Circe in the arts famous name indicates a whore and any who loves such a one loses his reason'. His English imitator Geoffrey Whitney used a variation of Alciato's illustration in his own "Choice of Emblemes" (1586) but gave it the new title of "Homines voluptatibus transformantur", men are transformed by their passions. This explains her appearance in the Nighttown section named after her in James Joyce's novel "Ulysses". Written in the form of a stage script, it makes of Circe the brothel madam, Bella Cohen. Bloom, the book's protagonist, fantasizes that she turns into a cruel man-tamer named Mr Bello who makes him
Leopold Bloom and threatened because of his being perceived as a Jew. Richard Ellmann, Joyce's biographer, described Bloom as "a nobody", who "has virtually no effect upon the life around him". In this Ellmann found nobility: "The divine part of Bloom is simply his humanity - his assumption of a bond between himself and other created being." Joyce told Sylvia Beach that Holbrook Jackson resembled Bloom. Writer-director Mel Brooks used the name "Leo Bloom" for the mousy accountant in his film/musical "The Producers". Leo is a nervous accountant, prone to panic attacks, who keeps a security blanket to calm himself. Nevertheless, it