Metamorphoses

Circe gives Glaucus magical herbs, poisoning Scylla’s favorite bay. Ovid writes, “Scylla came / and waded in waist-deep, when round her loins / she saw foul monstrous barking beasts” (326). The herbs had turned her lower half to dogs. Glaucus is angry at Circe for being so drastic, while Scylla takes her own anger out on anyone who passes her, including Ulysses.

The Trojan fleet sails on, meeting Queen Dido when they stop in Libya and later meeting the prophetic Cumaean Sibyl in Italy. The Sibyl tells Aeneas how Apollo once desired her and granted her a wish. She asked to live for as many birthdays as dust. However, she says, “it slipped my mind to ask those years should be / for ever young” (329). This causes her to live many centuries in old age. Later, Aeneas runs across two former companions of Ulysses: Achaemenides and Macareus.

Macareus warns Aeneas about Circe. When Ulysses’ crew landed at Circe’s island, she turned them all into pigs. One of Circe’s acolytes also told Macareus what Circe did to the king Picus.