Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Circe.
The gallery
Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses
John William Waterhouse, 1891
Waterhouse stages the decisive moment on Aeaea: Circe, crowned and draped in a shimmering blue-violet robe, extends the drugged cup toward Odysseus while a loom, potions, and already-transformed beasts crowd the shadowed chamber behind her. The Pre-Raphaelite sorceress meets the viewer's gaze as firmly as the hero's — beauty as trap, hospitality as spell. Oil on canvas, Gallery Oldham.
Circe Invidiosa
John William Waterhouse, 1892
A year after the cup scene, Waterhouse paints Circe in Ovid's darker register: standing in a luminous tide-pool, she pours a green poison into the water to transform her rival Scylla. The witch of Aeaea appears alone — no Odysseus, only jealous craft and cold light on wet stone. Oil on canvas, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Circe
John Collier, 1885
Collier's academic Circe sits in tiger skins amid her island court, a leopard at her feet and a wine-cup in her hand — the Homeric hostess who turns sailors to swine before they know the danger. The painting isolates the enchantress as a late-Victorian femme fatale, calm and absolute in her power. Oil on canvas, Ger Eenens Collection, the Netherlands.
Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape
Dosso Dossi, c. 1525
In this Ferrarese Renaissance allegory, Circe sits in a wooded clearing with tablet and wand while men already half-changed into beasts gather around her — the Odyssey's Aeaean transformation staged as a pastoral court of desire and ruin. Dosso's soft light and dense foliage make the island feel both Eden and trap. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington (Samuel H. Kress Collection).
On screen
The Odyssey
Andrei Konchalovsky
Konchalovsky's Circe holds Odysseus a year on Aeaea — the witch who turns sailors to swine and then points the way to the underworld.
Ulysses
Mario Camerini
Camerini's peplum keeps Circe among Odysseus' island trials — the cup, the swine, and the hero who stays too long.
In play
Circe
Madeline Miller
Miller's bestseller retells the Odyssey from the witch's island: exile, herbs, and a goddess who learns to choose her own story.
Hades II
Supergiant Games
Supergiant places Circe on the surface path as a witch of transformation — Aeaea's craft offered to Melinoë between fights.
Absolute Wonder Woman
Kelly Thompson
Thompson's Absolute Universe series puts Circe in Diana's orbit again — the sorceress as ally, threat and mythic mirror.