h
he had slain Aeetes' son; nor did they raise their eyes to meet her
look. And straightway Circe became aware of the doom of a suppliant and
the guilt of murder. Wherefore in reverence for the ordinance of Zeus,
the god of suppliants, who is a god of wrath yet mightily aids slayers
of men, she began to offer the sacrifice with which ruthless suppliants
are cleansed from guilt when they approach the altar. First to atone for
the murder still unexpiated, she held above their heads the young of a
sow whose dugs yet swelled from the fruit of the womb, and, severing its
neck, sprinkled their hands with the blood; and again she made
propitiation with other drink offerings, calling on Zeus the Cleanser,
the protector of murder-stained suppliants. And all the defilements in a
mass her attendants bore forth from the palace--the Naiad nymphs who
ministered all things to her. And within, Circe, standing by the hearth,
kept burning atonement-cakes without wine, praying the while that she
might stay from their wrath the terrible Furies, and that Zeus himself
might be propitious and gentle to them both, whether with hands stained
by the blood of a stranger or, as kinsfolk, by the blood of a kinsman,
they should implore his grace.

But when she had wrought all her task, then she raised them up and
seated them on well polished seats, and herself sat near, face to face
with them. And at once she asked them clearly of their business and
their voyaging, and whence they had come to her land and palace, and had
thus seated themselves as suppliants at her hearth. For in truth the
hideous remembrance of her dreams entered her mind as she pondered; and
she longed to hear the voice of the maiden, her kinswoman, as soon as
she saw that she had raised her eyes from the ground. For all those of
the race of Helios were plain to discern, since by the far flashing of
their eyes they shot in front of them a gleam as of gold. So Medea told
her all she asked--the daughter of Aeetes of the gloomy heart, speaking
gently in the Colchian tongue, both of the quest and the journeyings of
the heroes, and of their toils in the swift contests, and how she had
sinned through the counsels of her much-sorrowing sister, and how with
the sons of Phrixus she had fled afar from the tyrannous horrors of her
father; but she shrank from telling of the murder of Apsyrtus. Yet she
escaped not Circe's ken; nevertheless, in spite of all she pitied the
weeping maiden, and spa