How long does Odysseus stay with the sorceress Circe?

Odysseus stays with the sorceress Circe for one year.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Circe lives on the island of Aeaea. She first drugs Odysseus’s companions and transforms them into swine, but Hermes gives Odysseus the protective herb moly. Odysseus resists her magic and compels her to restore the crew.

Afterward, Circe and Odysseus become lovers, and he and his men remain on Aeaea for a year, feasting and resting. The crew eventually urges Odysseus to resume the journey to Ithaca. Circe then tells him that he must consult the dead prophet Tiresias in the Underworld before continuing home.

A common mix-up is confusing Circe’s year with Odysseus’s much longer stay with Calypso, who keeps him on Ogygia for seven years. Circe’s island episode is one stage of his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War, not a multi-year captivity.