Metamorphoses 14: Circe

When Madeline Miller’s novel Circe came out in 2018, I put it on my list of things to read — but I wasn’t sure I’d like it. Sometimes, reading novels based on classical literature feels like work to me (a real downside of my profession). Sometimes I get annoyed that it’s not how I would tell the story, or that my favorite part got left out. In the case of Circe, she’s such an interesting character who pops up in so many myths from the ancient world. Book 14 of the Metamorphoses wanders through many of those stories, and Circe is not the heroine in any of them — in fact, she’s the villain, the wicked witch. <a href="https://medium.com/@joannakenty/metamorphoses-13-a-courtroom-drama-6ad7819a2c1e" rel="noopener">Book 13 </a>ended with the transformation of Galatea’s lover Acis into Glaucus, a sea god, after he is killed by the cyclops Polyphemus. Glaucus has evidently moved on from Galatea to Scylla, another beautiful sea nymph, and goes to the witch Circe for a love charm. Circe, however, is not interested in the role of matchmaker. <a href="https://medium.com/@joannakenty/metamorphoses-14-circe-ac88be990dbb">Website</a>