Circe: A Dramatic Fantasy

THE ARGUMENT MER relates that Ulysses, king of Ithaca in Greece, sailing homeward after the capture of Troy, drifted into unknown seas in consequence of the wrath of Neptune and after losing all but one of his twelve ships, landed with the sole remaining vessel upon the island of the enchantress irce, who transformed one-half of his ships company, twenty-two in number, into swine. He relates further that Ulysses, apprised by Blercury of the fate of his companions, and furnished by the god with an antidote for the spells of the sorceress, compelled her to restore his men to their human shape. Thereupon, at the invitation of Circe the rest of the crew join their mates at her palace, where all spend a year in festivity and merry-making before proceeding on their way with precise instructions from thc Enchantress regarding the homeward voyage. The experiences of Ulysses and his followers, as described in the Odyssey, immediately previous to their arrival at the Isle of Circe, had been of an extraordinary and alarming character. A number of men had been devoured by Polyphernus the Cyclops in his cave, where he had entrapped a party, the survivors escaping by riding out, clasped under the bellies of his sheep, after they had made the monster drunk and blinded his one eye with a fiery stake. Later, they came to the domain of Eolus, king of the minds, who presented Ulysses with a number of bags hoIding the adverse winds in confinement.