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Notes on video lecture:
Odysseus and Circe
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on October 2, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
shades, search, intelligence, dead, potion, Laestrygonians, roof, pigs, Elpenor, revulsion, impervious, unknown, curiosity, sword, strange, unman, magical, bag, prohibited, winds, Tiresias, marry, erotic, edible, year
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Aeolus [Αἴολος]
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foreign kind who has control of all the           
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has all the winds stuffed into a single       
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his sons and daughters            one another
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even in Greek mythology, brother and sister marriages count as                     
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so Aeolus is being represented even by Homer as a bit                and exotic
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again, the                    of Odysseus' men leads to a problem
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they can't wait to see what's in that bag
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meet the                              who are a tribe of giant cannibals from ancient Greek mythology
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the                    of this carries forward through the episodes
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Circe
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another a wash-up on an                shore
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             party goes out
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Odysseus stays behind
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hears of problems
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then he goes out to set things right
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in Circe's village
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things are quite profoundly wrong there
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Odysseus' men get turned into         
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humanity is taken away from them
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but not just turned into animals but animals which humans consume as food
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so men have become              creatures of food chain
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adds to the horrific natures of this shape-shifting
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men wonder how women can turn men into pigs
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perhaps this was a fear that men had at some point
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Circe is not the first female character we have seen who has a witching power
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in this case Circe has the power to literally            men
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             dimension of Circe
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after Odysseus wins her over she carries over with an erotic relationship with Odysseus which lasts over a         
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theme: dangerous women who have                powers who can do shape-shifting with men and who have an erotic draw on male creatures
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a standard piece of ancient myth
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Odysseus' way of overcoming Circe
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he pulls his sword on her
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he also has a special magical              which he gets from Hermes
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this gives him a power to resist her magic
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she mixes up her herbs, gives the drink to other men, they turn into pigs, but not Odysseus is                      because of his counter magic
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he rushes at her with his           
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she falls for him
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Circe wanted all along for Odysseus to love her
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has a long tryst with Odysseus which lasts a year
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Odysseus' men have to talk him out of this one
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his men finally get him ready to go
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Circe gives him clues for how to find his way home
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she says he will need to find the smartest man around,                  [Τειρεσίας]
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but he just happens to be         
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so Odysseus will have to make his way to the underworld
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Circe shows him how to do this, lay out a trench and an attractive bait for the              to come out of the underworld, so he can interview them and find his way to Tiresias
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loose end that doesn't get tied up
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               [Ἐλπήνωρ]
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not especially notable for his                          or strength
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became drunk and climbed onto the          of Circe's palace to sleep
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falls off the roof and dies
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completely alone
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the other men don't realize that he is dead
Myth, History, and Virgil
The Aeneid as Roman National Identity Narrative
The Journey of Aeneas
On Reading Vergil
Aeneid: The Odyssey with a Virgilian Twist
Aeneas, Laocoon, and the Trojan Horse
Disguised Odysseus Meets Eumaeus
Telemachus and Theoclymenus
Odysseus and Circe