Several themes and scenes from book nine are paralleled in book ten. The theme of hospitality that began book nine also begins book ten on Aiolia Island, domain of the wind king who takes pity on Odysseus and gives him a bag of winds, perhaps an appropriate gift for the tactician.
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Circe’s Torment
I regret bitterlyThe years of loving you in bothYour presence and absence, regretThe law, the vocationThat forbid me to keep you, the seaA sheet of glass, the sun-bleachedBeauty of the Greek ships: howCould I have power ifI had no wishTo transform you: asYou loved my body,As you found therePassion we held aboveAll other gifts, in [...]
Circe’s Power
I never turned anyone into a pig.Some people are pigs; I make themLook like pigs. I’m sick of your worldThat lets the outside disguise the inside. Your men weren’t bad men;Undisciplined lifeDid that to them. As pigs, Under the care ofMe and my ladies, theySweetened right up. Then I reversed the spell, showing you my [...]
Circe’s Grief
In the end, I made myselfKnown to your wife asA god would, in her own house, inIthaca, a voiceWithout a body: shePaused in her weaving, her head turningFirst to the right, then leftThough it was hopeless of courseTo trace that sound to anyObjective source: I doubtShe will return to her loomWith what she knows now. [...]