This work also goes by the name Circe Invidiosa. This painting is based on a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the story a merman, Glaucus, falls in love with the daughter of a nymph, Scylla. Scylla, disturbed by Glaucus' strong advances, runs from the water. Lovesick, Glaucus runs to Circe knowing that she has special love potions and herbs. Ovid tells us that Circe had "more than ladylike desires," (Ovid 383) and invited Glaucus to take her to bed. Glaucus, still in love with Scylla, refused. Circe took her anger out upon poor Scylla by pouring the worst kind of potion into her bathing pool. When Scylla came to bathe, her lower body turned into a pack of ferocious dogs.
