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Chapter 22
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Circe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Fear, and Self-Preservation
Women, Power, and Misogyny
Change, Initiative, and the Self
Mortality, Fragility, and Fulfillment
Family and Individuality
Summary
Analysis
That afternoon, Penelope offers to teach Telegonus to swim, an opportunity that thrills him. When Telemachus and Circe are alone, he approaches her, telling her he wants to be useful. He provides a list of potential tasks, which amuses Circe. They begin trimming the sheep together, and soon they are laughing and conversing easily.
Telemachus is very down-to-earth—he goes out of his way to find small manual tasks to do, simply because it feels rewarding to him. His actions suggest that he is very different from his restless and power-hungry father, from whom he hopes to distance himself, since he feels so guilty for the violence that Odysseus caused. But he also enjoys the labor that mortals do, implying that hard work and problem-solving are perhaps more rewarding than sheer power.
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After dinner, Telemachus amuses Telegonus by telling him tales of various heros. Circe admires Telemachus’s face and the serious way he tells stories. Suddenly she interrupts to ask whether Telemachus knows anything of Pasiphaë, to which he responds that the Minotaur’s mother is always in Theseus’s story. Circe then mentions that she was present at the birth of the Minotaur, a revelation that shocks Telegonus. He wonders aloud why she never told him more, to which she replies that he never asked.
While Telegonus was always been interested in learning about Odysseus, he never asked Circe about her past. She is a familiar figure to him, and he never realized that she could have her own stories. This could be due to how women are rarely ever the stars in the ancient Greek myths that Telegonus knows, which suggests that he may have internalized ancient Greece’s sexism. Even the fact that the Minotaur is framed as Theseus’s story, with Pasiphaë—the maker of the Minotaur—only featuring in it as the beast’s mother, points to how women often get reduced in the telling of stories. They appear less important and less powerful than they really were.
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Telegonus pushes her to tell more of her past, asking whether she knows anything of the other monsters, including Scylla. At the name of the nymph, Circe chills, sickened by her past. She abruptly leaves the table, leaving the two men confused.
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The following day, Penelope sits at Circe’s loom to continue weaving. After a moment’s hesitation, Circe brings her herbs to the hall to speak with Penelope while working on her craft. They speak pleasantly of their children until Penelope asks to watch Circe work. When Circe mentions that her mortal niece was a witch, Penelope asks whether she is speaking of Medea.
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Circe requests that Penelope tell what she knows of Medea, and Penelope obliges. She tells Circe how Jason, scared of his wife’s magic, abandoned Medea and their two children for another woman. Medea sent the new bride poisoned gifts that burned the woman alive. To ensure that Jason would never have their children, Medea killed both children, too, before fleeing to Colchis. Circe thinks of how Medea was unable to escape the evil that Aeëtes had bred around her. Penelope asks how a mortal becomes a witch, to which Circe responds that she has “come to believe it is mostly will.”
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The days pass, and the two families grow closer. Penelope and Circe continue to work and converse together, and each afternoon Circe and Telemachus work on a household chore. Even Telegonus’s mood improves, especially after Circe tells him of Odysseus’s violent rage. The only tension that remains is between Telemachus and Penelope, who still do not speak.
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Literary Devices
Circe is increasingly charmed by Telemachus’s steadiness, patience, and quiet dignity. One day while working side by side, she asks whether he would want to return to Ithaca and become king. She encouragingly tells him that he would make an excellent ruler, but he declines, saying that Ithaca is too haunted with bad memories of his father.
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At this, Circe wonders aloud whether it is hard for him to spend so much time with Telegonus, when he so closely resembles Odysseus. Telemachus laughs, telling her that Telegonus is blessed to look like her. Their gazes meet, and Circe finds that her mouth waters. She enjoys the slow, comforting feeling that she gets around Telemachus, but she knows that she cannot be with him—not only has she already had sex with his father, but Athena has claimed him.
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One day, breakfast is interrupted by a knock at the door. Everyone is startled—the protections prevent most gods from stepping foot on the island. Circe opens the door to find Hermes. He tells Telemachus that Athena has requested to speak with him, and he orders Circe to remove her spells. Circe rejects the command, until Hermes communicates that Athena has sworn not to harm Telegonus. Hearing this, Circe relents, but she tells Hermes that Athena will have to wait until Circe is able to lift the spell, which she tells Hermes will take three days. Hermes leaves, and Penelope turns to her son and asks him to walk with her.
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