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Summary
Chapter 12
Circe makes it back to Aiaia without passing Scylla and is happy to be home. However, she feels her isolation more keenly. She goes back to her old routines and finds joy in using the loom Daedalus made for her. Time passes, and Circe thinks more about her conversation with her sister back in Crete. She realizes that her witchcraft probably came from her mother, and she wonders for the first time if she was loyal to the wrong parent. Circe also questions if she and Pasiphaë ever could have a relationship as true sisters, but Circe is steadfast in her belief that she will never be like her cruel sister. Hermes returns, but Circe feels distaste for him in his godly perfection. Still, she listens to his gossip about her sister and Minos’s court.
The Minotaur continued its annual bloodlust, and eventually Minos demanded human sacrifices from Athens. An Athenian prince named Theseus came as a voluntary tribute, and Ariadne fell in love with him. Ariadne often visited her monster-brother and spoke softly to the Minotaur, but she conspired to help Theseus kill him. Even though she was supposed to marry Theseus, Dionysus told the prince to leave her on an island. Before Dionysus arrived to claim her, however, Artemis killed the girl.
Hermes is shocked that Circe grieves for Ariadne, and Circe tells him to leave Aiaia. Hermes returns however and continues sharing news. He tells Circe that her sister went mad after the Minotaur’s death, and he also tells her the complete story Circe heard a part of while on Crete about how girls died during sex with Minos.
Chapter 13
Time passes, and a Mycenaean ship arrives without any warning. A man and woman get off the ship and approach Circe. They ask to be cleansed of the evil they have done. Circe senses the evil, but the man’s youth and beauty inspire her to agree to help the couple. She performs the ritual to purify the two travelers of their sin. Only then does the girl reveal that she is Circe’s niece Medea, daughter of Aeëtes. The man is Jason, displaced heir of Iolcos. They tell the story of how Jason, to reclaim his birthright, traveled to Aeëtes’s kingdom of Colchis to get a magical golden fleece. Aeëtes refused to give Jason the fleece and instead challenged him to impossible tasks to win the fleece.
Medea used her witchcraft to ensure Jason’s success, but Aeëtes refused to give him the fleece. So, they took it and fled with Medea’s little brother as hostage. When Aeëtes pursued them, Medea told Jason to kill and dismember her brother to slow her father down. That is the evil they came to be cleansed of. Medea tells Circe that Aeëtes is a tyrant who tortures people for sport. She also says that she has become a powerful witch and that Aeëtes refuses to marry her to anyone because he wants to control her power for himself unless he can trade her to another sorcerer for exotic and rare poisons. Aeëtes offered Medea to Perses, and she says she is grateful that Circe’s other brother did not want her because he is as terrifying as Aeëtes.
Circe sees that Jason fears his new wife. She takes Medea aside and tells her to let Jason go without her, and the two of them can live on Aiaia and practice their witchcraft together. Medea is insulted and angry that Circe would suggest that Jason will not be faithful in his love. She turns on Circe and threatens harm if she tries to stop her from leaving with Jason. The two of them go. Soon after, Aeëtes arrives in pursuit. He is furious that Circe let them leave and threatens her. For the first time in her life, Circe sees Aeëtes for who he truly is and stands up to him. Aeëtes is furious, but he leaves Circe in peace.
Analysis
Hermes’s visits upon Circe’s return further develop the gods’ destructive power as a theme. His perfect, unmarked body reminds Circe of Daedalus and how she was attracted to his scars. Those scars, notably, are the result of mortal hardship. She also finds Hermes’s beauty to be a sign of his privilege and power, and Circe is thus repulsed. The fact that Hermes is entertained and challenged by her new distaste for him demonstrates how the gods are charmed by anything new and novel in this world. Hermes’s renewed interest echoes how Circe’s mother was able to get Helios to propose by withholding sex. Hermes’s news from Crete also intensifies Circe’s hatred of the gods. The fact that Ariadne and Theseus are put through hell all for the petty squabbles between immortals only highlights the gods’ frivolity and misuse of power. In the eyes of Dionysus and Artemis, mortals are just disposable tools.
Circe’s interaction with Medea and Jason serves three purposes. First, it demonstrates to Circe that her sister spoke the truth about Aeëtes’s motives and his cruelty. It’s clear to Circe that Medea takes after Aeëtes as she relates how she commanded the murder of her little brother, implying that her cause is more important than the life of an innocent. Second, Circe sees how terrifying witchcraft can be to others. Circe knows that Jason is scared of his wife as he flinches from her. She warns Medea that there is no way the two of them will be happy together because she understands that when they arrive back in Iolcos, Medea will not be respected but feared as an outsider and a witch. Finally, Circe’s isolation and loneliness is held undeniably up to her when Medea scorns and mocks her. Circe’s offer for Medea to stay on Aiaia with her is received as a scheme to imprison Medea just so Circe won’t be so lonely, and Circe cannot deny at least some truth in Medea’s reaction.
Circe’s reunion with Aeëtes is a revelation in her character development. When he comes in pursuit of his daughter, Circe sees him clearly for the first time. At first, she welcomes him and is happy to see him even though she knows he’s only there for Medea and Jason. Circe tells him that she met Daedalus, hoping to reconnect with the relationship they once had with the memory of Aeëtes pointing out Daedalus at their sister’s wedding. These efforts show again her loneliness and her desire to cling to the version of Aeëtes she thought she knew in her youth back home. Aeëtes’s declares that detaining Medea was Circe’s duty to him allows Circe to realize how wrong she’d been about her brother. Any positive memory she’d ever kept of her brother was a lie, and she knows that he had always been manipulating her for his own purposes. When she defies him, stating that he has no power on her island to punish her, there is an implicit threat that he needs to recognize. She wants Aeëtes to understand that she is powerful too. When he leaves, Circe is not sorry to see him go, but she does have to live with the understanding that the relationship she thought she had with her brother was always an illusion.
