Odyssey 10.233 · Book 10, lines 233–236
The drugged cup
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εἷσεν δʼ εἰσαγαγοῦσα κατὰ κλισμούς τε θρόνους τε, ἐν δέ σφιν τυρόν τε καὶ ἄλφιτα καὶ μέλι χλωρὸν οἴνῳ Πραμνείῳ ἐκύκα· ἀνέμισγε δὲ σίτῳ φάρμακα λύγρʼ, ἵνα πάγχυ λαθοίατο πατρίδος αἴης.
And she led them in and seated them on chairs and thrones, and for them she stirred cheese and barley-meal and pale honey in Pramnian wine; but she mixed into the food baneful drugs, so that utterly they might forget their native land.
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The setting
Inside the house, Circe plays the perfect hostess — and turns the guest-meal into her weapon.
A note on this passage
Everything begins as proper hospitality: she brings the men in, seats them on good chairs, and mixes them a rich posset — cheese, barley, pale honey in strong Pramnian wine. Then the line turns: into the food she stirs baneful drugs.
The drug's aim is not death but forgetting — that they lose all memory of their native land. Circe strikes at νόστος, the homecoming that is the whole poem's prize, by attacking the memory of home itself. The guest-meal, the very rite of welcome, is turned into the instrument of harm.
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