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Summary
Chapter 11
Circe spends time with Daedalus. He reports that Minos has claimed the monster as his own and named it the Minotaur. She works her spell over the Minotaur which will limit his bloodlust to only one season per year, and she is able to tame him temporarily. When Daedalus makes a stronger cage for the creature and the two of them move the Minotaur into it, Circe feels pity for the monster who will never be a part of its family, know love, or even see the sun.
Daedalus invites Circe to dine with him, and she meets his son Icarus. When she sees how much Daedalus loves his son, Circe realizes that the boy is the source of Pasiphaë’s power over Daedalus and that he and his son are hostages. If he dares to try to escape, his son will die. Daedalus reveals that Pasiphaë arranged his marriage, and Circe knows that her sister’s motives were to keep the man a prisoner. She reflects that although she is a prisoner, she deserves it, while Daedalus is an innocent victim.
As her anger toward her sister grows, Circe visits Pasiphaë’s room and demands to know why she called for her. Pasiphaë says she thought Circe would enjoy seeing her bleed, but then they have a sincere conversation. Pasiphaë tells her sister that her obedience only made everyone hate her more. The only thing that could have garnered love and admiration, Pasiphaë says, would be power. For the first time, Circe realizes that her sister, her tormenter, was a victim of their family too. Pasiphaë actually implies admiring Circe a little bit because she never allowed herself to be destroyed by all the petty cruelties heaped on her. Circe asks why they never banded together, why they couldn’t have been friends like she was with Aeëtes. Pasiphaë says that no one was friends in their father’s court, especially Aeëtes, and that she had to do terrible things to maintain favor and was treated as property to be given at will in marriage. Circe is shocked when her sister says they are alike and angers Pasiphaë with her protests that they are not the same.
Circe returns to her room to find Daedalus waiting for her, and the two share a night together. They make love and then bond over the guilt they carry about their parts in creating Scylla and the Minotaur. Days later, Circe leaves to return to Aiaia, and Daedalus sends a beautiful, handmade loom and weaving supplies with her. She learns much later from Hermes that Daedalus did build the labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur and also worked on a secret project. He made wooden wings covered with feathers and wax. He and Icarus put on the wings and flew from Crete, toward freedom. Icarus, however, did not listen to his father’s warnings and rose too high. The sun’s heat melted the wax, and the boy fell into the sea and drowned. Daedalus continued, but the grief brought about his early death. Circe mourns and reflects that even though they only knew each other a brief time, he was someone she would not forget.
Analysis
This chapter further explores the lengths people will go for power and the corruption and damage that can result from obtaining it. Minos’s act of claiming the Minotaur as his own is a strategy: the king is able to avoid looking like a weak man whose wife cheated on him, and he can share the glory of a powerful monster who is rumored to have been birthed from a star. However, embracing of the Minotaur as a tool also leads to the deaths of many young men and women from Athens, whom Minos requires as sacrifices as tribute to Crete. Circe recognizes how the Minotaur is a victim of Minos’s greed as she works her spell, horrified that the creature is yet another pawn used to get and hold onto power. After all, the creature did not ask to be born and did not choose to be a man-eating monster. Circe’s reflection on the sad life of the Minotaur, kept prisoner and condemned to never know kindness or love, is a reminder of how it is simply another tool of the gods. Daedalus is also a tool Minos wields through an abuse of his power. Like the Minotaur, he is a prisoner, and his son is a hostage. Daedalus’s exceptional skill is what sets him apart but also makes him valuable as a possession and also a powerful tool for Pasiphaë and Minos to own and use.
The conversation between Circe and Pasiphaë is a turning point in Circe’s development. For the first time, Circe understands that her sister’s cruelty and quest for power are means for survival and not just arrogance after all. Pasiphaë reveals that her dislike of Circe as a child was more about her hatred of how everyone responded to Circe’s obedience. The truth, Pasiphaë claims, is that obedience is never enough for the gods. The only thing they care about is power and Circe realizes that no one in their family has loyalty or feeling for anyone else, especially girls, beyond what they can use to maintain his position and power. These truths foreshadow incidents in Circe’s future in which she has an interaction with Aeëtes that shows his disdain for her as well as her father’s future refusal to come to her aid when she needs it.
Pasiphaë’s assertion that she and Circe are alike reveals the extent to which both sisters similarly suffered and endured misogyny in their childhood home while also highlighting the starkly different outcomes for the sisters. Although Pasiphaë puts the statement in the context that both of them are tough and strong, Circe is horrified. She knows some of the horrible things her sister has done in her attempt to have at least some power in her life. Even as Pasiphaë asserts that she had to be vicious in order to survive, Circe argues that she is different. While Pasiphaë’s response to being subordinated results in acts of humiliation and abuse against others, Circe’s response results in her clinging to her humanity and seeking love. When Circe repudiates the idea that she is anything like her brutal sister, the moment of connection between them is suddenly gone. Pasiphaë realizes that she overestimated Circe’s potential to grab power by any means necessary. The whole discussion serves to strengthen Circe’s resolve to be, as Prometheus foretold so long before, a different kind of god. She does not want to be like the members of her family in any way.
