What is the difference between a nymph and a sorceress

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Ianthe - an ocean nymph. Ilithya - goddess of childbirth and midwifery. Io - a princess who Zeus loved and changed into a cow so that his jealous wife, Hera could not find her. Ione - a sea nymph. Irene - personification of peace.

Iris - goddess of the rainbow. Ismene - daughter of legendary Oedipus and Jocasta. Kalliope - one of the nine Muses, the goddess of epic poetry and eloquence. Kallisto - a nymph. Zeus was in love with Kallisto so his jealous wife Hera turned her into a bear.

Kallisto became the Great Bear constellation. Kleio - One of the nine Muses, goddess of history and heroic poetry. Kore - an epithet of the goddess Persephone. Lachesis - one of the three Fates, Lachesis decides how long people live.

Larisa - a nymph. Ligeia - a siren. Lyssa - the goddess associated with uncontrollable rage. Maia - One of the seven stars in the constellation Taurus. Medea - a sorceress from Colchis who helped Jason obtain the Golden Fleece. Megaera - One of the furies. Melaina - a nymph. Melia - a nymph. Mneme - the Muse of memory. Nike - goddess of victory. Nyx - goddess of the night. Ourania - one of the nine Muses. Goddess of astronomy and astrology.

She opened the forbidden box that Zeus gave her, letting all evil into the world, but also hope. Parthenope - one of the sirens who enticed Odysseus. Goddess of dance and sacred songs. When she is in the underworld, it is wintertime on Earth. Penelope - wife of Odysseus. Phaenna - one of the three Graces. Psyche - a maiden loved by Eros. When she married him, he appeared as a snake by day and a man at night, but she could not see him as a man because of the dark.

It is interesting in this case to see how Vergil uses a similar procedure for the Cyclops-episode in book III25 : when Aeneas and his friends reach Sicily they meet Achaemenides, a figure invented by Vergil He was a companion of Odysseus, left behind in Polyphemus' cave.

He tells the Trojans how the cyclops ate two of his friends and how Odysseus made him drunk and pierced his eye. Just after he finishes his story, Polyphemus appears with his sheep, blind and. The Trojans flee, taking Achaemenides with them Aen. In both the Cyclops and the Circe passage, Vergil omits or avoids a confrontation between the hero and the mythological creature; he only describes it as seen through the eyes of his hero.

Aeneas only sees or hears it, and can escape its dangerous power, while Odysseus was really confronted with it His final destination is Latium, Vergil has located the Underworld in Cumae, and Circe's island is somewhere in between cf. The geographical position of these places makes it rather difficult to give Circe again this guiding function, unless Vergil were to let Aeneas sail up to the North, before being sent back on his steps by the sorceress.

This would be an unnecessary detour, especially since there was another figure Vergil could easily use for this role : the legendary Sibyl at Cumae, who had much closer connections with Rome than the sorceress Circe, and who got thereby a place in the foundation legend of Rome When we compare Vergil's version of the Aeneas-legend with that of other contemporary writers, it becomes all the more clear that the introduction of the Sibyl was a deliberate choice of Vergil.

Livy for example writes ab Sicilia classe ad Laurentum agrum tenuisse 1,1,4 , without mentioning a visit of Aeneas to the Sibyl in Cumae. Circe couldn't fulfil this function anymore in the Aeneid, since her island was the last place the hero met during the Odyssean part of his adventure. This is again a consequence of the location of her dwelling-place cf. We come thus to the conclusion that the three functions Circe had in Homer's Odyssey are all taken over by other figures in Vergil's Aeneid.

The more historical character of the Roman poem especially explains, I think, why Aeneas passes Circe's island instead of visiting it. Worth remembering in this context is that Vergil tells us immediately in line 10 that Aeneas and his companions sail by her island. This conclusion raises the question why Vergil after all decided to spend 15 lines on a description of Circe, her island and her animals if she had no further role in his poem , and why here at the end of the Trojans' trip.

The answer to this last question is, I think, quite simple. If Vergil wanted to introduce a description of Circe's island, it had to be a part of the Odyssean half of the Aeneid. The exact location of Circe's dwelling-place in the Odyssey is much disputed29, but in post-Homeric tradition the sorceress became more and more associated with the West Coast of Italy A promontory, somewhat South of the mouth of the Tiber, was supposed to be her «island».

By the time Cicero wrote his De Natura Deorum, the inhabitants of this place even worshipped Circe as a goddess Since Vergil preferred to maintain this geographical position, he had to introduce the description of Circe's home in that part of the voyage in which the Trojans pass the West Coast of Italy.

As a result Circe's island became the last place Aeneas met before arriving in Latium, the place where he leaves the Odyssean world behind and enters the Iliad part of his task. Finally, it remains to be asked what effect Vergil wanted to reach with this little intermezzo in a poem about the legendary-historic foundation of Rome, put in a Homeric setting. The listener is first aware of the handsome articulation of the description.

But more important is that he wants to call attention to the difference in character between Homer's Odyssey and his Aeneid. Right before our passage Aeneas has visited the underworld; this interlude, so magically entered and mysteriously left, was strange enough for our «historic» hero. The next major step of his adventure will be Latium, the place where his «Italian history» is about to begin.

By passing the Homeric-flavoured Circe-island without visiting it, Aeneas gets a last view of his past, a past he leaves behind forever He is not a second Odysseus who visits the magic island of the sorceress; he can only hear her and her wild animals at a distance. He's now the Roman Aeneas who will have to fight for a new home in Italy. In this way the passing becomes a last farewell to his mythological wanderings and creates the distance between the Homeric setting and the historic hero Vergil needed at this point in his epic.

Ipse Quirinali lituo parvaque sedebat succinctus trabea laevaque ancile gerebat Picus, equum domitor, quern capta cupidine coniunx 1 90 aurea percussion virga versumque venenis fecit avem Circe sparsitque coloribus alas. When Aeneas understands that he has reached his final destination, he sends an embassy to king Latinus. Aeneas' companions are welcomed by the king in his palace. His palace is, as Vergil describes it, decorated with wooden images of gods and heroes, war trophies and a statue of Picus, Latinus' grandfather, whom Circe had changed into a wood-pecker.

The reference to this metamorphosis is introduced rather unexpectedly. Moreover, Vergil only refers to the story, without really taking or using the opportunity to elaborate on it in greater detail33 : after only three lines, he turns his camera to Latinus, who welcomes the Teucri.

The description of the palace is over and the narrative goes on. For Aeneas and his companions the Odyssean part of the trip is over, they now find themselves in an Italian environment. This change in scenery also effects our Circe-figure : she is still a sorceress, changing people into animals, but the specific metamorphosis mentioned in these lines has no Homeric precedent. The Homeric sorceress of the previous passage is now involved in an old Italian story In his commentary on these lines Servius gives us the basic outlines of the Picus story35 : Fabula autem talis est Unfortunately Servius does not mention any specific source Vergil might have used for.

Various solutions are possible :. At this point, maybe some lost works of the first century B. Indeed, Nonius Marcellus, a grammarian of the fourth century A. Aemilius Macer in Ornithogoniae Theogoniae codd. Bentinus lib. Furthermore, both Nonius Marcellus and Servius seem to know that also Varro wrote about the Picus Martius in one of his works :. Varro de vita populi Romani lib III :. Of course, these few testimonies do not tell us whether or not Aemilius Macer or Varro mentioned Picus' metamorphosis by Circe, but at least they show that some recent literature about the Picus-legend was available by the time Vergil wrote his Aeneid.

Therefore it seems reasonable to me to assume that at least one of these contemporary. The fragmentary character in which these works are preserved makes it impossible for us to figure out how Vergil used his sources and why he used them in this specific way. The only thing we can say is that he refers only very briefly to a story that was perhaps told in greater detail by some earlier poet.

This fragmentary character makes it hard even to evaluate the originality of Circe's intervention in the metamorphosis of Picus. None of the fragments mentions her in connection with Picus, but this does not necessarily mean that her intervention was invented by Vergil.

For our over-all interpretation of Vergil's Circe-figure, two elements are important to keep in mind about her appearance here in Aen. First of all, the Homeric sorceress, whose island the Trojans passed in the beginning of book VII, is now the main actress in an Italian legend.

She is still responsible for a transformation of a human being into an animal, but this time the person involved is Picus, a legendary king of Italy. This is an important step in the development of Vergil's Circe : although she never leaves her Homeric predecessor behind, she gradually becomes a more Vergilian and a more Italian Circe. Secondly, she plays again a role which is not necessary to the narrative of the Aeneid.

This was already the case in the previous passage about the passing of her island, and we will find it again in Aen. Here again, as in the previous passage, Vergil refers suddenly to an act for which the sorceress Circe is responsible, though she was not involved in that kind of activity in Homer's Odyssey.

If Homer was not Vergil's inspiration for this particular passage, which source then did he use if indeed he used one? In this case, Servius' commentary on these lines gives us some very important information : patri quos daedala Circe : et hocfingit eamfecisse, tractwn autem est de Hornero, qui tales.

Servius mentions two facts that are related to our problem :. In the midst of the battle, Sthenelos advises Diomedes to flee for Aeneas; in his answer Diomedes talks about Aeneas' horses and says :. We can even point out some verbal parallels39 :. The different context though makes the allusion rather unusual, for there is no further similarity between the battle scene in the Iliad and the visit of the Trojan embassy to Latinus.

The only parallel between the two passages which can perhaps explain why Vergil borrows this story of Homer and inserts it in a totally different context is that Latinus gives two of his divine horses to Aeneas, like Anchises gave two of the six «mixed» horses to his son. If we assume that Vergil chose to give a special character to the horses which Latinus offers to Aeneas, it is easy to imagine that he looked for a useful precedent in the Iliad or the Odyssey.