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Chapter 7
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Circe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Fear, and Self-Preservation
Women, Power, and Misogyny
Change, Initiative, and the Self
Mortality, Fragility, and Fulfillment
Family and Individuality
Summary
Analysis
One sunset, Circe’s work is interrupted by Hermes, who greets her by teasing her plain appearance and gardening. Although nervous to see him, she swallows her fear (she knows that such a powerful god would leverage it) and bluntly asks what he expected. He tells her that Zeus is certain that she is crafting magic to attack the gods. Hermes denies Circe’s accusation that he is a spy and reveals that he is visiting in hopes that she will host him while he is hiding from Apollo, whose lyre he has stolen. Circe hesitates—Apollo’s wrath is deadly. But she is tired of fearing what gods might do to her, so she welcomes him into her house.
Circe has grown wiser since her time in Helios’s halls, and she’s now wary to show her real emotions lest someone (like Hemes) uses them against her. After all, the last time she was truthful to someone (confessing her powers to Helios), it resulted in Zeus and her father exiling her. In this way, Circe understandably feels like she cannot trust those around her, which leads to a sense of emotional isolation. Circe welcomes Hermes not out of kindness, but out of spite for the gods. She is tired of living in fear, and now that she feels confident and in-control of her power, she’s no longer as willing to honor the gods for the sake of winning their favor. After all, none of her kindness or deference helped her in the past—the gods exiled her anyway.
Themes
Hermes is a wonderful storyteller. That evening, he tells Circe tales of the gods’ fights and vices. She’s captivated by his skill, acknowledging that the rumors of his charm and wiliness are true. When she asks whether he will get in trouble for visiting her, he says that while she can’t leave, anyone can visit. Helios and Zeus didn’t consider the details.
The fact that Helios and Zeus never planned out the details of Circe’s exile demonstrates how insignificant she is to them. Although their reasoning isn’t explicitly stated, it is likely that they assume that Circe will remain relatively powerless because she is a woman, and they don’t expect her to ever obtain a significant amount of power.
Themes
Hermes starts playing the lyre upon Circe’s request and asks if she can sing. She tells him that she can, but that others cringe at her voice, which they say “sounds like a gull.” He says that she doesn’t sound like a gull at all, but she has a human voice, a common characteristic of lesser nymphs. He also informs her that, should she ever meet mortals, they will not fear her as much of others, because she sounds like them. Circe humors him and sings.
Circe’s having a mortal’s voice suggests that she is caught between identities. She is a goddess, and yet her voice—the tool she uses to express herself—indicates that she has some qualities of a mortal, although the exact qualities aren’t established here. The implication—that she has mortal-like characteristics—provides a reason for why she always felt out of place among the gods; she is, in this way, a mortal trapped in an immortal’s body.
Themes
Circe asks Hermes the name of her island, which he gives her: Aiaia. She recognizes that name as a battle site during the Olympian-Titan war, which means that divine blood fell on her island. Hermes slyly voices the coincidence that Helios would choose to exile her here. Circe knows that he’s trying to pry information from her, but contrary to her past self, she will not give him whatever he wants. She asks him whether he would dare to stay, knowing that she is a witch. He rises to the challenge, and they become lovers.
The fact that Aiaia was doused in divine blood means that the island most likely hosts pharmaka, the powerful herbs that spring up from gods’ blood. Given Helios’s egotism, it is possible that he purposefully exiled Circe to an island with pharmaka in so that he could eventually benefit from her magic, possibly in an attack against the Olympians. Hermes appears to suspect this as well, but again, Circe is too jaded to tell him any of her thoughts on the matter; her prior experiences trusting people have ended poorly for her.
Themes
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Hermes continues to visit Circe, and the two become close. They have enjoyable conversation and sex, but they are not in love. When Hermes asks Circe to have his child, she laughs at his request. They are barely friends—they amuse each other, but that could change at any moment. Hermes tells Circe gossip from around the world, from Pasiphaë’s family to Perse’s gloating pride about her children. She enjoys his stories but knows that he gossips about her in the same way.
Hermes embodies the careless side of the gods’ selfishness. Circe enjoys his company, but she knows that he is only concerned with his own amusement. She doesn’t feel any genuine emotional connection and knows that as soon as she stops amusing him, he will leave her. As Circe mentions at the beginning of the story, the gods love novelty. Because they see so much in their eternal lives, they are usually jaded and only interested in people or things that are new to them. Therefore, Hermes is likely only visiting Circe because she’s new to him—he has no true feelings for her, which she knows. In this way, his immortality-bred boredom prevents Hermes and Circe from ever having a meaningful relationship.
Themes
One day, Circe asks why Zeus had been so furious at Prometheus for helping mortals. Hermes says that it is because miserable people make better offerings to the gods. Happy people are too busy with their lives, which they come to claim as their own. When Circe expresses outrage, Hermes reminds her that Helios is one of the most brutal gods. Circe is silenced, thinking of how she used to be proud of the offerings Helios got.
In this passage, Hermes explains how the gods exploit people’s misery: when people are suffering, they will do anything they can to buy themselves comfort or pleasure. When people are happy, they don’t feel the need to beg someone else to improve their lives. When the humans received fire, they were able to create the technology that they desired to make their lives more comfortable and therefore less reliant on the gods and their powers. In this way, independence is a kind of power, as it frees a person from relying on others. The humans didn’t have to fear the gods’ whims and wrath as much because, with their own comforts, they wouldn’t be as affected when the gods deprived them of something. Thus, the implication of Prometheus giving humans fire is that it diminished the gods’ power over the humans. When Hermes reminds Circe of Helios’s role in exploiting humans’ misery for his own gain, she’s forced to confront her own complicity in the “great chain of fear”—she used to benefit from her fathers’ abuse of mortals by bragging about his offerings and associating herself with his power.
Themes
During another visit, Circe asks Hermes about Scylla. He says that she is near Aiaia; she lives in a cliff on one side of a strait whose opposite border has a whirlpool. Whenever a ship passes, she eats sailors. Circe is horrified, knowing that all these deaths are her fault. Hermes admits that Helios or Zeus could stop her, but they won’t: monsters inspire many prayers. On this same visit, he tells her that a prophecy states that a man named Odysseus, who is also a descendant of Hermes, will come to her island.
When Circe finds out that Scylla eats humans, she knows at once that she is responsible for all the deaths that the monster causes. In this way, Scylla is Circe’s contribution to the cycle of power and abuse that makes humans suffer. Scylla is also a monument to Circe’s vanity and cruelty, both traits associated with her immortal family. But although Circe recognizes her responsibility of Scylla’s deaths, she doesn’t take responsibility in trying to stop Scylla—she hopes that someone else will get rid of the monster. But this hope is a foolish one, as the gods benefit from the terror that Scylla (and all monsters) inspires—humans send more prayers to the gods when they are scared for their life. Although Circe wants the world to be a less violent place, many of the gods selfishly do not, demonstrating how trusting others to bring about a desired change is often ineffective.
Themes
Circe’s favorite moments are when she walks the forests with her lion at midnight, after Hermes leaves. After waiting several months since their first talk (she doesn’t want Hermes spying on her), Circe finds the flower she wants: a blossom that sprang from divine blood. She names it moly and sees that it has the capability to ward off evil. The days pass, and her island thrives. She is mostly happy, although she cannot forget the deaths she causes via Scylla.
Circe finding moly growing on her island may symbolize how her ability to fight off evil is growing. Circe is distraught that she is causing so much harm in the world via Scylla. She keeps this knowledge close and lets her regret grow. The simultaneous growth of her regret and the herb that fights off evil may suggest that acknowledging one’s faults and failures fosters personal growth.
Themes
