But ere that awful vale ent’ring, I reach’d
The palace of the sorceress, a God
Met me, the bearer of the golden wand,
Hermes. He seem’d a stripling in his prime,
His cheeks cloath’d only with their earliest down,
For youth is then most graceful; fast he lock’d
His hand in mine, and thus, familiar, spake.
Stranger to all this region, and alone,
Go’st thou? Thy people—they within the walls
Are shut of Circe, where as swine close-pent
She keeps them. Comest thou to set them free?
I tell thee, never wilt thou thence return
Thyself, but wilt be prison’d with the rest.
Yet hearken—I will disappoint her wiles,
And will preserve thee. Take this precious drug;
Possessing this, enter the Goddess’ house
Boldly, for it shall save thy life from harm.
Lo! I reveal to thee the cruel arts
Of Circe; learn them. She will mix for thee
A potion, and will also drug thy food
With noxious herbs; but she shall not prevail
By all her pow’r to change thee; for the force
Superior of this noble plant, my gift,
Shall baffle her. Hear still what I advise.
When she shall smite thee with her slender rod,
With faulchion drawn and with death-threat’ning looks
Rush on her; she will bid thee to her bed
Affrighted; then beware. Decline not thou
Her love, that she may both release thy friends,
And may with kindness entertain thyself.
But force her swear the dreaded oath of heav’n
That she will other mischief none devise
Against thee, lest she strip thee of thy might,
And, quenching all thy virtue, make thee vile.
That plant extracting, placed it in my hand,
Then taught me all its pow’rs. Black was the root,
Milk-white the blossom; Moly is its name
In heav’n; not easily by mortal man
Dug forth, but all is easy to the Gods.
Then, Hermes through the island-woods repair’d
To heav’n, and I to Circe’s dread abode,
In gloomy musings busied as I went.
Within the vestibule arrived, where dwelt
The beauteous Goddess, staying there my steps,
I call’d aloud; she heard me, and at once
Issuing, threw her splendid portals wide,
And bade me in. I follow’d, heart-distress’d.
Leading me by the hand to a bright throne
With argent studs embellish’d, and beneath
Footstool’d magnificent, she made me sit.
Then mingling for me in a golden cup
My bev’rage, she infused a drug, intent
On mischief; but when I had drunk the draught
Unchanged, she smote me with her wand, and said.
She spake; I drawing from beside my thigh
My faulchion keen, with death-denouncing looks
Rush’d on her; she with a shrill scream of fear
Ran under my rais’d arm, seized fast my knees,
And in wing’d accents plaintive thus began.
Amazed I see thee with that potion drench’d,
Yet uninchanted; never man before
Once pass’d it through his lips, and liv’d the same;
But in thy breast a mind inhabits, proof
Against all charms. Come then—I know thee well.
Thou art Ulysses artifice-renown’d,
Of whose arrival here in his return
From Ilium, Hermes of the golden wand
Was ever wont to tell me. Sheath again
Thy sword, and let us, on my bed reclined,
Mutual embrace, that we may trust thenceforth
Each other, without jealousy or fear.
O Circe! canst thou bid me meek become
And gentle, who beneath thy roof detain’st
My fellow-voyagers transform’d to swine?
And, fearing my escape, invit’st thou me
Into thy bed, with fraudulent pretext
Of love, that there, enfeebling by thy arts
My noble spirit, thou may’st make me vile?
No—trust me—never will I share thy bed
Till first, O Goddess, thou consent to swear
The dread all-binding oath, that other harm
Against myself thou wilt imagine none.
All evil purpose, and (her solemn oath
Concluded) I ascended, next, her bed
Magnificent. Meantime, four graceful nymphs
Attended on the service of the house,
Her menials, from the fountains sprung and groves,
And from the sacred streams that seek the sea.
Of these, one cast fine linen on the thrones,
Which, next, with purple arras rich she spread;
Another placed before the gorgeous seats
Bright tables, and set on baskets of gold.
The third, an argent beaker fill’d with wine
Delicious, which in golden cups she served;
The fourth brought water, which she warm’d within
An ample vase, and when the simm’ring flood
Sang in the tripod, led me to a bath,
And laved me with the pleasant stream profuse
Pour’d o’er my neck and body, till my limbs
Refresh’d, all sense of lassitude resign’d.
When she had bathed me, and with limpid oil
Anointed me, and cloathed me in a vest
And mantle, next, she led me
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