AN EVENING WITH APHRODITE
Invocation
Opens with Aphrodite, veiled, back to the assembly reciting :
Sappho’s hymn.
THRONED in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!
Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee
Slay me not in this distress and anguish,
Lady of beauty.
Hither come as once before thou camest,
When from afar thou heard'st my voice lamenting,
Heard'st and camest, leaving thy glorious father's Palace golden,
Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;
Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,
Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven
Down through the ether.
Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,
All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,
Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,
Why now I called thee;
What for my maddened heart I most was longing.
"Whom," thou criest, "dost wish that sweet Persuasion
Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?
Who is it wrongs thee?
"For, though now he flies, he soon shall follow,
Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them.
Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee
Even though thou wouldst not."
Come then now, dear goddess, and release me
From my anguish. All my heart's desiring
Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,
Be thou my ally.
After reciting, veil drops to Aphrodite’s feet and revealed, she turns to the assembly.
Here we go again. Baby, I can’t live without you, let me build my world around you. I got it. I get it.. From everyone, everywhere... I am eternally supplicated. Cytheria please, just this, nothing more! or Astarte I beg of you, ease my pain, or Ishtar, grant me my heart’s desire. Venus, hey Venus. Different names but always the same story. Tonight you call may call me Aphrodite
Everything you hear about me is true, more or less. I don’t deny it. But you don’t understand what it means.
I’m the product of domestic violence. Oh yes. Most people don’t know that,. Those who know my history don’t like to dwell upon the ugliness. They cherish the fairy tales. They associate my appearance on this plane of existence with the painting by Boticelli. You know, the one where I float, tiptoe and naked, on a scallop shell, showered with blossoms and serenaded by cherubs, spotless, unsoiled as though I had come from a sweet spring of pure water. But it wasn’t like that.
The earth mother Gaia has a very uneasy relationship with the sky god Uranus, It is predicted that one of their children will usurp his throne. This doesn’t prevent him from copulating and producing a large number of children. Does it ever? Uranus foolishly imagining he can avoid his fate, forces Gaia to keep their progeny prisoner in her womb. Gaia puts up with it for awhile, but eventually she snaps and gives a knife to one of their sons, the Titan Cronos. She instructions him to sever Dad’s package when he is in the midst of the act. Lovely. The amputated genitals are thrown into the sea where the bloody members roil and froth.
Voila ME. Aphrodite, foam born. I arise out of the spume, perching on the aforementioned mollusk, upon which I float to Cyprus, where I disembark, complete with nubile breasts, pubic hair , fully aware that I need to hide them from the public. Flowers bloom where I step and birds sing where I take breath. But I am not spotless, oh no. Boticelli does you a disservice by ignoring that. Blood and sea foam dry and leave stains.
My infancy, youth and pre-pubescence take place in the space of time between the collision of Uranus’ genitals with the sea and the first bits of spray that rose up from the impact. It’s not much of a childhood. I have no tender artifacts – no kindergarten report card in which it is noted that I play well with others, no hand made clay heart imprinted with lace and glazed red to be pinned to my mother’s loving breast no painstakingly assembled picture albums. On the other hand, there’s no high school yearbook with ghastly photos and puerile inscriptions.
I don’t languish long on Cyprus where the flowers are piling up in unsightly heaps and the sweet air is becoming to cloying for mortals to breathe. I am introduced immediately to Olympus: the most exclusive nightclub with the biggest bouncers, and the most impassive security retinue standing watch at the velvet rope. I have no trouble gaining entry to the assembled Pantheon, ,unknown as I am. My star quality is blazing. I waltz in.
Who IS she?
How did she get past the door?
Never saw her before.
Can you believe those clam shells?
Oh, boy, Zeus and Ares are knocking over Poseidon in a rush to get her a drink.
Yikes, they just trampled Ganymede, poor kid, he’s just trying to butler the ambrosia
Haven’t had this much fun since we went to watch Prometheus get his liver plucked out. .
Hera is giving Zeus one of her dirty looks…if looks could kill
.Oh yes, that’s right, Hera’s looks CAN kill.
They all want me.
Zeus, son of Cronos, all -father, pretends at first that he didn’t care that much who had me, let them play, is his initial attitude, in fact, he has a turn or two himself. Hera, his wife, is a jealous harpy. She isn’t bad looking for a matronly sort, but she could look like, well like me! and it won’t keep Zeus faithful. He loves his fun. But it wasn’t conducive to any sort of Olympic harmony.
Zeus accepts the responsibilities as well as the perks of being keeper of oaths, cloud-gatherer and king of just about everything. He’s supposed to keep the party mellow. So what does he do? He decides to marry me off. His lack of imagination is astounding, But he isn’t the first, nor will he be the last patriarch who thinks that my powers can be domesticated by force of someone else’s will. So be it, he looks over the likely prospects and finds , at least to some ways of thinking, the most unlikely one. I am wed to the lame, the geekiest, the most supremely talented, Haephestus : god of the forge. I did not protest, despite what you may have heard.
And what have you heard? There are two stories that make the rounds. First there’s the belt
The belt, the famous girdle of Aphrodite after my mirror, it’s my most popular icon. Forged , the legends have it, by Haphaestus,to render me irresistible.
This makes no sense. No one, then or now, can withstand my unclouded charms. So why, Hephaestus, why??
Why do you tell everyone that I resent this match, that I reject it because you’re ugly? This is not fair. You are a genius, the marvels you create are undeniable works of art. You don’t understand how compelling artistry can be. I can overlook, no, it’s not just overlook, I will embrace you no matter what you look like , if I love you, because what you look like is part of who you are, if what you are is lovable Look at me. Look through to me. You can’t. My beauty is a mirror that only reflects back your own pain and ugliness.
This is why he forged the belt. And when I wore it for him even the icy waters of his own self loathing could not extinguish the all consuming flame of passion it inspired in him. It was the only way he could bring himself to touch me.
I only keep it to remind me of how the worst ugliness is kin to the greatest beauty. Hephaestus and I could have been twin souls.
The only other story about Heph and me that people care to recount is the famous net incident. Heph is supposedly determined to catch me in the act with Ares, the god of war. Ares and I never made any secret of our liaison.. Heph fashioned and cast the net in which Ares and I were, oops, surprised in flagrante delecto, and the rest of our set came to mock us as we struggled to free ourselves. Ares and Heph were in on that together. . . , How else do you think Heph got within casting distance of us? Ares loved showing off his prowess… and his public conquest of me was just the flip side of Heph’s impotence.
Oh no Aphrodite, I would never curse you.
Oh goddess, if you answer my prayer, I will make eternal sacrifice in your name.
Oh most beautiful one, I will be forever grateful, and never dishonor the gift you grant me.
We’ll see.
END PART ONE
INTERLUDE FOR FOOD- FIRST COURSE PART TWO
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof,--and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream:
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Wise words! Shakespeare understood exactly what I’m talking about. That Billy, what a man. He’s a scrawny little fellow with a ridiculously wispy beard he won’t give up, but he can rhapsodize. You forget what he looks like the moment he speaks. Nice eyes,too. Of course I know him. We all know each other. And we have fun, too. When we aren’t deeply depressed. I don’t expect you to sympathize, I’m not whining, it’s just how it is. For every walk down the red carpet of eternity, with paparazzi popping flashes and screaming fans with tears of joy streaming down their faces, there’s the dark oblivion that engulfs us when we aren’t being adored. Even with this down side, people strive to join our ranks. You have to strive, it’s very rare that someone gains entry without really wanting it. And we always welcome new blood,… Elvis and Marilyn for example. The younger Elvis that is, not that fat bloated creature in the white suit, no, the swiveling sneering young one, mmmm tasty.
My sector of eternity is populated by characters who ignored sense, snapped their fingers at their own better judgment and took the wild plunge. And landed poorly, if dramatically. Each has their own plotline: spectacular catastrophes that invite endless rubbernecking . Yes, that’s immortality, . Those who are remembered forever live forever..
Here’s my neighborhood. Nice, isn’t it? There’s my compound over there.. Yes, it’s on Valentine Place. It’s a family joke, since the actual Valentine, who lives quite far away from here in a cave, was a martyr who had no interest in either sex or love on earth. And by all accounts, not anywhere else either.
Over here you can see the home of Romeo and Juliet , and I must say their place is an architectural wonder. So many balconies . Oh yes, they are united in death, thanks to the legion of high school English teachers who keep the memory of Billy’s fabulous creations alive..
Romeo or Juliet So passionate . They were mad to sleep together, , but their reputation mattered more…. marriage. That’s what the whole fuss was about. Not sex. They could have had sex, and slam bam thank you Juliet, it would have been a ten minute play, if that, not an entire evening of theatre. Oh no, she wanted a contract.. And Romeo was party to it, He was all for commitment, but between you and me, it should have rung a warning bell somewhere in Juliet’s brain that he right after he agrees to wait until marriage for sex, he goes off and skewers her cousin with a very long sword. So they both die, for love and because of it are condemned to live forever . She is ALWAYS withholding sex for something, a new ring, an ever more sleek convertible. And he goes wild, he can’t kill anyone up here literally, but he manages to destroy his own existence until she can’t take it anymore, and everyone within earshot is sick of the drama they generate. They’ll make up for a while, filled with remorse, for their own hasty reactions, but two days later, they’re at it again. It’s exhausting.
But let’s say they do work it out, and the families reconcile for their sakes---They would be completely forgotten, like Romeo’s less fiery cousin Sal and Juliet’s plain aunt, Rose who met, quietly married. and no one cared. You never heard of them? Exactly.
Over this way, you can see a duplex, it’s a two family home. One side is Tristan and Isolde, and on the other is a very odd ménage a trois -Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot.
Guinevere was married to Arthur, he was an old, rich, powerful, monarch. She was young , fertile, well connected. It was marriage of convenience, complete with a very passionate, inconvenient affair between Guinevere and Arthur’s most valiant knight, Lancelot. It was quite a mess at the time. Kingdoms fell, and plenty of arrows were hurled Oh the realms of poetry, musical comedy and political references they’ve inspired.
She is a piece of work. Hot headed and beautiful, and quite full of herself. I like her, but you have to put up with her endlessly brushing her waist length hair, and her annoying campaigns to organize entertainments. Joust this, archery that. I mean honestly. I have this thing about phallic symbols, as I’ve mentioned, and she can’t get enough of them. And she feels very justified in having the both men with her, on her own terms. Well, more power to her, I suppose Arthur goes along with it because he has a thing for Lancelot. Oh not an outright love thing, he just loves the company of men more than women. Sex is a bother for Art, if he lived when there was a way to pass on his DNA, and therefore his title, without having to physically mate, bingo. Problem solved. With Lance it’s a male bonding thing, you know the way soldiers love their comrades and athletes pat their teammates so affectionately on the rear. Art didn’t want to fight with Lancelot, and he wasn’t that angry with Guinevere I can’t say for certain what goes on behind closed doors.. they are free to do whatever they want. Consenting adults and all that. Yet are they sorry enough to go back and undo their deeds, if given the choice? Of course, they’re not.
And then on the other half of the house is Tristram and Isolde. Lancelot and Tristram served together under Arthur back in their salad days, part of the Round Table. Isolde was shipped off to marry King Mark, rich geezer, another good political match, and her mother had sent her with a potion..an aphrodisiac- see how immortal I am- I inspire vocabulary! – to make sure the wedding night is satisfactory. Tristram was her bodyguard, very hunky, and quite the Eagle Scout, no ma’am we’ll both regret it the morning. So Isolde slipped him the drink and got him to drop among other things, his scruples. Mark found out, it didn’t end well for anyone, except the poets.
Mark, Lance and Art.. You can often see the three of them drinking mead on the porch, sharing a pipe. Ares will stop over and tip back a brew, every once in a while.. they are thrilled when he does that. Well you would be too, if you lived and died for war, and the god of war came around just like he was one of the boys. The two women have each told me separately how attractive they find Ares, but also how insufferable his manners are. Ares isn’t nobility, so he has no courtly manners, not one shred of refinement. He’s all about raw power. I don’t believe Ares has had much luck seducing either of them.
Let’s continue- Now here’s a street I call Murderer’s Row, although its official designation on the municipal maps is Lovey Lane. Over there, in that Moorish looking ranch is Othello, across the way is Desdemona’s cottage.
Othello was a sweet talker. And so convincing because he completely believed every word he was saying until he didn’t believe it anymore He couldn’t believe she loved him, and his jealousy drove him to murder and suicide. He wasn’t lying when he said he loved Desdemona. He just loved her to death
Don’t tell me that you don’t want to possess someone completely, and be possessed by them. That’s the ideal. The reality is a danger you need to consider- do you want to give someone that kind of opening or be that kind of person yourself? Do you think it was an accident that he suffocated her? That’s what love can do, get in your face, block your nostrils and clog up your windpipe, so that when you gasp for a bit of life giving air, all you end up with is the feel of down stuffed cotton as your last sensation. And you’re lifeless. And the person who is the instrument of your death wails and weeps and wonders what to do now that all reason for living is gone, and decides to commit suicide to join you. Insanity.
Over there is a wooded area, ominous looking isn’t it? Dark and forbidding. That’s not an accident. Anyone who walks up that path needs nerves of steel, I avoid it most of the time. Medea lives back in there, if she wanted to cement her reputation as a witch, she couldn’t possibly have picked a more sinister abode.
Medea was a goth sorceress, all incense and charms. Jason was this straight edge college quarterback type, clean cut, and very martial. It was doomed, but so hot while it lasted. He had been sent on an impossible task, no one expected him to live through it, but he wowed Medea, convinced her to leave everything for him, even kill her own brother. To his credit, he even married her, until he came to his senses, or lost them I mean, he saw what she did to her kin. Blood red flag there. . But no matter, Jason dumped her for a good girl. He’s still sorry.
Medea insists that it was Jason who killed their children, by killing his love for her. She reasons that the boys were the tangible sign of their union, and that when he was done with her, he signed their death warrant as surely as if he’d knifed them himself In a pathetic way, her adamant refusal to admit one iota remorse is a sign of grandeur. But it eats at her.
One last warning tale , in some ways the most chilling. Immortal love doesn’t ALWAYS end up with mayhem, murder and despair,
Baucis and Philomen : It would be Ovid to whom they owe their immortality. He is a strange little man, lives in a field of milkweed, tending flocks of monarch butterflies. Baucis and Philomen one of the few happy mortal couples ever to be remembered for their simple goodness. They are the poorest couple to live up here, if you call undergoing photosynthesis living.
The two of them were visited by Zeus and Hermes, who were out playing gotcha with humanity, dressed like beggars, on foot, incognito. Most of the people they visited slammed the door in the divine visages, which was exactly what the boys wanted…it was a total set up. Would you let in nasty looking beggars? No, you wouldn’t. Baucis and Philomen invited them in and proceeded to put on the most excruciating dinner party ever recorded
First the gods were invited in, then they had to be greeted, then everything had to be caught, then cooked, and in between was the dullest conversation ever held by mortal or immortal. It must have felt like ten thousand eternities to Zeus and Hermes, they can’t sit still for three of your seconds, which is a decent amount of time for us. Eventually, the gods got around to their real business, which was destroying everyone else in the immediate vicinity. Baucis and Philomen had, alone of all the humans, passed the test. So Zeus offered to give them, anything, anything, in the universe that they wanted. Anything. Riches, power, youth, beauty, the ability to sing, to fly, become invisible. Did any of that tempt either of the happy old couple, these paragons of human existence.? No…Anything in the universe was theirs and they asked to be turned into fucking trees.
Oh look, here’s my place. I need a refuge, I do. People mistakenly equate astounding beauty with invulnerability. Homer understood, dimly, that it isn’t so. Yes, he’s here too, but he doesn’t live in this neighborhood. He lives in the city, in a loft, and has fantastic parties with Helen Keller and Ray Charles. In the Iliad, he wrote a verse or two showing my needs, but of course I come off like a ditzy blonde. He just laughs when I complain, it’s hard to be angry with him for long. We all owe him so much of our immortality to him he can get away with plenty During the Trojan war, when I am wounded trying to rescue my son, Homer has me flying up to Dione, who gets this one little credit as my mother. She owes him.. because she’ s nothing, just a goddess of Oak trees, not even a really interesting tree like a kapok. She isn’t up to the task of spawning anything remotely like me
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head” is what I’m told. And I don’t. Other people would pick up after me. They always do. They can’t help it. But I still need a place for myself. I require plenty of down time.
About that apple and the whole Helen of Troy debacle. She wasn’t the one I meant when I offered Paris the most beautiful woman in the world. The most beautiful woman in the world was Ellen, a handmaiden to Helen. Absolutely stunning. Her face could launch a few thousand ships. But she was a poor relation, and had no connections really. Paris didn’t want her, he couldn’t even see her, because Paris was a shallow little twit, the product of hereditary inbreeding. So when he went to Sparta, he simply put the moves on the queen. Everybody assumed I meant her, she was pretty enough, I never corrected them. I should have, I suppose. Paris would have had to obey me, death and destruction would have been avoided, but then you would have neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey. So I suppose you should thank me.
Oh, and over there, down the hill from my home is where my son Eros lives with Psyche. Notice the windows are boarded up- They’ve been broken too many times by the Grecian urns they hurl at one another during their domestic disputes. Oh they got what they wanted all right. If this doesn’t put you off your request for love, I don’t know what will.
Eros is not a babyfat cherub with little wings,and a quiver of arrows. No. He’s not a muscled, athletic swain either. Look, how can I best put this- He’s a frump. He won’t stand up straight, he bites his nails, he wears what’s left of his hair, Zeus help me, in a hideous comb over. Why else do you think that he only appeared to Psyche in the dark?
Psyche, not a bad looking girl, I will grant you that , is completely mindless in her devotion to Eros. It worked out very well for her financially, it did, but I don’t want to sell her short. Her father was a king, so she would have been comfortable . She’s simply a barnacle, tut no one sees that as a problem.. Her press is absolutely stellar. I come off looking like a nasty mother in law, jealous and vindictive, and the two of them get this beautiful love story – it’s in all the anthologies, under Cupid and Psyche. By the time she saw what he really looked like, and he understood that she had the intellect of a tree stump, it was too late. I have washed my hands of it. Yes, so they live ever after- . she’s all blowsy now yet Eros is still gratified by her complete devotion. Pleasure, their daughter, well, she can’t stand it, she lives way over in another district, I have to visit her, she won’t speak to either of them, except at holidays .
The price for living here is high . Along with with the emotional wreckage littering the landscape, there is a high risk of carnage. Don’t ask me to put in a good word for you with the property owners association. Better to request being put out of your misery, like a wounded animal. And ask Hades to explain how you’re actually better off dead.
END OF PART TWO INTERLUDE FOR FOOD (SECOND COURSE,)
PART THREE
Johnny w. green / edward heyman / robert sour / frank eyton
Body and Soul, sung by Billie Holiday
You’re making me blue
All that you do
Seems unfair
You try not to hear
Turn a deaf ear
To my prayer
It seems you dont want to see
What you are doingg to me
My arms are waiting to caress you
And to my heart they long to press you, sweet heart
My heart is sad and lonely
For you I cry
For you, dear, only
I tell you I mean it
Im all for you
Body and soul
I spend my days in longing
And wondering its me youre wronging
Why havent you seen it
Im all for you
Body and soul
I cant believe it
It hard to conceive it
That youd turn away romance
Are you pretending
Dont say its the ending
I wish I could have one more change to prove, dear
My life a hell youre making
You know Im yours for just the taking
Id gladly surrender
Myself to you
Body and soul
Lifes dreary for me
Days seem to be long as years
Ive looked for the sun
But can see none
Through my tears
Your heart must be like a stone
To leave me like this alone
When you could make my life worth living
By taking what Im set on giving, sweet heart
My heart is sad and lonely
For you I cry
For you, dear, only
I tell you I mean it
Im all for you
Body and soul
Still here? Then, I see. I need to tell you one last story.
Butes, who according to Wikipediawas :King of Sicily and beloved of Aphrodite, who gave birth to his son Eryx. This and nothing more
Ah Butes… A king of Sicily. . Perhaps this conjures up the image of a turreted castle, glittering women, and armies of virile soldiers riding stallions, bearing plunder. No. Not even close.
Sicily is an island of dreams. . Picture a sea. Not the phony blue sea of postcard and the raked sand of the luxury hotel beach. No picture the sea of desire. Oh yes, there is such a place. We all carry some of it with us. Do you think it coincidence that the act of love is heralded by juices? Exquisite liquids, excruciatingly delicious, wrung from our bodies when we are the most ecstatic? That’s the sea I am talking about. The coast of Sicily, at the time I am telling your about, was the sea where everyone swam to replenish their vitality, gods and mortals alike. Butes had no need of palaces, courtesans or armies. No one there did. Every Sicilian was a monarch. I didn’t know that much about it. When I wasn’t on Olympus, I was tending my supplicants in Cyprus and Anatolia, or just enjoying myself. But it was easy to grow tired of Hephaestus droning on about his latest invention or his most recent imagined insult, and even more aggravating to appease Ares’ bloated ego. I was tired of the gaming and the coy steps in our dance of influence. I had been around long enough to realize that my power was untapped, and that I frightened the others with my potential. But I was lazy and indolent and young and not particularly ambitious. I pleased myself. And if others were pleased in the process , so much the better. If not, I didn’t care. This day, the day it began, I was restless though and unsatisfied. Something like the way I feel tonight, only then, I didn’t recognize it for was it was.
So I went to the island of dreams, to bathe in the sea of desire. And as I lay, naked in the sun to dry, I saw a man, who didn’t see me. He was completely engrossed, teaching a young girl how to spear a fish. This intrigued me. First, that my presence didn’t announce itself, and second that he was teaching a young girl. I didn’t want to incinerate either of them accidentally, which was a hazard mortals faced in those times when the gods walked more freely on the earth. So I cloaked myself in the guise of a maiden, and went over to observe.
Ah my beauty, he said to me. You wish to learn?
Indeed. And he smiled at me.
That smile was the first smile anyone had even bestowed on me that had nothing to do with my power or position. It was a smile of a young man for a pretty girl, a smile with no malice, no calculation, no venom, no lust.
A good natured smile on a day when nature was good. I was nearly split in two by conflicting forces, the desire to weep for the innocence I would never have, and the desire to make him kneel.
Show her, he told the child.
Is this your daughter? I asked as the girl expertly impaled a squid.
Yes, he said. This is Mila, my beauty.
The girl smiled up at me, and in her face, which resembled his only in the shape of her lips, I saw the loveliness of her mother. My split self was instantly enflamed by an unreasoning jealousy for this woman who had the prize I could never win. A simple loving man, a sweet daughter. I wanted to be her and I wanted to kill her.
I can see you have a beautiful mother, I said Lucky child.
Not so, he replied. Not so.
The child became sad. Mama has gone ahead to wait for us.
I looked at him quizzically.
Not in this world,he said, the next.
Ah. A wifeless man, with a motherless child. My resolve was struck instantly. The gods had seen fit to remove the woman from her treasures. I would claim them for my own.
And so I did. I lay my belt and my mirror aside, and I became the spouse of a Sicilian king. In our kingdom, we wanted for nothing. Food came from the sea, drink from the vine. The winters were mild, the summers pleasant. When wind and rain did come, we found shelter in the mountain caves or overhanging cliffs of the sea. . We made love, we laughed, we fought, made up and made love again. I was for the only time, before or since, happy. And he had no idea.
My absence was hardly noted in the halls of Olympus. No one cared. It was assumed I was frolicking with a mortal, and would get over it, and get back to my post, eventually, ensuring that passion and fertility would not abate. Those fires only need the occasional stoking. As the years rolled by, I had no interest in returning to my divine post I phoned it in.
Hermes would visit occasionally, we’d stroll languidly in the warm sun, and he’d amuse me with the latest gossip, how that brave warrior was now a constellation and this unfortunate maiden a cow. Or what mortal had come to regret his hubris and why. But the gossip never made me homesick.
Ares stopped by from time to time, asking to accompany him on some R and R, but, I had no desire to fly with Ares to anywhere. I could do without him. For the first time I had cause to wonder that a man could be more compelling than a god.
And so I was left in peace. but it wasn’t to last. I blame myself, . .
In short, I became pregnant.
I can see you’re wondering what was so sinister about that I am on record as the mother of at least fifteen children. And it’s true, I am. And bearing children is not the same problem for me as it might be for another, less connected being, My health care is excellent. The physical perils of childbirth was not to be feared. And rearing them?? I bore immortals, they emerged from my divine womb and met their destinies, I never had to trouble myself . But the second I conceived this one, I undertook to destroy my own happiness.
I didn’t realize this at first. …Butes was transported with delight. He was so proud. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to make me comfortable. But he was terrified as well, because his first wife had died in childbirth, and he loved me so much.
We even talked about getting rid of it.. even in those days people knew how, and he would have allowed me to do so, that’s how much he feared losing me.
But I knew that part would be fine, and once I communicated my serenity to him he was able to bask in this sign of our growing life together. He was more tender than ever, more loving, more strong. We were perfectly in tune, and I have never been more content.
Which is when the warning signals started to flash. I loved Butes, I loved his Mila, I loved the child growing within me. And with every increase in my love, there was a corresponding increase in dread. Even in the sunniest day, I began to feel a dark shadow around my heart I couldn’t think it away, I couldn’t ignore it. Every time Butes and I walked quietly down a trail, hand in hand, or Mila laughed, the shadow grew and the cold gripped me,, even in the sun.
One day, when I thought I was alone, Butes found me crying
When he asked me why, I thought of telling him all, I even began…
I am a goddess. He laughed. I know you are. You are my goddess and I worship you. I couldn’t tell him, it would make everything wrong,
And so I continued, enjoying every precious minute, for I began to understand they were numbered.
The day of the birth came. The labor was smooth, the baby healthy.
We named him Eryx. I was attended by local women. When they handed me my son for one brief time the cloud lifted. He was a perfect child, strong little legs, a hearty cry, and a handsome brow. My love went out to him, surrounding him like a soft blanket. His eyes so like his father’s. So like his mortal father’s. I was gripped, for the first time in my existence, and the last, with unreasoning terror. I looked, deep within the eyes of my mortal child and that’s when I lost my nerve, and doing so, lost all. I left.
Yes, just like that. I left. I turned and fled, and flew back up to Olympus. I ran to my palace, past the vast windows with their view of the oceans and mountains and the vistas of the eternal, found a small hidden corner behind one of the thrones of glory and wept. I wept for days causing floods and destruction. I wept for my love, I wept for myself Oh how I hated myself at that moment, and how I cried. I drained myself with crying, and I haven’t shed a tear since .
In the eyes of my infant sonI saw, for the first time myself, in the center of a vast web of connections. I saw my baby being held in the arms of his father, and heard their laughter as they watch Mila make faces for their amusement. I saw his first steps and Mila's first kiss. I watched with an expanding love as well as an apprehension that outpaced it. There were children, and their parents, all touching one another, and by extension me, with their concerns, their joys and most horribly of all their fates. Some were happy, some were cruel, some had the gift of loving, some had the gift of laughter, a lucky few had both, and too many had neither. I could never make an unconcerned move ever again, my action, my words, even my thoughts would now affect and be affected by others. The instant that I looked in my son’s clear eyes I cared. More than I cared for myself.
I understood bitterly that Butes, Mila, Eryx, all of them must die. All of them. No exemption. Sooner or later death would claim them and I would lose the only thing that eternity ever offered me worth crying over. And there was nothing I could do about it, but let it happen. I could have applied for Butes to be immortal, and even had the children brought along, it’s been done. But that’s exactly what I couldn’t do. The very second I felt the baby’s warm flesh against mine, I understood what made it so precious was that it couldn’t last.
I understand a cult of my worshipers settled there. That makes sense. You have to explain a mother vanishing from the childbed leaving a mewling babe and astonished midwives somehow or other. Eryx –well there’s a mountain named after him, although I don’t think he ever got over my abandoning him. None of the stories they tell about him seem very good. And Butes, my Butes. No I hardened my heart. If I had to lose them, let it be on my terms.
I flinched. But do you blame me…why would anyone put themselves through that if they didn’t have to? Mortals have no choice. You can’t turn and flee back to Olympus, not the way I did. I left, and I never went back, not in any tangible way. But you understand, ever since I dragged myself out from behind that throne, wiped my tears and assumed my place in the heavens, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t gone back in my mind, wondering what I’d do if I found myself faced, as I am this night, with a second chance.
I know why you called me. And I know why I answered.
The first time I crept up to the edge of the unknown without knowing what I was doing, and when I was face to face with the enormity of the challenge, when I understood that the inevitable consequence of my happiness was bitter sorrow, I chose safety. I am safe from the pain of loss, protected from my own heart. Safe from ever being part of anything more than myself. The first time, I had no idea the stakes were real, how much it would matter. But now I know.
When I reach out my hand to you, will you take it?
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