II. We are now to witness the dealings of Ulysses with Circe; he is to subordinate her, making her into a means, not an end; she will recognize him and submit completely, taking an oath not to do him any harm; she will release his companions and restore them to their natural forms at his behest; she will then properly entertain the entire crew, no longer turning them into swine. The world of the appetites and the senses will be duly ordered and subjected to the rational; from an imperious enchantress Ulysses changes Circe into an instrument of life and restoration. He is the transformer of her, not she of him; for she will reduce man to a beast, unless he reduces her to reason. 1. Ulysses on his way to Circe's palace is met by a seeming youth (really a God, Mercury) who warns him and gives him a plant potent against the drugs of the enchantress. It is manifest that Ulysses has a divine call; he knows already his problem from Eurylochus, the God reiterates it and inspires him with courage. In addition he receives a plant from the divine hand, whereof the description we may ponder: "The root is black, its flower white as milk; the Gods call it _moly_, hard it is for men to dig up." Very hard indeed! And the whole account is symbolical, we think, consciously symbolical; it has an Orphic tinge, hinting of mystic rites. At any rate the hero has now the divine antidote; still he is to exert himself with all his valor; "when she shall smite thee with her staff, draw thy sword and rush upon her, as if intending to kill her." Thus he is to assert the god-like element in himself, the rational, and subject to it the sensuous. It is clear that Ulysses is beginning to master the lesson of his experience. 2. He does as the God (and his own valor) directed, and Circe cowers down subdued. She is not supreme, there is something higher and she knows it. At once she recognizes who it is: "Art thou that wily Ulysses whose coming hither from Troy in his black ship has often been foretold to me?" Such a prophecy she must have known and felt, she had mind and was aware of a power above her, which would some day put her down, after the Trojan time. In like manner Polyphemus, the man of nature, has heard of a coming conqueror, and actually named him. This one kind of subjection, however, is not enough, it must be made universal. Every kind of subordination of the sensuous, not merely in the matter of eating and drinking, is necessary. The next thing to be guarded against is carnal indulgence, which may "make me cowardly and unmanly." Hence Circe has "to swear the great oath, not to plot against me any harm." Thus in the two chief forms of human appetite, that of eating and drinking and that of sexual indulgence, she is subjected.