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Summary
Chapter 4
In her loneliness and despair, Circe perks at the sight of a boat and its mortal sailor. She remembers the stories of nymphs victimized by mortal men but trusts that her father will come to help if the man tries anything. The fisherman realizes immediately that Circe is a goddess and speaks respectfully to her. She says she wants to ride the boat, and the two are awkward and formal together until Circe realizes the fisherman is terrified of her. She assures him her powers are very weak and that she not only won’t but can’t hurt him. He relaxes, and they continue talking.
The fisherman, Glaucos, is respectful and makes Circe feel beautiful and happy. He asks if he may return to fish again in that spot since he caught many fish with Circe onboard. They meet every day, and Glaucos shares stories of his life, including his family’s poverty and unhappiness. He gets more comfortable and familiar with Circe, but when she mentions Prometheus, he is shocked by the idea that she must be hundreds of years old. Circe decides not to tell him anything about her life because it’s filled with so much misery, so she lies and tells him that she never knew Prometheus after all. One day Glaucos tells her he cannot keep meeting because his father beat him because he hasn’t been working hard enough.
Circe concocts a plan to help Glaucos and continue their relationship. She goes to her grandmother, Tethys, and asks her to bless his nets. Tethys is confused when Circe admits that Glaucos is offering her nothing in exchange for her help. But she agrees to help if Circe promises not to have sex with the mortal and ruin her chances for a good marriage. Glaucos is very grateful and says he wishes he was a god so he could properly express his thanks. Because she believes that she loves Glaucos, Circe goes to Helios and asks him to turn her love into a god. Helios says it’s impossible, so Circe goes back to Tethys who agrees with Helios. Circe remembers what Aeëtes told her about pharmaka and asks her grandmother if using it is possible. Tethys is horrified and, Circe realizes, is scared by the idea. She tells Circe to leave and never speak to her about such “wickedness” again. Circe then asks her uncles about the battles between the Titans and Olympians to learn where divine blood was spilled on earth. She resolves to find the magical flowers that could change Glaucos into a god.
Chapter 5
Circe talks Glaucos into sailing to a place where she suspects they might find magical flowers. Glaucos is grouchy, but Circe serves him a meal and coaxes him to nap among the flowers. While he sleeps, Circe drops the flowers on his chest and blows the pollen over him. When nothing happens, she weeps in frustration and tears the flowers apart. As the sap oozes out of the flowers, Circe feels a power rise in her and suddenly knows what to do. She squeezes the sap into Glaucos’s mouth and thinks of how she wants him to be transformed into his real self in her mind, that is a god. He transforms into a sea-god with blue skin, green hair, and barnacles on his chest.
Glaucos and Circe are both thrilled. Glaucos marvels over his new strength and the fact that he can now go with Circe to her father’s home. She takes him to Tethys first and lies, saying that perhaps her wish to make him a god was a prophecy. He is welcomed without question as a new god whose destiny was to be transformed into an immortal. He becomes popular with all the members of Circe’s family, and everyone, including Glaucos himself, simply believes his transformation is an act of the Fates. Circe is so in love that she doesn’t tell him that it was her witchcraft that did it. She is devastated when he chooses to marry another nymph, Scylla, and she uses her magic once more with the intention of making her rival ugly.
Analysis
Glaucos’s introduction in Chapter 4 further explores the theme of misogyny. Circe’s relationship with Glaucos reveals her loneliness and lack of experience in the world. She is so desperate for companionship that she puts herself at risk. When they first meet, Circe feels the need to reveal that she is virtually powerless and of no threat to him. Their attraction is therefore dependent on the immortal woman seeming harmless to the mortal man. Although Glaucos is humble and deferential at first, he becomes comfortable and complacent. He treats Circe as if she is just a mortal girl, demonstrating how men ultimately feel entitled to claim supremacy over women, even divine ones. Circe tolerates this by fawning over him because she enjoys the fantasy of an actual relationship with him. She in turn puts Glaucos above herself by asking her father and grandmother to transform her love into a god. She has never asked anyone in her family for anything for herself, yet she risks irrevocably displeasing the gods and therefore her own status and sense of safety and stability for a man below her means.
The gods demonstrate almost willful blindness to Glaucos’s transformation because to even entertain the possibility of Circe having so much power would threaten their carefully balanced hierarchies. Helios in particular proves to be arrogantly certain that not even a god as powerful as he is could change the laws of the Fates. That assertion foreshadows his dramatic reaction when he later realizes Circe’s ability to do just that. The idea that anyone, especially the daughter he’s always perceived as weak and unexceptional, could do something he cannot is simply inconceivable. Meanwhile the existence of magic over which the gods have no control terrifies them. Although Circe’s determination to find the magical flowers Aeëtes told her about is motivated completely by her love for Glaucos, she is amazed by her ability to wield the power and experience an innate knowledge of witchcraft. By dabbling in witchcraft, Circe demonstrates that she rejects the other immortals’ perceptions of her for the first time in her life. Never before has Circe shown such confidence in herself or her potential for power. Witchcraft, a source of power explicitly not tied to the divine, is linked to self-discovery in the novel.
Glaucos’s transformation also highlights how men are essentially selfish and ego driven. When Circe commands in her spell that Glaucos become his true self, she does not expect him to become what she’s always known men to be: arrogant, self-absorbed, and greedy for power. But once he is a god, Glaucos demonstrates his true character by sending a wave to kill his abusive father and bragging that he will bless his former village as long as they make him appropriately pleasing offerings. Circe knows that he has become the worst version of himself, but she is willing to overlook it because she still expects him to propose to her. However, when Glaucos chooses the beautiful Scylla over homely Circe, he proves that he is truly just like any other man with a taste for power. Glaucos’s transformation further reflects the misogynistic nature in Circe’s society.
The pain of Glaucos’s crushing rejection propels Circe’s character toward the kind of hatred and pettiness that others have always used against her. She becomes just as judgmental, vindictive, and violent as her family members. This is evident in her newfound desperation to achieve her goals and marry Glaucos even if he doesn’t want her. Furthermore, this vindictiveness truly comes out as she wants to use her newly acquired power to thwart her rival. Circe believes Scylla’s triumph is not motivated by love but is actually vindictive in nature and aimed to exert power. Her belief is founded in the experiences she’s endured for her entire life within her father’s court. But Circe’s hate is consuming, and she becomes the victimizer instead of the victim here. Circe uses the knowledge that has plagued her for her entire life that without her beauty, Scylla, like every woman, will be worthless.
