payment page
In the shadows within her father’s palace, Circe is mocked and scorned by members of her divine family. She seeks to please others and feel valued but continues to be an afterthought to her parents and a target for her brother and sister’s cruel taunts. When Circe sees Prometheus being whipped and condemned to a terrible fate, she defies her father and brings Prometheus nectar and talks with him. He is the first being to ever suggest to her that she could strive to be different from the other gods. That interaction has a lasting effect on Circe as does the birth of a new brother, Aeëtes, who is also rejected by their mother. As he grows to become Circe’s one and only source of love and friendship, Aeëtes reveals that he has heard secrets the gods talk about. When he tells Circe about pharmaka, magical herbs that grow from blood spilled when the Titans and Olympians battled, the course of Circe’s life changes.
Circe’s loneliness grows when her siblings all leave their father’s palace. Pasiphaë marries King Minos and leaves. Helios gifts Aeëtes with a kingdom far away, and Circe’s brother Perses also leaves. When Circe meets the mortal sailor Glaucos they become friends, and Circe falls in love. Knowing she can never have a life with a mortal, Circe asks her grandmother, Tethys, to change Glaucos into a god. When Tethys says it’s impossible, Circe asks if it could be done through pharmaka. Tethys is horrified at the idea, but Circe learns where divine blood was spilled, goes there, finds magical flowers, and lets sap drip into Glaucos’s mouth as he naps. When he transforms into an arrogant, blue-skinned sea god, Circe believes her dreams of love will finally be realized, and Glaucos is welcomed as a member of the divine family. Instead of marrying Circe, however, Glaucos chooses a nymph named Scylla. Circe is devastated, especially since she thinks of Scylla as vain and cruel. In her desire to divert Glaucos’s plans, Circe pours the magical sap into a cove where Scylla bathes with the idea that it will make Scylla as ugly on the outside as Circe believes she is on the inside. Instead, Scylla becomes a horrifying, six-headed monster who flees to live in a cave near a whirlpool. Horrified and crushed by guilt, Circe confesses to Helios who says what she claims is impossible. It’s only when Aeëtes visits and tells Helios that he, his sisters, and brother are all pharmakis, witches, capable of incredible acts of magic, that Helios takes Circe seriously for the first time in her life.
It’s decided in a meeting between Helios and Zeus that Circe will be exiled because she’s the only one who willingly sought out pharmaka. The next day, Helios abandons her on an island where she must remain forever. Her new home, Aiaia, has a beautiful house filled with everything she needs, and Circe devotes herself to learning about and honing her witchcraft. Circe’s happiness and newfound sense of freedom ends, however, when Hermes appears one day and shares gossip, including news of how Scylla has been murdering and eating passing sailors. Circe and Hermes become lovers, though she says she will never bear him a child.
One day, a ship arrives on Aiaia with Daedalus onboard. Circe remembers seeing him at Pasiphaë’s wedding to Minos, and he’s still under Pasiphaë’s control. Circe’s cruel sister sent Daedalus to bring Circe to her. Although she distrusts Pasiphaë, Circe agrees and uses the opportunity to sail through Scylla’s territory to try to stop the monster she created. The spells fail, and sailors on their ship are eaten. Seeing the horror of Scylla in person consumes Circe with guilt. More horror awaits in Crete where the pregnant and laboring Pasiphaë tells Circe she must help her deliver her baby, a monster called the Minotaur, who is the result of Pasiphaë coupling with a magical bull. After cutting the creature from her sister, Circe and Daedalus put the Minotaur in a cage, and Circe makes a potion to control the monster’s appetite to just one season each year. Daedalus and Circe become lovers, and when she leaves, he gives her a loom and materials to weave on it.
After returning to Aiaia, Circe is lonelier than ever until another ship arrives with Aeëtes’s daughter Medea and her husband Jason. They ask to be cleansed, and Circe does it. Later, they reveal that Medea killed her own brother in order to slow down her father’s pursuit after they took his golden fleece. After observing the couple, Circe tells her niece privately that she doesn’t think her marriage to Jason will last and asks her to live with her on Aiaia and practice their magic together. Medea scorns the offer, declares her love for and trust in Jason, and says Circe is just lonely. Medea and Jason leave, and Aeëtes arrives soon after, furious that Circe didn’t detain the pair. For the first time, however, Circe stands up to him, and he leaves.
Without any warning, the young nymph Alke arrives and says she was sent to live with Circe as punishment. More nymphs arrive as word spreads among the gods that sending disobedient daughters to Aiaia is a good idea. When Hermes visits, Circe complains about the presence of all the nymphs, and Hermes says she’s gotten dull. Finally disgusted with him, Circe tells Hermes she’s done with him. Another ship arrives with sailors who say they’re lost, and Circe is excited by the prospect of being helpful and useful. Still, she is wise enough to be cautious and adds a potion to the wine in case they mean harm. Despite her precautions, the captain rapes Circe, covering her mouth so she can’t speak the spell to save herself. After it’s over, she turns all the men into pigs and slaughters them. More ships come, and Circe turns all the sailors into pigs until a man named Odysseus arrives alone and says his crew visited while he waited by the shore. For the first time, Circe finds someone who is a match for her wit and is impressed when Odysseus takes care in how he speaks to her and doesn’t drink the enchanted wine. Intrigued, Circe transforms his crew back, and they stay for a year, during which time Odysseus and Circe become lovers. He tells her about his adventures, including the Trojan War and how the goddess Athena is his patron, but he eventually leaves to return to his wife and son. Unbeknownst to him, Circe is pregnant with Odysseus’s son.
Circe is sick throughout her pregnancy, and she has a hard time birthing Telegonus. He is a difficult baby who always seems to be in danger of harm. When the goddess Athena visits and demands the baby, Circe summons all her powers to put a spell over the entire island to protect Telegonus from Athena. For sixteen years, the boy grows up healthy and happy on Aiaia until he reveals that he wants to go find his father. Terrified of what could happen to him if he leaves her zone of protection, Circe refuses, and she’s furious when she learns Hermes has secretly helped the boy build a boat. Ultimately, though, Circe realizes she can’t stop him. She goes to the bottom of the sea to challenge Trygon, a massive stingray with a poison tail that is said to be able to wound even the gods. After winning the tail, she makes a spear for Telegonus with Trygon’s tail to take on his journey, and Telegonus sails for Ithaca to meet Odysseus.
After long days of waiting, Circe welcomes Telegonus home, but he has brought Penelope and Telemachus with him. As his story unfolds about his journey, Telegonus tearfully confides how he accidentally killed Odysseus with the spear. Telemachus did not try to avenge his father’s death, so he and his mother had to flee the angry and vengeful citizens of Ithaca. When Telegonus brings them to his mother, Telemachus tells Circe that his father was paranoid and violent, and Penelope confesses that she’s afraid Athena will kill Telemachus for not seeking revenge. Although still suspicious and on guard, Circe allows them to stay, and they live peacefully together until Hermes comes with a message that Athena demands to come speak with them. Only after Athena promises that no harm will come to any of them, including Telegonus, does Circe agree to drop the spell.
Athena arrives and offers Telemachus a kingdom in the west. He graciously refuses, so Athena makes the offer to Telegonus. Knowing her son will never be happy living on Aiaia, Circe reluctantly gives her blessing. Telegonus leaves, and Circe realizes she is also desperate to see the world. She summons Helios and demands to be released from exile, threatening him until he relents. Circe leaves Aiaia in Penelope’s care, and Telemachus asks to join Circe on her journey. After a long life of growing in power and wisdom, Circe finally creates a plan and a potion to turn Scylla to stone. Free from the burden that has tormented her for so long, Circe finally feels free. She and Telemachus become lovers before traveling to where she first found the magical flowers that began her witchcraft and then returning to Aiaia. With a vision of a happy mortal life with Telemachus in her mind, Circe drinks the magical sap, hoping that it will make her mortal so she can make her vision come true.
