Great Goddesses

by Nikita Gill

  I terrified kings. This is true. I carved a life out of a destiny that was against me. This is true. I turned my tragedy into an asset. This is true. I am remembered as a vessel to a hero as opposed to the catalyst the Gods depended upon. This is true. This is true. This is true.

  Andromeda, Princess of Ethiopia, Wife of Perseus

  What they will tell you . . .

  Once upon a time, a princess was naked and chained to cruel rocks, a sacrifice to a sea monster sent by Poseidon until a son of Zeus would come and save her. And they would fall in love and become constellations together in the night sky.

  A consort. A prop. An ornament to glorify a man’s story.

  This is what they will forget . . .

  She was an April before him already. Bosom full of spring, every intention honed in the abrupt nature of wildflowers. At night, as the moonlight braided her thick onyx hair, she taught herself the art of kindness by watching over the dust-covered city. By day, she waited for the skies to turn pink before disappearing in a beggar’s garb into a city that was wounded and crying out, the voices of hunger sounding the same no matter where she went. Every starving child she handed food to, every alm she passed to a beggar, she knew there were a dozen more she had not helped, and this weighed heavy on her.

  A saviour. A solace. An instrument to aid the poor.

  This is what they do not know . . .

  The palace was equal measures of beauty and hypocrisy. Beautiful, wealthy women and girls who pretended they loved their golden cages in an assortment of painful ways. Some tormented serving girls. Some tormented each other by stealing the other’s lovers. Embracing a prison becomes easier if you grow as cold as the metal that controls your freedom. They bow their heads when they see her, but she hears the whispers sharp as poniards lift in the air and pierce her ears. There is a knowing in her, she hears them say, that makes her untamable. She has known since she was a child that she is observant in a way that makes them uncomfortable.

  A story. A princess. At the mercy of her parents.

  My daughter is the finest of all our jewels, boasts her mother, her third glass of wine teetering in her hand. More exquisite than any woman in all the land. She makes the Nereids look hideous in her wake. Outside, the sea roars, and the palace walls tremble, as if they know a great folly has been made.

  A challenge. A pawn. A sacrifice to be made.

  They say when the message from Poseidon came in the form of a great sea storm, her father cried. He fell to his knees and begged every God in the sky. He said he would give up anything for her. Anything, other than his kingdom. In the end, the skies were empty, and his throat dry. So she made the decision for them. She would rather be dead than watch her city burn, than listen to children cry.

  A damsel. A monster. A hero in the making.

  When she was seven years old, her tutor asked her what a queen’s role was. Her answer was laughed at, scorned and refused, for she said that a queen’s role was ‘Be just. Have courage. And rule.’

  ‘Queens cannot rule. They can only bear sons who will.’

  We can, whispered a voice in her head. Oh, but we can.

  A rock. A survivor. A constellation soon to grace the sky.

  This is what they do not want you to know for they cannot believe a princess can face Cetus. Surely women cannot be shrewd enough to know his weakness was inside his many-fanged mouth, his eyeless head. They underestimate what a woman can do when she has to survive. Grab a sword, visit a witch, even learn the secrets that will destroy a monster well. How a night-skinned princess left as sacrifice on a rock, without a single Olympian gift to save her, could face a primordial thing so ancient and win with only her wits.

  The rest of the story is written in stars if you watch them closely as they swivel and swell. They will tell you about Andromeda. Constellation. Hero. Queen who saved her city and herself.

  Penelope, Wife of Odysseus

  They call me loyal,

  the antithesis of Helen.

  Where she is ruination,

  I am purification.

  But it is not my face that will set

  a thousand ships to sail.

  You are not beautiful, says my mother.

  Make this your virtue instead of your deficiency.

  I remind myself of this on the docks,

  watching my husband’s warship leave,

  and when I must raise our son alone

  while ruling Ithaca without being King.

  Even when I hear the war has ended,

  yet for year after year, he does not come home.

  The bards sing of his exploits as I stand alone –

  cunning Odysseus, brave Odysseus –

  while they are only able to feed themselves

  from food and water my reign provided

  and name me an addendum to a hero’s tale.

  They whisper about the Goddesses you are with

  and laugh behind my back,

  while to cope, I sew, I mother, I rule.

  When he finally comes home,

  he butchers brutish suitors to protect my honour

  without considering how I’ve evaded them

  for ten years with only my wits and shrouds.

  And while he reclaims his throne,

  hero once again, no one asks the question:

  if a wife is only measured a good wife

  by how faithful she has been,

  then what makes the gauge of a good husband?

  Argos, Dog of Odysseus

  It wasn’t always this way. Once, I had a master who loved me, walked with me across these quieter lands. And then one day, he left. No one told me why. People don’t tell dogs such things for they think we do not understand, but we grieve when we lose our best friends too.

  So I aged, alone. My fur went grey, my eyes rheumy. I was no longer the tracking dog my master once knew.

  But I kept myself alive, just to see him one last time, for I knew he would return home no matter what anyone said. I just wanted to hear him say I was a good dog as he did when I was a pup running along the sandy beach of Ithaca, bringing him back fish and birds I had caught in my mouth.

  Everyone forgot me after he’s gone. I became a small ghost in the home I was supposed to protect. The mistress was too busy running a kingdom, the master’s son was too young for a hunting dog, and I found myself without the purpose to which I was born.

  I suppose that is why when my master returned, I was so old, mangy and sitting neglected on piles of manure.

  I wagged my tail, smiled so wide, let him know I was there. I was too weak to stand on my legs, but he was so close, I could not understand he walked past me as though he did not care.

  Had I been a bad dog? Did I do something wrong? Hope left me as my heart broke, and I sadly rested my head between my paws and closed my eyes a final time. I was alone without a soul to pat my head and asssure me everything would be fine.

  When my eyes opened again, two men stood before me. One shone bright, bright like the sun, but the other was darkness itself. He wore a long coat and had a crown of onyx upon his head, yet his voice was clear and true. I lifted my head wearily, and pricked my ears and tried to understand what they were saying, but I could not. Humans didn’t speak in tongues easy for dogs to understand; we only understood their emotions and some of their thoughts.

  When the man with the onyx crown knelt before me and patted my head, I quickly realised he was not a man at all, but a God. ‘Argos does not suit you. I think I will call you Cerberus.’

  As soon as the words left his pale lips, I felt my ancient body shake. At first, I was afraid, but the God’s reassuring eyes did not leave mine, and that made me brave.

  Suddenly I was young, a giant and two more heads that looked as fearsome as the Nemean lion. My paws were the size of small la
kes, the strength of a thousand dogs in my bones.

  The God, much smaller than me now, looked up at me, smiled tranquilly and patted my front paw. ‘Good boy.’

  My new master was kind to me. He had many dogs and the underworld was wonderful to explore with my new friends as we always had so much time.

  The master and mistress both took me for walks, and although there are no beaches here, the fields of Asphodel were strewn with white flowers and glades of grass, and even a dome that pretended it was the bluest of skies, bluer than my old master’s home in Ithaca. But the best thing ever was that my new master never ever forgot to give me a pat or call me a good boy.

  And I would smile so widely with all three of my mouths and thump my serpent tail, before I returned to guarding the mouth of hell.

  Helen

  To the men who forgot

  I am half God before

  I am a woman,

  did you really believe

  that I would not choose

  freedom, sky-flavoured

  and sea-beloved over

  the fickle prison

  you kept me in?

  Did you really think

  I would not be golden sand

  slipping through your fingers?

  That once wed

  you could forget me

  until I was needed?

  Did you forget

  whose divine blood

  it is that runs through my veins?

  Did it not strike you,

  Theseus, Menelaus,

  Agamemnon,

  Achilles,

  and yes,

  even you, Paris,

  that I would

  always belong

  to myself first,

  and that is

  the only reason

  I would run?

  Did you think that if you trapped

  the Storm Bringer’s daughter

  into a life of subservience

  there would be no consequences?

  That you, and everything

  you love, would not burn?

  Briseis Remembers

  I watched fire devour my entire city.

  The kind oak trees that once gave me shade

  alight. The place my parents first met

  consumed by cruel amber flames.

  The elegant bones of every temple

  I had worshipped in torn asunder by fire,

  every home, every shop, everything.

  Oh God, they burned everything.

  They killed our fathers and our brothers

  then tore our homes asunder.

  We can still hear them screaming

  at night when we see the flames dance.

  We can hear our families, our home

  screaming. When I was little

  I asked my nurse-maid,

  ‘How does a girl become a shadow?’

  And she told me, looking out

  to where the black ships stood

  and men beat at the walls of my horse

  with weapons and war cries,

  ‘When we watch everything burn

  that is how girls become shadows.’

  But she was wrong. It wasn’t just

  watching the burning, it was becoming

  the burning that made a girl a shadow.

  I watched fire devour everything I loved.

  And prayed to a God who never came.

  That, that is how a girl becomes a shadow.

  Hecuba, Wife of Priam, Mother of Paris

  I found the body of my last son

  on the same golden beach

  where he once played as a boy,

  killed by greedy hands

  that threw him to a watery end.

  I make no bones, no apologies

  for what I did next. I know

  the world prefers women soft,

  only because it does not

  wish to know what happens

  when we swallow rage and war

  for so many years it becomes

  no different from our names.

  Brutal women are unafraid

  to take blood for blood,

  to haunt the very sinews

  of those who steal our families.

  I exacted my revenge,

  took an eye for an eye,

  stole from Polymestor

  the way he had stolen

  from Polydorus,

  then ran to give myself

  to the same sea that carried

  my child, my child,

  my last born child.

  But the Gods had other

  plans for me. I felt the fur

  grow first, my sobs turn to howls,

  my hands now paws.

  I now spend eternity as a dog.

  Perhaps they thought I would be unhappy

  that they had brought a savage woman

  to heel, but Hecate, the Goddess I am

  bound to, is kinder than they will ever see.

  She understands me and treats me well.

  I in turn follow her between

  heaven and hell.

  But sometimes

  I think of the children

  I never got to bury and wonder,

  could I still call myself a mother

  of princes and princesses,

  of warriors and priestesses,

  when our kingdom is ash

  and every single child

  I once bore,

  loved and raised

  has become

  equal parts

  dust and death?

  Iphigenia, Daughter of Agamemnon

  When I was a child, I loved rainbows.

  The way the sun scrambled into the sky after the rain to shine through the prisms of blue, make violet, indigo, blue, green – I tried to catch them between my small fingers but ended up empty-handed. Still, I never stopped trying.

  Back then, I was my father’s favourite. He brought home dresses as turquoise as the ocean’s lagoons and sat me on his knee to tell me of the glittering future he saw for me.

  But I did not want glitter, I just wanted to make him happy. So I nodded along to every word he said, my large eyes glowing for the only man who I knew would never betray me.

  When my mother tells me of Achilles the first time, my cheeks redden, however it is not out of shyness, but because I am afraid. I am scarcely old enough to consider the idea, let alone old enough to even know what it means to be a wife.

  But my father is determined, and I have never once let him down. I will not break his heart to salvage my own.

  My wedding dress is unusual. It holds the vivaciousness of violets, the hues of the rivers, every shade of forest you can imagine. My father has not spared any expense. I smooth the fabric against my skin with my fingers as my mother helps me arrange it. They will tell stories about your wedding day. Even the Gods will be in attendance to bless your union.

  But when the soldiers come for me, my mouth goes dry. I have yet to meet Achilles, and even my father has not yet appeared to say goodbye.

  At least they made the altar pretty.

  Pure white marble, in a crimson tent awaits the resting of my head. It takes me a second to understand what is happening. This has happened to girls from other families, women whisper of it all the time. But never mine. I had always been confident of my father’s love for me, his protection of me. My heart thuds in my chest as I look around to seek my father’s eyes. When I find him, he cannot look at me. His usually sturdy voice breaks as he says, ‘If you do not do this, the Goddess Artemis will not allow our ships to sail.’

  My fists clench at the betrayal, at the fact that he thought
I would not do this without being tricked, that I would not try to save his honour even though I was his kin. Then my mind whirls at why he is doing this. To go and wage a war that is not even his, that he can choose not to be a part of. Rage and alarm have an unusual flow together: one burns red hot whilst the other is as cold as the underworld.

  ‘Did you mistake the glitter of my blood for the glitter of my future, father?’ I asked him, trying to make him look at me. He looks at the floor, not answering.

  ‘You can have my life. On one condition,’ I said softly. ‘If I am to die, it is you who must take my life.’

  For the first time in my life, I saw fear in the eyes of the great Agamemnon. His sword hand shook as I offer my throat. Still, he does not fall to his knees and beg forgiveness as I had hoped. I close my eyes and resign myself to this fate. Perhaps a world where a father can kill a beloved daughter for a war is not a good world to be a part of after all.

  But instead of feeling the cruel, cold strike of a sword against my throat, I sense my body slowly disintegrate. I open my eyes to see I am no longer at any altar, my father has disappeared and I am surrounded by the colours I have always loved since I was a child.

  Later, I learn Artemis has been watching. She saw courage in me, my honour and the need to control my own destiny. It was she who took me in her arms, bathed me in ambrosia and transformed me into Iris, rainbow maiden, messenger to the Gods and Titans alike.

  When I was a child, I loved rainbows.

  Now I paint them with my fingers into the sky all the time.

  Megara Laments from the Underworld

  How does one magic the brutality of murder into poetry? Ovid made it all look so pretty, truly. Turn a picture where murder of innocents is just a footnote in a hero’s story. Make the violence into a necessity. Turn the victims into an instrument to aid a plot. Blame a Goddess for her pettiness and cruel nature, and a God for his amorousness. Call it madness, and defend him and say he paid his penance. Ask his wife, a mere woman after all, what did you expect if you were going to wed a hero. How did you not know he could do this? Did you not know him well enough then, that he could be like this? Did you sneer at him once too often? Why didn’t you leave if he did this to you before? What did you expect other than storms, his eyes filled with bloodlust as he snapped the neck of you and yours? Are you sure you didn’t provoke him? Are you sure you aren’t somehow to blame? Are you sure it wasn’t you who anguished him into doing this terrible thing we dare not name?