Summary

Chapter 19

Circe looks for ways to protect herself and Telegonus from Athena, but hiding or fighting is futile. She knows her family won’t help her. She has an idea for a spell and uses the blood Odysseus brought back from Hades to bind it. The protective spell will keep Athena away from Aiaia. Creating and maintaining the witchcraft is exhausting. Circe has to recraft the spells repeatedly, but Circe believes it will be effective. Still, she knows there will be a price for peace and safety. She doesn’t know what it will be, but she is sure that she will be able to pay it. 

Telegonus is restless and angry. Only the sea can calm him for short bursts. One day, he has a tantrum while Circe recast the spells of protection, and she decides to use her witchcraft on him. Instead of making him sleep however, the spell paralyzes him. He falls to the floor and hits his head. Circe is horrified and takes it back, but the child is hurt and terrified. He runs from her, but she gives him a jar of honey to calm down. Circe marvels that he doesn’t hold her actions against her, and she speculates on what her own father would do if she challenged him the way Telegonus does. 

Circe and Telegonus grow closer over time. He shows confidence and curiosity that remind her of Odysseus. When he is thirteen, she mentions that he is like his father, and she tells the boy about him for the first time. Telegonus is fascinated and greedy for information. Circe finds herself withholding information because she realizes how violent and brutal Odysseus really is. As a result, Telegonus believes his father is noble and honorable, a person who would protect rather than hurt others. He begins to ask where Ithaca is and how far away. 

One day when Telegonus is fifteen, a ship is in danger off the coast of Aiaia, and he begs Circe to drop the spell so they can help the men. She does, and the men show up to her home for help. Circe is nervous, remembering the time she tried to help stranded sailors and was raped, but Telegonus emerges wearing a cape and a sword and takes on the role of the man of the house. Like his father, he is charming, and his confidence makes the men defer to and be respectful of him and Circe. She realizes that her son wants to be a part of the world and not kept on an island. Telegonus asks to have ownership of a cave by the water, and Circe relents. Later she finds that he’s been building a ship while aided by Hermes who has been visiting the boy in secret. Telegonus plans to sail to Ithaca to find his father. Circe forbids it and reminds him that Athena wants him dead. She tells him if he tries to leave, she will destroy the boat. 

Telegonus tries to talk to her, but Circe is adamant. She tells her son that he has no idea what he’s asking or what the risks are. She tells him that she’s worked too hard to keep him alive only to let him go right into Athena’s hands. Telegonus argues, saying that he wants to live his own life and not live like a prisoner on the island with only his mother. She threatens him with her witchcraft for the first time, and he is horrified and flees from the house. While he stays away from her, Circe reflects on how impossible it is for Telegonus, a mortal boy, to understand the dangers of leaving. She also thinks back to how he’s always looked to the sea and how he’s like Odysseus with a lust for adventure. She thinks of how Odysseus would handle the conflict, and she crafts a plan. 

Analysis

For the first time ever, Circe feels and accepts responsibility for someone other than herself, and motherhood transforms her. She has become someone who would place her child’s needs above her own in a demonstration of unconditional love. As she deals with his constant crying, Circe demonstrates a degree of patience even through her misery. It may be inferred that Circe would have been a willful child too if she had not been afraid of having her father turn his power on her and burning her for her insolence. There is an irony at work with this realization because she raises her son in a love and peace that she never had. However, she herself has no peace because she must constantly be on guard due to Athena’s demands for her son’s life. The act of exhausting herself and her power to protect Telegonus is more proof that not only is Circe’s love sacrificial, but it also shows that she is not like her callous and neglectful parents who would never have put themselves at risk or even inconvenienced themselves for her. 

Conjuring the protection spell demonstrates the tension between power and vulnerability. Circe knows she cannot protect Telegonus from everything and that at some point she will have to pay for defying Athena. Circe’s entire life has demonstrated to her that there is no way to outwit, outrun, or outmaneuver the gods. This fact injects a running paranoia throughout the proceedings. Specifically, Circe is completely convinced that the spell will never work or that Athena will find a way to break through and have her revenge. At her most formidable, at the point that she constructs the most powerful witchcraft she’s ever attempted, Circe knows she is still vulnerable against Athena. Still, her persistence allows her to maintain the spell diligently, renewing it over and over out of love for Telegonus. She never gives up even though she believes her efforts will ultimately fail against the might of an Olympian. 

It is the effort of maintaining the protection spells that first leads Circe to grapple with the question of free will where Telegonus is concerned. The child is so active and demands so much of Circe’s attention that she casts a spell on him so he’ll sleep while she works on her witchcraft, justifying her actions by reminding herself that the spell is for his own protection. When she realizes that the spell only paralyzes him and that he is awake and aware of her control over him, Circe is horrified and ashamed that she tried to deprive him of his free will in the way she herself used to be controlled by her father’s powers. Since she has a complex history of being controlled and subjected to the whims of others who hold power over her, Circe’s use of magic on her son and her subsequent shame reminds her that she does not want to raise her child the way she was raised. She wants Telegonus to have a different kind of life experience that he cannot have if he is motivated by fear and controlled instead of being free to make choices.  

Telegonus’s assertion that he wants to leave Aiaia is a result of Circe’s attempts to provide a stable and loving view of family and the world for her son. Circe edits her tales about Odysseus so that Telegonus will admire and respect the father he never knew. This reveals that with time and distance, Circe has come to understand Odysseus’s shortcomings and flaws, but she regardless feels the need to sacrifice the truth in order to keep Odysseus’s memory pure for Telegonus. She intends to preserve the sense of love and respect that she once felt for Odysseus so long ago, but the stories unintentionally kindle the boy’s desire to know the flawed man. When the sailors are in trouble off the coast, it is Circe’s incomplete version of his father that makes Telegonus beg Circe to drop the spell to allow the men to come to shore because he identifies them with his adventurous father. Because Circe has protected her son and never shared the story of her rape with him, Telegonus does not have a concrete reason to fear the outside world. After interacting with the sailors and being respected by them, Telegonus becomes more interested than ever in the world beyond Aiaia. Realizing how she has made her son ill-equipped for any other life off the island, Circe, for the first time, threatens to deprive her son of his free will by telling him that he has no idea how powerful she is. That threat furthers the idea that Telegonus is unprepared for the world or its dangers, including his own mother’s magic since she never shared those truths with him. Still, Circe finally understands that she is robbing Telegonus of his right to experience the world and to learn from any mistakes he might make. She ultimately demonstrates her growth and development when she concludes that she cannot deprive the boy of learning about the world, including his own father, and the potential dangers for himself.