Circe

by Madeline Miller

They would tell him of his love’s transformation, crack his face like an egg and laugh at what ran out.

But Scylla was no Zeus, and I was no Prometheus.

Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung. Even after all that, it can fail, as gods do not.

He asked only for curiosity’s sake, because it was his nature to seek out answers, to press others for their weaknesses.

You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.

“We bear it as best we can,” I said.

But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

I had no altar, but I did not need one: anywhere I was became my temple.

It was not desire, not even its barest scrapings. It was a sort of rage, a knife I used upon myself. I did it to prove my skin was still my own. And did I like the answer I found?