle of Circe, Ulysses encounters an ass that was once a doctor, a lion that had been a valet, a female doe and a horse, all of whom denounce the decadence of the times. The ass sees human asses everywhere, ''Asses in the town square, asses in the suburbs, / Asses in the provinces, asses proud at court, / Asses browsing in the meadows, military asses trooping, / Asses tripping it at balls, asses in the theatre stalls.'' To drive the point home, in the end it is only the horse, formerly a courtesan, who wants to return to her former state.

The same theme occupies [[La Fontaine's Fables|La Fontaine's]] late fable, "The Companions of Ulysses" (XII.1, 1690), which also echoes Plutarch and Gelli. Once transformed, every animal (which includes a lion, a bear, a wolf and a mole) protests that their lot is better and refuses to be restored to human shape.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/la_fontaine/jean_de/fables/book12.html#book12.1|title=The Fables of La Fontaine, by Jean de La Fontaine : Book XII.|website=ebooks.adelaide.edu.au|access-date=2019-03-10|archive-date=2018-06-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623085104/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/la_fontaine/jean_de/fables/book12.html#book12.1|url-status=dead}}</ref> Charles Dennis shifted this fable to stand at the head of his translation of La Fontaine, ''Select Fables'' (1754), but provides his own conclusion that ''When Mortals from the path of Honour stray, / And the strong passions over reason sway, / What are they then but Brutes? / 'Tis vice alone that constitutes / Th'enchanting wand and magic bowl, The exterior form of Man they wear, / But are in fact both Wolf and Bear, / The transformation's in the Soul.''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CK4iXvnRAXQC&pg=PR7S|title=Select Fables|first=Charles|last=Denis|date=2018|publisher=Tonson and Draper|via=Google Books}}</ref>

[[Louis Fuzelier]] and [[Marc-Antoine Legrand]] titled their comic opera of 1718 ''Les animaux raisonnables''. It had more or less the same scenario transposed into another medium and set to music by [[Jacques Aubert]]. Circe, wishing to be rid of the company of Ulysses, agrees to change back his companions, but only the dolphin is willing. The others, who were formerly a corrupt judge (now a wolf), a financier (a pig), an abused wife (a hen), a deceived husband (a bull) and a flibbertigibbet (a linnet), find their present existence more agreeable.

[[File:Schubert Ulysses and Circe.jpg|left|thumb|[[Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg]]'s ''Ulysses at the Palace of Circe'' (1667)]]

The Venetian [[Gasparo Gozzi]] was another Italian who returned to Gelli for inspiration in the 14 prose ''Dialoghi dell'isola di Circe'' (''Dialogues from Circe's Island'') published as journalistic pieces between 1760 and 1764. In this moral work, the aim of Ulysses in talking to the beasts is to learn more of the human condition. It includes figures from fable ([[The Fox and the Crow (Aesop)|The fox and the crow]], XIII) and from myth to illustrate its vision of society at variance. Far from needing the intervention of Circe, the victims find their natural condition as soon as they set foot on the island. The philosopher here is not Gelli's elephant but the bat that retreats from human contact into the darkness, like Bruno's fireflies (VI). The only one who wishes to change in Gozzi's work is the bear, a satirist who had dared to criticize Circe and had been changed as a punishment (IX).

There were two more satirical dramas in later centuries. One modelled on the Gryllus episode in Plutarch occurs as a chapter of [[Thomas Love Peacock]]'s late novel, ''[[Gryll Grange]]'' (1861), under the title "Aristophanes in London". Half Greek comedy, half Elizabethan masque, it is acted at the Grange by the novel's characters as a Christmas entertainment. In it [[Spiritualism (movement)|Spiritualist]] [[mediumship|mediums]] raise Circe and Gryllus and try to convince the latter of the superiority of modern times, which he rejects as intellectually and materially regressive.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21514?msg=welcome_stranger|title=Gryll Grange by Thomas Love Peacock|via=www.gutenberg.org|date=2007}}</ref> An Italian work drawing on the transformation theme was the comedy by Ettore Romagnoli, ''La figlia del Sole'' (''The Daughter of the Sun'', 1919). [[Hercules]] arrives on the island of Circe with his servant Cercopo and has to be rescued by the latter when he too is changed into a pig. But, since the naturally innocent other animals had become corrupted by imitating human vices, the others who had been changed were refused when they begged to be rescued.

Also in England, Austin Dobson engaged more seriously with Homer's account of the transformation of Odysseus' companions when, though ''Head, face and members bristle into swine, / Still cursed with sense, their mind remains alone''.<ref>Pope's translation of the Odyssey, Book X, [https://books.google.com/books?id=IUoIAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22Head%2C%20face%20and%20members%20bristle%20into%20swine%22&pg=PA233 lines 279–80].</ref> Dobson's "[[s:Littell's Living Age/Volume 127/Issue 1640/The Prayer of the Swine to Circe|The Prayer of the Swine to Circe]]"<ref>''Vignettes in Rhyme and other verses'', US edition 1880, [https://archive.org/stream/vignettesinrhyme00dobsuoft#page/206/mode/2up/ pp. 206–10].</ref> (1640) depicts the horror of being imprisoned in an animal body in this way with the human consciousness unchanged. There appears to be no relief, for only in the final line is it revealed that Odysseus has arrived to free them. But in [[Matthew Arnold]]'s dramatic poem "The Strayed Reveller" (1849),<ref>Matthew Arnold, ''The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems'', London 1849, [http://www.telelib.com/authors/A/ArnoldMatthew/verse/strayedreveller/strayedreveller.html pp. 11–27].</ref> in which Circe is one of the characters, the power of her potion is differently interpreted. The inner tendencies unlocked by it are not the choice between animal nature and reason but between two types of impersonality, between divine clarity and the poet's participatory and tragic vision of life. In the poem, Circe discovers a youth laid asleep in the portico of her temple by a draught of her ivy-wreathed bowl. On awaking from possession by the poetic frenzy it has induced, he craves for it to be continued.<ref>M. G. Sundell, "Story and Context in "The Strayed Reveller", Victorian Poetry 3.3, West Virginia University 1965, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20171700?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents pp. 161–70].</ref>