Odyssey 10.135 · Book 10, lines 135–139

Arrival and introduction. They make the Aeaean island, and Homer stops the action to present Circe by name and pedigree: a goddess, full sister of Aeetes — the Colchian king who guards the Golden Fleece — and a daughter of the Sun by the Ocean-nymph Perse. It is a formal entrance, the way an epic labels a new power.

The warning is folded into the description. δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα — "a dread goddess who speaks with human voice" — marks αὐδήεσσα as the trait of the dangerous women of the sea-tale: goddesses who can talk with a man, like Calypso, and lure him. The lineage says the same twice over: child of the all-seeing Sun, sister of one whose very name means "baleful-minded." She is light and sorcery at once, and the nod to Aeetes ties this island quietly to the other great voyage, the Argo's.

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