Odyssey 9.31 · Book 9, lines 31–33
Circe too could not hold him
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ὣς δʼ αὔτως Κίρκη κατερήτυεν ἐν μεγάροισιν Αἰαίη δολόεσσα, λιλαιομένη πόσιν εἶναι· ἀλλʼ ἐμὸν οὔ ποτε θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθον.
So likewise Circe kept detaining me in her halls, the guileful Aeaean, longing for me to be her husband; but never did they persuade my heart within my breast.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus, at the Phaeacian court, has just said Calypso could not keep him from home. Now he adds Circe, the enchantress of Aeaea, who likewise wanted him as her husband — and could no more win his heart than Calypso could.
A note on this passage
Odysseus closes the frame of his refusals. Just as Calypso held him, so too Circe kept him on her island, wanting him for a husband; and neither goddess ever talked his heart over.
The undercurrent is the size of what he turns down. These are goddesses offering a husband's place and, with it, an escape from death. He answers with the phrase for the seat of the self — the heart within the breast — and it does not move. The refusal of immortality is not stated as a boast; it is stated as a fact about where his heart already lives.
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