Odysseus Threatens Circe

The scene comes from the tenth book of Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus and his crew have landed on the island of the sorceress Circe, who has turned half his men into pigs. Warned by the god Hermes and protected by a magic herb called moly, Odysseus draws his weapon and forces her to undo the spell. Jordaens painted it around 1630, and he treats the Greek myth the way he treated his Flemish feasts: as a crowded, fleshy, close-up event rather than a cool classical scene. The armoured hero bears down on Circe with her wand and her cup, while the bewitched sailors still snuffle about as pigs, waiting to be turned back.