Odyssey 10.320 · Book 10, line 320
Go to the sty
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Circe — ἔρχεο νῦν συφεόνδε, μετʼ ἄλλων λέξο ἑταίρων.
Go now to the sty, and lie down there with the rest of your companions.
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The setting
Circe's command — the words that completed the spell on the others. She expects Odysseus to shuffle off to the pens with the swine his crew have become.
A note on this passage
One line of command, brisk and contemptuous. To Circe this is the last word of a spell that has never failed: the drug, the wand's tap, and now the order that herds the changed man into the pens. She speaks as if the transformation is already done.
The undercurrent is the gap between her sentence and reality. She says ‘lie down with your companions’ — meaning the swine — not knowing this guest did not change, that the herb held, that the man she is dismissing to the sty has a sword and the god's instructions. The cruelty of the line is aimed at a victory she does not have.
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