Circe

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Circe is mentioned in the account Ulysses gives of himself in Canto XXVI of the Inferno: in response to Virgil's question, the Greek hero recalls his own experience and declares that he departed from Circe, who «sottrasse» him, that is, detained him at the island of Circeo with her seductions for about a year. The departure from the sorceress marks the beginning of the voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules narrated in the same canto. Circe reappears in a simile in Canto XIV of the Purgatorio, where the Sienese «par che Circe li avesse in pastura», to indicate their degraded, almost bestial nature. Dante, who did not know the Odyssey directly, drew the Ovidian episode of Ulysses's stay with Circe from the Metamorphoses.