Character
Circe
Goddess and enchantress of Aeaea · daughter of the Sun
A goddess and enchantress living on the island of Aeaea, and a daughter of the Sun. She turns Odysseus's scouting party into pigs with a drugged meal and a touch of her wand; he walks in immune, thanks to a herb from Hermes, and she becomes his host and his lover for a year. When he finally leaves, it is her sailing directions — the Sirens, Scylla, the cattle he must not touch — that keep him alive.
She is the only figure in the poem who is both an obstacle and a navigator: the sailing directions she gives afterwards are what keep him alive.