Ulysses visits Circe’s island, where his crew are turned into swine. When she tries to do the same with him, he refuses. They marry and spend a year together.
Waterhouse
Scylla accosted by the grotesque sea-god Glaucus. When she runs away from him, he seeks the help of Circe, only for her to turn Scylla into a pack of hounds, then into a hazard to navigation.
Although of ancient origin, it took 7 centuries for Europeans to use them to cover the floor. They can be exotic in chinoiserie, luxuriant, worn and threadbare, or vibrant.
The deaths of Demosthenes and Themistocles, Cleopatra’s experimental toxicology, and Tristan and Isolde – was it poison or a love potion?
The young Theseus is almost poisoned by Medea, Medea creates a poison potion for Jason to gain the Golden Fleece, the death of Socrates, and of Phocion.
The bard is torn limb from limb by frenzied bacchantes, leaving his head and lyre to float down the River Hebrus and over to the shores of Lesbos.
The lover of Venus is gored in the groin by a wild boar, and dies in pools of blood to be transformed into red anemone flowers.
Significant paintings based on The Sleeping Beauty, Mariana and Mariana in the South, and Break, Break, Break.
A member of many of the royal courts of Europe, and featured in several of the plays of William Shakespeare, a jester and entertainer.
Human in their upper body, and fish from the waist down, these aren’t sirens at all, but have their own mythology in many traditions.
