The Witch
His ship docked on my isle of solitude;
His men came first, like beasts onto my land.
My magic raged as they drew closer,
Trespassers on this immortal soil.
They drank my poisons under the guise of
Safety, falling to my feet as creatures,
For they could not recognize a goddess.
Complicated man, come towards me now,
Drink from my goblet, same as your men. For
I have brewed immortality, my love.
Look not through the mirror, your pigs below,
I am here before you, this throne to be
Yours, if you stay with me, Odysseus.
Master of thieves, must my secret be told?
I worshipped his tongue, so careful, his wit
matched only by aegis-bearing Zeus.
Yet he will sail away, his men returned.
My last gift, stolen on this godless land.
Explanation:
I wrote this poem about John William Waterhouse’s painting “Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses,” which represents the sorceress, Circe, offering the Greek Hero, Odysseus (also known as Ulysses), a goblet of immortality. I attempted to write this in iambic pentameter, but having never done so before, I definitely did not do the best at it. I skipped some lines (making them 9 or 11 syllables) because I could not figure out how to make them work! I chose to write about this painting as if the narrator were Circe herself, and the present tense was this captured image – the past and future tenses being written based on what I know about the story itself. I tried to reference what is being depicted in the painting while not making it obvious that this was entirely about a painting, if that makes sense. I did use some words deliberately – I used “Master of Thieves” instead of “Hermes” because I wanted to emphasize not only that he was a god, but also that he was taking something away from Circe (her chance to make Odysseus stay with her forever). The middle stanza was intended to be what Circe was thinking about the situation, as she did not yet know that Hermes warned Odysseus not to drink from the goblet.
I also used “complicated man,” which was a direct reference to Emily Wilson; In her famous translation of Homer’s Odyssey, she wrote out the first line of Book 1 as: “Tell me about a complicated man.” This sparked some controversy, as the more literal translation is along the lines of “Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices,” and critics thought that using “complicated” downplayed the significant nature of Odysseus’ journey. I honestly just decided to include that in my poem because that is the version of the Odyssey that I have read, and I felt as if that would connect myself, the writer, to readers who have also read Emily Wilson’s translation and know of this debate.
I did not use generative AI to create this poem.