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“No man with any sense of what is right can think of either eating or drinking in your house until you have set his friends free and let him see them.”
Odyssey, Book 10; Samuel Butler translation
Book 10 Summary
Odysseus and his crew next end up on the island where Aeolus, the master of the winds, and his family live. After the Cephallenians stay there for a month, Aeolus binds up all the winds except for the West wind in a sack and gives it to Odysseus. For ten days, the West wind blows favorably and Ithaca is on the horizon. However, when Odysseus falls asleep out of exhaustion, his jealous crew theorize that Aeolus gave Odysseus a sack of riches and open it up. All the trapped winds escape and a storm blows them back to Aeolus’ island. When Odysseus pleads for help, Aeolus treats him harshly and kicks him out.
Next, the Cephallenians find the land of the Laestrygonians. Odysseus keeps his boat in the waters while the remaining boats secure themselves in the island’s harbor. A small group goes inland where they find to their horror that the Laestrygonians are man-eating giants. The giants attack Odysseus’ fleet and only Odysseus’ boat escapes the Laestrygonians.
Sad by the loss of all their comrades, Odysseus and his crew continue sailing until they land on the island of the goddess Circe. A small group is sent to see who lives in the house in the middle of the woods. When they arrived, the group finds tamed wolves and lions and a friendly Circe inviting them inside her house. Circe gives them food and wine mixed with her special drugs and subdues the group. She then turns them into pigs and locks them away.
The leader of the group runs away, because he refused to go inside the house, and informs Odysseus about what happened. Odysseus arms himself and goes to confront Circe on his own. On the way, he meets Hermes in disguise who gives Odysseus an herb to use as a talisman and instructs him on how to handle Circe. When Circe tries to use her magic on Odysseus, he is to lunge at her like he’s going to kill her. She will plead for her life and offer to sleep with him. He must accept the offer, but not until she swears an oath to not cause any more mischief or else she will emasculate him.
Odysseus meets Circe and everything happens as Hermes said it would. Odysseus not only gets Circe to vow not to cause anymore mischief, but convinces her to turn his men back to normal. Odysseus gets the rest of his crew to come to Circe’s house and they all end up staying with her for a year.
When Odysseus tells Circe it’s time for him to leave, Circe tells him that if he wants to get back home, he first has to sail to the abode of Hades and consult the blind prophet Tiresias. She explains the ritual Odysseus needs to perform to draw Tiresias out, provisions his boat, and the Cephallenians unhappily sail out to find the land of the dead.
The Price of a Free Handout
Of all the gods that appear in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, Aeolus is probably the most aloof, the most detached from reality, of all of them. He lives with his family on an island in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a wall. He had his six sons marry his six daughters and the whole family lives it up everyday, feasting and having no cares in the world. Even his island seems to be detached from reality, as it appears to “float” on the sea like it’s not fully integrated with space.
There’s something very distorted about Aeolus—and I don’t just mean because he had his sons and daughters marry each other. I think it’s worse than that. His sons and daughter didn’t have to do anything. They didn’t have to work on their character, their personality, their physique, their ability to provide, etc. They were just handed a spouse. And more, they don’t have to work for their food or entertainment—it’s all just handed to them.
The whole family just lives in their own little world—completely detached from all of life’s cares. They’re detached from all the suffering in the world, true, but they are also detached from all the wonders and joys as well. They’re a simulacra. Vague images. Surreal. Void of anything that makes people interesting.
And keeping with his surreal and vague nature, Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag that contains the winds that would hamper his ability to get home while keeping free the one wind that will lead to his speedy homecoming.
After freeloading off of Aeolus for a month, doing nothing but regaling him with tales of the Trojan War and the Achaean army, Odysseus is just handed the magical solution to all his problems.
There’s just one problem with a free handout though, one that all of us are very familiar with: it’s not as cherished as something you earned. What has more value? The job you earned through your diligence or the job that was handed to you? The trophy you won in a competition or the participation trophy? The score you earned through skill or through a cheat code?
It was no different with Odysseus. The goal was in sight. Ithaca was on the horizon. And what did Odysseus do? He took a nap. He probably thought that since Ithaca was so close that everything would be fine. It turns out it wasn’t. His crew opened the bag, all the winds came rushing out, and a storm blew them back to Aeolus’ island. Ten days of progress evaporated in an instant.
That’s probably a good lesson to not let your guard down or slow down your momentum until your goal is fully achieved. Otherwise, you may reverse the progress you make.
The event begs a number of questions. Why didn’t Aeolus hold onto the bag instead and give the Cephallenians enough time to get home before releasing the winds? My two biggest guesses are: 1) Aeolous didn’t want the responsibility—remember how detached from reality he is?; and 2) It was a Pandora’s Box or a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil type situation—a test of one’s resolve or character with very clear outcomes for success or failure.
Why didn’t Odysseus’ crew not know what was in the bag? That’s another good question.
No Man is an Island
I can only think of two reasons about what led Odysseus’ crew to open up the bag with the winds in it:
1) Odysseus didn’t tell them what was in the bag.
2) Odysseus told them what was in the bag, but they didn’t believe him.
To me, the text indicates that the first reason was why Odysseus’ crew opened the bag. If this is the case, why didn’t he?
This is possibly a failure of leadership on Odysseus’ part. Perhaps he should have divided his duties at the helm with the others? Perhaps he should have kept the bag closer to himself? Perhaps he should have told his crew what was in the bag and warn them not to open it.
Odysseus tried to take the whole burden of the bag and the voyage home upon himself, without relying on others, and predictably came up short. And not only did Odysseus come up short, his actions tragically backfired. He was so focused on the bag and driving the ship home that he failed to see his crew were unhappy with him—especially since the incident with Polyphemus the Cyclops was his fault.
In a project that requires others to participate, don’t take the whole burden upon yourself. You will breed resentment, you will burn yourself out, and the second you disengage the others could come in and undo all the progress you made.
People Who Don’t Know Their Place
Odysseus’ crew murmured amongst themselves about what was in the bag Aeolus gave to Odysseus. They whipped themselves up into jealousy. “Why does Odysseus get all the good stuff? He hardly gives us anything!”
Perhaps Odysseus didn’t give his crew what they deserved? That would be a failure of leadership on his part.
But, perhaps Odysseus did give his crew what they earned and they were jealous that Odysseus got more? In their envy, they failed to realize that Odysseus earned more because he was their leader. And Odysseus was their leader because he earned that position. He worked hard for it. He stood above the others. He was more capable, stronger, and more cunning than them. Envy makes it difficult for someone to see this.
Envy also blinds people to their own failures. Odysseus made a huge mistake with the Cyclopes, but his crew refused to listen to him during the Ciconian incident. And far more people died at the hands of the Ciconians than at the hands of Polyphemus. And those who escaped Polyphemus did so because of Odysseus’ plan.
After Hardship, They Left Themselves Helpless
Odysseus’ crew are left rowing day in and day out for six days, since the winds were no longer on their side, and on the seventh day end up at the land of the Laestrygonians. They just roll their ships up to the harbor, and because it was so narrow the ships had to line up close to one another. When they are attacked by the Laestrygonians, only Odysseus’ ship makes it out because he made the wiser decision to keep it out in the water and moor it to a rock.
Odysseus’ crew, in their exhaustion, made a fatal mistake and left themselves helpless to the Laetrygonian attack. They made it difficult for themselves to escape and were all killed as a result. Only Odysseus kept his boat secure and ready to leave at a moment’s notice—and this decision saved his life and those in his boat. Despite Odysseus’ mistakes up to this point, he still proves emphatically why he is the leader and the others aren’t.
Circe—The Pure Feminine?
Okay, this section was… interesting for me to wrestle through, but I admit I’m in over my head. As I’ve said many, many times before, I’m not a scholar, nor a philosopher, nor a psychologist. Plus, what do I know about women and femininity? So, take everything I write down here as someone wondering aloud and you, the reader, get to see it unfold in real time.
Having said all of that...
I at first couldn’t help but wonder if Circe represented some aspect of the Feminine. The dangerous aspect? The mysterious or mystical aspect? After thinking about it more, the best I can come up with is that Circe is the Feminine in pure form, completely devoid of the Masculine.
You may think this is not a bad thing, but Circe proves otherwise. Imagine all the traits of a human being and dividing them up into the masculine and feminine categories. Imagine if a human being had only the traits of one category, but not the other. For example, what would a man be like if he was incapable of nurturing? What would a woman be like if she was incapable of being assertive? I think you get the idea.
So, let’s set the stage. Odysseus and his crew are down to one boat. Everyone else is dead. Most of them were killed by the Laestrygonians to be eaten later.
Every place they’ve visited so far, except for the island of Aeolus, they’ve had to flee from due to some sort of danger. Aeolus gives them the magic solution to get home. Ithaca is on the horizon. They see the smoke coming out of the chimneys. Just a little bit further and they’ll be back with their loved ones and friends.
… And they ruin it all due to their bitter jealousy. They are blown back to Aeolus’ island. All progress lost. Ten days wasted.
Aeolus harshly rejects them. They’re on their own now—and worse, the winds no longer help them. They exhaust themselves getting to the land of the Laestrygonians only for most of them to be killed and eaten. They further exhaust themselves and end up on the island of Circe. They are so tired and demoralized they don’t do anything for two days.
“We brought our ship into a safe harbour without a word, for some god guided us thither, and having landed we lay there for two days and two nights, worn out in body and mind.”
Odyssey, Book 10; Samuel Butler translation
This is the context under which Odysseus sends a group to find out who lives in the house in the middle of the forest. The last time Odysseus sent a group out, they brought back a horde of man-eating ogres. The time before that, a man-eating Cyclops who cursed their voyage (a curse that has been coming true so far). This group is not at all happy to go scouting. Nevertheless, orders are orders.
They enter the forest and approach the house. To their shock and horror, wolves and lions prowl about the property. Here we go. The wolves and lions are going to attack the group and they’re going to have to run away back to their boat with slowest among them dying first.
However, something even more disturbing occurs: the wolves and lions approach the men like house pets, rubbing their noses against them, wanting attention.
Nothing about this place is right. Who lives in a house, in the middle of a dense forest, with domesticated wolves and lions?
The group approaches the gates of the house… and they hear beautiful singing coming from inside and the sounds of a loom being used.
What kind of Twilight Zone episode did they just walk into? Who’s inside that house? Is the door going to open and the group is going to find the beautiful singing come from a hideous, bloodthirsty monster? Who else would keep wolves and lions as pets and live in the middle of nowhere?
The group calls out to whoever is inside… and a stunning beauty opens the door. She bids them to come inside. All except the leader of the group obey her.
After all of the events this group has been through, all the suspicious things going on with this house, and the reluctance of wanting to scout the area in the first place, they just follow the woman inside without a second thought. They don’t see this woman as a threat at all. She has completely disarmed them of their caution and common sense with her presence and sweet words.
Circe is devotedly hospitable. She sits the men down, makes them a tasty meal, and serves it to them with wine. Without any hint of suspicion, the men begin to eat and drink. Unbeknownst to the men though, she drugged the meal to make them forget about their homes and their troubles. Once the men are subdued, she uses her magic to turn them all into pigs, shuffles them off to a pig-sty, feeds them, and goes about her day. These men are now permanently under her care. Whether she’s going to take care of them forever, turn them into a feast, or feed them to her wolves and lions, is never revealed.
Let’s take a quick break here. You may see why I think Circe is the Feminine in pure form:
She has tamed the wild and savage (the wolves and lions) and made them completely domesticated. Has not the feminine been doing this since time immemorial?
I immediately think about Enkidu’s encounter with Shamhat the prostitute who teaches him how to be human and civilized (from the Epic of Gilgamesh).
An immediate encounter with her completely erases the men’s suspicion and doubt and they blindly follow her inside her house. Circe’s very presence is soothing, inviting, and mesmerizing, much like the feminine.
Circe goes out of her way to be hospitable and welcoming to Odysseus’ men—so welcoming, in fact, that she turns the men into pigs (domesticated animals) and continues to take care of them. This is the more dangerous side of the feminine that may refuse to let go the target of its nurturing, even if it has to make that target completely useless and dependent.
It also has to be noted that as soon as the men ate the drug-laced food and wine, they “forgot their homes,” and it was only then that Circe turned them into pigs. The pure Feminine’s nurturing and hospitality makes the men forget about not only their troubles, but their primary objective of getting home. Since they’ll be fully taken care of, they don’t need silly things like worries and goals.
Back to the story. The leader of the group runs back to Odysseus and tells him the group went into Circe’s house and never came out. Odysseus takes matters into his own hands. He arms himself and goes alone to the house.
On the way, Odysseus is visited by a disguised Hermes. Hermes gives him a magic herb that will protect Odysseus from Circe’s drugs and magic.
“Take this herb, which is one of great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe’s house, it will be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief…" As [Mercury] spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground and shewed me what it was like. The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods can do whatever they like.
Odyssey, Book 10; Samuel Butler translation
To me, the herb, which Hermes called “one of great virtue,” seems very symbolic. The root, which goes down into the earth (where the realm of the dead and the unknown are; the feminine), is black, while the flower that reaches toward the heavens is white (where the gods, the authority, reside; the masculine). Black and white in an herb that can only be uprooted by the divine. Is this a symbol of the complete man (light, dark, and sacred; or masculine, feminine, and the sacred)? Only this completeness, this perfect union (balance?), can stand against the pure Feminine? That’s as far as my understanding can take it.
Whatever it is, Odysseus needs it to prevail against Circe. Without it, he’s powerless to her drugs and enchantments. Without a divine ward, Odysseus will be powerless against the wiles of the pure Feminine.
Odysseus also needs divine guidance. What does he do once he renders Circe powerless? Hermes provides exactly that.
When Circe tries to drug Odysseus and use her magic on him, Odysseus is to lunge at her like he’s trying to kill her. She will immediately submit and invite him to bed. Odysseus is to accept the invitation, but only after he makes her vow not to try any more mischief on him.
“Or else,” says Hermes, “when she has got you naked she will unman you and make you fit for nothing.”
So, let’s see if I can break this down:
Circe uses her drugs and enchantments to carry out her nurturing and hospitality to the furthest extreme (completely subduing her victims and making them completely dependent on her).
Odysseus needs divine intervention—in this case, divine protection and guidance—in order to resist and subdue Circe, the pure Feminine. Without it, he would have been powerless to her drugs and magic. Though he had weapons and his cunning, they would have been useless without divine help.
Odysseus’ act of aggression immediately subdues Circe, the pure Feminine. This could either be because the pure Feminine momentarily came in contact with the pure Masculine, or because the pure Feminine came in contact with the divine (the perfect manifestation of masculine and feminine in one).
Circe invites Odysseus to bed. However, before Odysseus accepts the invitation (and he is required to accept the invitation), he forces her to vow to not cause him any more trouble. Further thoughts on this:
When the pure Feminine can no longer use nurture, it will offer up its most tempting, and most guarded, aspect—its sensuality. Once the pure Feminine can get its target naked and vulnerable, it can emasculate him and make him nothing.
To reject a woman’s offered sensuality is bad enough for men—there are enough stories out there to corroborate this—so I imagine rejecting the pure Feminine’s offer is probably extremely dangerous.
Odysseus, with divine help, has to get Circe to make a vow, under threat of violence, in order to subdue her and keep her from being a further danger to him or his men. So, to keep the pure Feminine from being a danger, Odysseus needed help from the divine—that help being guidance and a talisman to protect him from Circe’s wiles—and a strong display of masculinity. That’s as far as I can take it.
Anyway, Odysseus does just as Hermes instructs and it works. Circe is subdued and will no longer cause him and his crew any trouble. Odysseus goes to bed with her. Afterward, she has a bath prepared at the right temperature for Odysseus and prepares a lavish meal complete with gold and silver furniture and tableware.
However, Odysseus refuses to eat. This distresses Circe immensely. When Odysseus tells her he won’t eat because of the men she turned into pigs, she immediately frees the pigs and turns them back into men. Even more, they are now younger than before they were transformed.
The celebration of reunion between Odysseus and the men moves Circe so much she tells Odysseus to invite the men from his ship to her house. Odysseus does so. While Odysseus is getting everyone else, she makes sure the men she turned into pigs are bathed, well-clothed, and fed. When everyone is reunited, she tells them to stay with her. Eat, drink, rest, and recover physically and mentally from all the hardships they’ve experienced up to this point.
Odysseus and his crew end up staying with Circe for a whole year. When they decide to leave, Circe tells them the bad news that they have to go to the land of the dead first to find out how to get home.
Let’s break this down:
Odysseus subdues Circe through the help of the divine, a display of masculine aggression, and a vow from her (a vow of fidelity?). He then takes her invitation to sleep with her.
Circe is now completely faithful to Odysseus. Her great propensity for nurture and hospitality are now for Odysseus’ pleasure rather than to subdue him and make him completely dependent on her. She pulls out all the stops to make Odysseus comfortable and feel like a king.
When Odysseus refuses to eat, however, she is in “great grief” and asks what’s wrong. Circe is deeply troubled by the fact that Odysseus is rejecting her hospitality even after her vow, giving him sex, and all her hard work to make him feel at home. The second Odysseus reveals its because his men are still trapped as pigs, Circe immediately frees them.
Circe either does this to remove any hindrances to her hospitality being enjoyed by the target of her affection, or its because Circe is completely loyal to Odysseus and will do whatever will make him happy.
Notice, too, that the men who were turned into pigs are now younger than before. This can either be a picture of the feminine’s capacity to bring life and vigor to men, or it’s a side effect of the feminine attempting to infantilize the men. Or, you know, it’s just because of weird and mysterious magic…
After watching the happy reunion with Odysseus and his men, and anticipating this will further please Odysseus, Circe invites the rest of his crew (the ones still at the boat), to come to her house and feast.
Circe then takes care of Odysseus and his crew for a whole year to rest and recuperate from their troubles. The pure Feminine, for the sake of the one who earned its devotion and wishes to make happy, uses its full capacity to nurture to heal the body, mind, and soul as only the Feminine is capable of doing.
Eventually, though, Odysseus has to depart. Circe tells him in order to find out how to move forward, he has to find the land of the dead and consult them. These are my thoughts:
This could mean that separating from the feminine, after the man has earned her devotion and experienced her affection, is akin to experiencing death.
There are consequences to departing from the feminine once you have her.
The land of the dead, which is under the earth, is feminine. Circe mentions it’s at the “fertile shore of Proserpine’s country.” Proserpine, or Persephone, is the wife of Hades. She’s the queen of the dead.
It’s the feminine guiding Odysseus to the feminine—perhaps only the feminine could guide someone to the land of the dead?
Maybe this means Odysseus’ involvement with the pure Feminine is not over, and he must now encounter the darker, more dangerous, and more mysterious aspect of the feminine?
This may mean that Circe is not the pure Feminine then? She’s only one half of it? And Odysseus needs to encounter the other half?
I’m no good with this psychoanalysis stuff, so I’m probably just blowing hot air. It was a fun mental exercise though, if nothing else. That’s actually been my experience writing about the Odyssey so far. The Iliad was far more… practical and philosophical? It seemed to have set morals it was trying to get across, as well as wrestle with different concepts like fate, revenge, and the nature of the gods. The Odyssey, however, with it’s “everyman-esque” quality, seems far more allegorical and psychological. I could be taking it all way too far, but that’s just how my journey through this great work will be going.
That’s all for Book 10 of the Odyssey.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
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Thumbnail: Circe and Odysseus by Hubert Maurer. c. 1785. Public domain.