Retellings From The Middle Ages To Modern Times
Giovanni Boccaccio provided a digest of what was known of Circe during the Middle Ages in his De claris mulieribus (Famous Women, 1361-1362). While following the tradition that she lived in Italy, he comments wryly that there are now many more temptresses like her to lead men astray.
There is a very different interpretation of the encounter with Circe in John Gower's long didactic poem Confessio Amantis (1380). Ulysses is depicted as deeper in sorcery and readier of tongue than Circe and through this means leaves her pregnant with Telegonus. Most of the account deals with the son's later quest for and accidental killing of his father, drawing the moral that only evil can come of the use of sorcery.
The story of Ulysses and Circe was retold as an episode in Georg Rollenhagen's German verse epic, Froschmeuseler (The frogs and mice, Magdeburg, 1595). In this 600-page expansion of the pseudo-Homeric Batrachomyomachia, it is related at the court of the mice and takes up sections 5-8 of the first part.
In Lope de Vega's miscellany La Circe - con otras rimas y prosas (Madrid 1624), the story of her encounter with Ulysses appears as a verse epic in three cantos. This takes its beginning from Homer’s account, but it is then embroidered; in particular, Circe’s love for Ulysses remains unrequited.
As "Circe's Palace", Nathaniel Hawthorne retold the Homeric account as the third section in his collection of stories from Greek mythology, Tanglewood Tales (1853). The transformed Picus continually appears in this, trying to warn Ullyses, and then Eurylochus, of the danger to be found in the palace, and is rewarded at the end by being given back his human shape. In most accounts Ulysses only demands this for his own men.
The Circe episode also figures in film adaptations of the Odyssey. The character was played by Silvana Mangano in the US production, Ullyses (1955); by Juliette Mayniel in the European television co-production L'Odissea (1968); and by Bernadette Peters in the American TV feature Ulysses (1997). In addition, the 2003 Radio Tales drama "Homer's Odyssey: Voyage to the Underworld" retells the portion of Homer's epic featuring Circe, followed by the voyage to Hades to consult with Tiresias.
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