She therefore led Ulysses out of
the back entrance of the palace, and showed him the swine in their sty.
There were about fifty of these unclean beasts in the whole herd; and
though the greater part were hogs by birth and education, there was
wonderfully little difference to be seen betwixt them and their new
brethren who had so recently worn the human shape. To speak critically,
indeed, the latter rather carried the thing to excess, and seemed to make
it a point to wallow in the miriest part of the sty, and otherwise to
outdo the original swine in their own natural vocation. When men once turn
to brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold to
their brutality.

The comrades of Ulysses, however, had not quite lost the remembrance of
having formerly stood erect. When he approached the sty, two and twenty
enormous swine separated themselves from the herd, and scampered towards
him, with such a chorus of horrible squealing as made him clap both hands
to his ears. And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor
whether they were merely hungry or miserable from some other cause. It was
curious, in the midst of their distress, to observe them thrusting their
noses into the mire, in quest of something to eat. The nymph with the
bodice of oaken bark (she was the hamadryad of an oak) threw a handful of
acorns among them; and the two and twenty hogs scrambled and fought for
the prize, as if they had tasted not so much as a noggin of sour milk for
a twelvemonth.

"These must certainly be my comrades," said Ulysses. "I recognize their
dispositions. They are hardly worth the trouble of changing them into the
human form again. Nevertheless, we will have it done, lest their bad
example should corrupt the other hogs. Let them take their original
shapes, therefore, Dame Circe, if your skill is equal to the task. It will
require greater magic, I trow, than it did to make swine of them."

So Circe waved her wand again, and repeated a few magic words, at the
sound of which the two and twenty hogs pricked up their pendulous ears. It
was a wonder to behold how their snouts grew shorter and shorter, and
their mouths (which they seemed to be sorry for, because they could not
gobble so expeditiously) smaller and smaller, and how one and another
began to stand upon his hind legs, and scratch his nose with his fore
trotters. At first the spectators hardly knew whether to call them hogs or
men, but by and by came to