[213] κατέθελξεν, ‘charmed.’ The Scholia offer two interpretations of this word: either “πρᾴους καὶ ἡμέρους ἐποιήσε”, or “ἐξ ἀνθρώπων εἰς φύσιν λεόντων μετέβαλε”. The former interpretation has the authority of Scaliger, on Virg. Aen.7. 19, where he remarks, ‘Homerus feras agrestes medicaminibus cicuratas, Virgilius homines in ferarum speciem conversos depingit.’ And it might further be said that the words οὐδ᾽ οἵ γ᾽ ὡρμήθησαν especially direct attention to the loss of their natural fierceness. On the other hand, “θέλγειν” is certainly used, inf. 291, to describe that process of sorcery which ends with Circe's words “ἔρχεο νῦν συφεόνδε” (320). Eurylochus too (433) evidently looked upon the wolves and the lions quite as much as the creations of Circe's witcheries as the swine, for he says “ἥ κεν ἅπαντας”
“ἢ σῦς ἠὲ λύκους ποιήσεται ἠὲ λέοντας”. The epithet κακά as applied to φάρμακα here, contrasted with “φάρμακον ἐσθλόν” as the antidote (292), tends to strengthen our preference for the latter interpretation. Ovid, Ov. Met.14. 255, lays more stress again on the tameness of the creatures, ‘Mille lupi mistaeque lupis ursaeque leaequeoccursu fecere metum, sed nulla timenda,
nullaque erat nostro factura in corpore vulnus.’
