Ulysses by the hand, and made him sit down upon this dazzling throne. Then, clapping her hands, she summoned the chief butler.
'Bring hither,' said she, 'the goblet that is set apart for kings to drink out of. And fill it with the same delicious wine which my royal brother, King Æetes, praised so highly, when he last visited me with my fair daughter Medea. That good and amiable child! Were she now here, it would delight her to see me offering this wine to my honoured guest.'
But Ulysses, while the butler was gone for the wine, held the snow-white flower to his nose.
'Is it a wholesome wine?' he asked.
At this the four maidens tittered; whereupon the enchantress looked round at them, with an aspect of severity.
'It is the wholesomest juice that ever was squeezed out of the grape,' said she; 'for, instead of disguising a man, as other liquor is apt to do, it brings him to his true self, and shows him as he ought to be.'
The chief butler liked nothing better than to see people turned into swine, or making any kind of a beast of themselves; so he made haste to bring the royal goblet, filled with a liquid as bright as gold, and which kept sparkling upward, and throwing a sunny spray over the brim. But, delightfully as the wine looked, it was mingled with the most potent enchantments that Circe knew how to concoct. For every drop of the pure grape juice there were two drops
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