Metamorphoses

Through his stories of Circe, as in the case of Medea, Ovid associates witches with atrocious deeds. Like Medea’s, Circe’s magic is powerful. For example, she can transform people into animals, which is a power elsewhere associated with the gods. In fact, only with the aid of a god can Ulysses thwart Circe’s magic. After Circe turns all of Ulysses’ men into pigs, Ovid writes that Ulysses “had been given by Mercury, who brings / the boon of peace, a flower which the gods / call moly, a white bloom with root of black. / Secure with this and heaven’s guiding grace, / he entered Circe’s halls” (334). Only the flower moly and the guidance of Olympus via Mercury will prevent Ulysses from suffering the same fate as his men.

Circe also shows her magical power of transformation when she turns Ulysses’ men back into human form. Like Medea, Circe does not always use her magic for good. When King Picus rejects her in favor of his beloved Canens, Circe rages: [N]ever again / shall Canens have you home. Now you shall know / what one who’s wronged, who loves, who’s woman too— / and I that loving woman wronged—can do!” Ovid continues: “Then eastward twice and westward twice she turns, / thrice sang a spell, thrice touched him with her wand” (336-37). In her anger, Circe turns Picus into a bird so that he can never return to Canens or his people, nor even tell them what happened. As opposed to Ovid’s Medea, who often does her evil deeds with no provocation, Circe behaves here more like a typical scorned goddess taking her anger out on a mortal.

The apotheosis of Aeneas sets up Ovid’s shift in focus on Rome. After Aeneas becomes a god, Ovid begins a catalog of kings who rule after him, beginning with Aeneas’ son Ascanius and concluding with King Proca, who “ruled the people of the Palatine” (344), one of the major hills in the area to become Rome. Catalogs in ancient literature are frequently used as transitions, and here Ovid uses his to transition from Aeneas’ rule in Latium to the area of Rome specifically, leading him closer to his own present time and location. This continues through the rest of Book 14, which concludes with the life of Romulus, founder of Rome who was later deified and worshipped by the Roman people.