Then issuing forth she straight threw open wide
The shining doors and called them; and they all
Went in their folly trooping at her side.[[9]]
Circe, with a lurking smile of malice on her lips, came forward to welcome them. She was very lovely, with the youthful, changeless beauty of the immortals; but though Homer does not tell us so, we know that there was sensuality in the curving fullness of her mouth and a cruel gleam in the eyes over which the white lids drooped. With sweet words and fluttering movements of her soft hands, she brought them in and bade them sit; and busied herself, with swift and stealthy eagerness, to mix and pour a luscious drink of Pramnian wine and honey. But before she gave the cup into their hands, she furtively dropped into it one of her secret baneful drugs; and as they greedily drank, their human shape was instantly transformed to that of swine.
One of the crew, however, had not entered; and when his comrades did not return, he ran back to the ship to tell of what had happened. Odysseus, suspecting some evil, slung on his sword, seized his bow, and sped away to Circe’s house. But suddenly in his path stood the god Hermes, Messenger of Zeus, in the likeness of a handsome youth. The god held up an arresting hand.
“Ah, whither do you go
Across the wolds, O man unfortunate,
Alone amid a land you do not know?
“Your fellows here in Circe’s palace pine,
Close-barred and prisoned in the shape of swine;