“What nonsense!” Clytemnestra bellowed. “You’ve been too long at the shrine of Hyacinthus nearby, he’s put these fantasies in your heads—”
“No, the egg is real, its shell really was blue—”
“Someone saw the swan and the queen down by the riverbank. And the swan sometimes still comes back, as if he’s lovesick. He’s bigger than the others—stronger—whiter—”
“Let us pass!” Clytemnestra commanded. “Or I’ll curse you!”
A moment of quiet followed as they considered her words. I still could not see anything, enveloped as I was in the folds of her cloak.
A voice broke the silence. “She’s a monster! That’s why you hide her!”
“A monster! A monster like the Gorgon. A hideous apparition!”
“Let us go!” Clytemnestra repeated. “Or perhaps . . . if she is a monster, I will let you see her, and that will be the curse. Remember the power of the Gorgon to turn onlookers to stone.”
A quiet murmur followed the threat. I should have felt safer, but Clytemnestra’s hint, even if was clever, hurt me. She was willing to paint me a monster, dreadful to look upon, and leave the people of Sparta believing that, rather than give in to them.
I twisted out from under Clytemnestra’s grip and flung off my cowl, baring my head before the crowd.
The crowd was a large one—a circle of people several rows deep. I had never seen so many faces.
“I am Helen!” I cried. “Look your fill!” I held my head high and braced myself.
There was silence. Utter, deep silence. The faces turned toward me, like moonflowers following the moon as she makes her nightly journey across the sky. The expressions drained away, replaced by a calm as serene as if they were under that moonlight.
Finally someone murmured, “It is true. Only the daughter of Zeus could have such a face.”
“So terrible . . . it blinds . . .” they murmured. But what they were truly seeing in my face was also the power that would set in motion so much strife and destruction.
We turned, leaving them standing there, truly like stones, as a Gorgon would have turned them, and made our way through the streets, stunned as if under a spell.
But it was I who was stumbling and under a spell. Zeus. They had called me the daughter of Zeus, said he had mated with Mother as a swan. The swan that attacked us—was he—could he be—my father?
The sunshine was still as bright, but all I could see was the white of the swan and his pitiless eyes, and the stares of the townspeople as they gaped at me and were paralyzed by looking at me. So that was what the veil was for, that was why I was guarded, and that was why Mother had hurried from the swans at the lake near my grandparents’, and that was why Father had thrown stones at them and called them filthy monsters. And that was why she called me Cygnet, little swan . . . Everything around me swirled, and I fell to the ground.
VI
I knew nothing, until I awoke in Clytemnestra’s arms as she labored up the hill. She was gasping and panting as she clutched me against her; I was astonished by her strength and agility as she clambered over the rough path, climbing uphill all the while.
“I—I—” I wanted her to stop, I wanted to ask her about all of it while we were still alone. No one was near; we must have left the pursuing villagers behind.
“Don’t talk!” she said. The words were stern, but her voice was trembling.
“But I have to! You have to tell me, everyone knows things about me but me, even the Spartans knew things—”
She stopped and let me down. “It was foolish of Mother and Father not to tell you. They made us all promise not to tell you. As if you would not know someday. All of it—the veil, the mirrors, the imprisonment! How stupid of them!”
The gates of the palace loomed ahead; they were closed as always, but Clytemnestra cried, “Open! Open in the name of mercy!” and the doors swung wide. Just inside, she dropped me down and turned around to aid the guards in pushing the doors shut and bolting them. No one seemed to be behind us, but we could not be sure.
We thought we were safe, and Clytemnestra was just whispering to me to go directly back to my chamber before we could be caught, when suddenly Father strode from beneath the portico. He looked around, frowning, and saw us just as the gates groaned shut. In an instant he was beside us, jerking Clytemnestra’s arm.
“You’ll be punished for this!” he said. “Severely punished. You have disobeyed my orders. You”—he stuck his face up into Clytemnestra’s, and in that instant it struck me how alike they were—“are old enough to know better, and so you shall suffer the worst punishment. You”—he swung around at me—“could have been injured. You risked yourself, and put us in danger.”
“The only thing in danger is your bargaining rights with Helen, had she been physically damaged in some way,” snarled Clytemnestra.
Father drew back his hand and struck her across the cheek, but she did not budge, only narrowed her eyes. “To your quarters, to await my punishment!” he ordered her.
Surprisingly, she obeyed, leaving me with Father. He kept staring at me and I realized that Clytemnestra had spoken the truth: he was inspecting his wares for damage. Satisfied there was none, he relaxed and released me. “You also, to your quarters.” He put his hand firmly on my back to steer me.
Just then Mother emerged from her chambers and saw us. We stood and waited for her as she rushed toward us, her gown fluttering. Her face was a mask of worry. She grabbed my shoulders and began sobbing.
“Control yourself, Leda, she is safe,” Father said abruptly.
“Oh, where did you go, and what did you do?” she asked.
I must be properly contrite. “Oh, Mother, I am sorry. It was not Clytemnestra’s fault. The wrong was mine. I persuaded her to take me from the palace, I wanted to see Sparta. We went into the town, and some people saw me and got excited . . .” Mother was breathing heavily but kept silent, so I continued. “And on the way I played in the fields, and by the riverbanks . . .” I shouldn’t say it, I had promised Clytemnestra I would keep the secret, but suddenly I knew this was the only way to force Mother to betray her own, much greater secret. “A huge swan was there, and he chased Clytemnestra and attacked her, and I beat him off, and then he looked at me, and he—he kissed me.” I glanced at her innocently. “He seemed to be fond of me, for some reason. Mother, it was as if he recognized me!”
She gave a little choking cry. “Oh, how could you . . . how could he?”
“It was as if he wanted to tell me something.”
She drew herself up, as if she were issuing a command to her body. “Tomorrow morning, Helen, come to my chamber. After you have fulfilled your punishment.”
Clytemnestra was taken to the whipping place, where youths were initiated into manhood and punished with rods. I was sent to my room and given nothing to eat, and made to sleep on the stone floor rather than my bed. I also had to sleep in the dark. The oil lamps were taken away. I spent a cold and frightening night, and I kept seeing the swan and his black eyes, and the eyes of the townspeople when they converged on me. I was frightened not by what had already happened, but in dread of what I would hear tomorrow from Mother. For I would not leave her chamber ignorant of my true self. I was determined now to know the truth.
The sun was barely up when I wrapped myself in a wool mantle and sought my mother’s chambers. Her quarters were not far from the huge throne hall with its open hearth, situated so the queen could discreetly retire when a formal evening went on too long, which happened all too often.
She was just arising, and a servant was draping a soft cloak the color of old ashes around her shoulders as I came into her room. I could see that her rising was only for show. She, also, had not slept.
The new-risen sun was spilling its early light between the pillars of her room, reaching across the floor like thin arms.
“My dear child,” she said. “Here, eat something with me.” She indicated a tray holding a honeycomb and some bread.
But she did not eat, and neither did I.
“Helen, I am sick with worry about you,” she said. “You knew you were not to leave the palace grounds. Certainly your sister knew that. She has become unmanageable, and it is time we find a husband to govern her. But something dreadful could have happened—something dreadful almost did happen.” She gave a little shudder.
No more evasions. The truth must be stabbed, dragged out into the open. “But Mother, what truly could have happened? Those people are your subjects, and they would not have harmed their princess. Perhaps if I were to see them more often—”
“No!” She clapped her hands together to silence me. “No.”
“It is that prophecy,” I said. I knew that somehow the Sibyl was part of the reason I was kept locked up. That and the swan. Begin with the Sibyl. “Long ago . . . when we went to Delphi . . . there was that witch, that prophetess, I don’t know really what she was, but she made a prediction about me . . . something about being the ruin of Asia, the ruin of Europe, the death of Greeks. Are you trying to prevent it by holding me prisoner?”
I expected her to deny it, but she nodded. “Yes. We hoped to trick the fates.”
In my lessons I had heard the legends: how Perseus’s grandfather had known his daughter’s son would kill him so he sent them away, to no avail—the son killed him anyway; how Oedipus had been told he would kill his father and marry his mother, so he had taken himself off to Thebes, and on the way had killed his father unknowingly and as a reward was given his mother to wife, again unknowingly. It was futile to try to avoid what was foreordained.
I remembered Father’s words: To know is to arm. An enemy seen a far way off cannot surprise. An enemy seen from a distance can be outwitted and avoided.
So far no enemy had come. But the Sibyl had not said when the trouble would come. Nor from what direction. Nor in what form. Despite Father’s brave words, it is hard to arm against something that you cannot recognize. Oedipus learned that.
“Mother, you know it is impossible to avert what has been foreordained.”
“But we must try.” She turned from me to the table where she kept her jars of unguents and scented oils and poured a little oil into one of her palms. She held it out to me, and when I nodded she took one finger and spread the fresh oil on my cheeks.
“Such lovely skin,” she said. “My little Cygnet.”
I grabbed her wrists. “Mother! It is time you tell me of what seems to be common knowledge. Cygnet. Little swan. Am I a little swan, Mother? Do not seek to divert me with talk about my gracefulness, my white linen tunics, and so on, as Father has. What is the truth of it? What is the truth of what everyone in Sparta speaks of—that you and the swan—but it was not a swan, it was—it was—” I could not say it, it sounded too presumptuous. “I saw the swan, and his feathers were shining white, a white that dazzled, like the clouds before the sun bursts through them, and they hurt my eyes.”
Mother stood for an instant, unmoving. She bowed her head and I knew she was taking counsel of herself, weighing how much truth it was wise to speak. I could see the top of her head with its shining dark hair—so unlike mine—but could not see her face, could not see the struggle taking place within her. Finally she raised her head and I knew she had won her battle. She would tell me the truth.
“Come,” she said, drawing me over beside her on her couch. She clasped me tightly to her, so I could feel her body next to mine. I waited. “Dear child,” she said, “there is no way to say it but this: When your father was away, the father of all the gods, the ruler of Olympus, came to me. He chose me, I know not why. And yes, he came as a mortal creature, a swan. To look upon him in his glory means death for a mortal, and he did not wish me to die. He departed at sunrise—just at this time, so there is no morning that comes that I do not bid him farewell again, feel his leaving. And yes, our child was born, and it was you.”
Suspicions, fears, dreams—those are not the same as hearing it for a fact. I felt dizzy, and leaned against her.
“You are his only daughter,” she said. “Oh, he has many sons, but you are his only mortal daughter, by a mortal woman. He will protect you, regardless of what the Sibyl said. That is why we sought to thwart her, for Zeus is more powerful than a mere Sibyl.”
“But . . . Father . . .”
“He knows. But he pretends he does not. Perhaps it is better that way. One must give men their pride. He calls you ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’ but does not dare to admit how that can be. Of course the daughter of Zeus will be of immortal beauty, while she lives.” Her voice grew sad. “But the children of gods and mortals are always mortal,” she said. “That is inevitable. You will die as I will die. But while you live, we seek to protect you.”
I bowed my head in acquiescence. Now all was revealed; now I understood. She took a strand of my hair and held it next to hers. “Mine is of the earth, yours is of the heavens. See how it shines, full of gold!”
“Mother, did he leave you nothing?” I knew, from the stories, that the gods were hard, lusting after mortals but discarding them afterward. But sometimes they left them a token.
“Only what I took,” she said. She rose and walked dreamily toward a wall niche, taking down a carved ivory box with a domed lid. She plucked off the lid and thrust the box toward me. Inside were four long gleaming swan feathers, so pure they glimmered and gave off a light of their own, an entirely unnatural light.
Feathers. When she might have asked for the world.
VII
True to their word, Mother and Father immediately sent out the announcement that their elder daughter, the most illustrious princess Clytemnestra, was of an age to be married. Her advantages were stressed: an impeccable pedigree—she was descended from the earliest rulers of Sparta, and with her hand might even come the inheritance of that throne—and she was of good childbearing stock, pleasing to look upon, and healthy. Nothing, of course, was hinted of her obstinate and rebellious nature, nor of her indifference to women’s tasks, nor of her physical strength, comparable to a man’s. Father said that he hoped a high bidder would come along, and wanted to open the contest to foreigners as well as Greeks.
“I’m willing to consider an Egyptian, or a Syrian,” he said.
“Egypt would be wasted on Clytemnestra,” said Mother, smoothing her hair with long nervous fingers. “The linen so sheer it floats, the enameled bracelets, the perfumes—one might as well offer them to a wolf.”
“It is true, your daughter is unlike you. I know it’s you who covets such things, and would begrudge them to Clytemnestra.” He chuckled, as if he enjoyed knowing her envy. “But, my dearest, we must think only of what the match might bring to Sparta, not of the luxuries you are missing.”
“A foreigner, no matter how rich, would be a failure. Others would look down upon us.”
I had tiptoed into their room and now I barely dared to breathe, lest they hear me.
“Let them look. Down, up, or sideways, as long as we have a connection to a rich port over there.”
“I’ve never heard of a foreigner come courting here, nor of such a marriage taking place,” Mother said. “And Sparta has no port, so how could a connection with a foreign one help us? The trade would all go to Mycenae, where it goes already.”
“Troy,” Father suddenly said. “That’s much closer, and Egypt trades through it, so we needn’t bother with an Egyptian. Besides, Trojans are richer than Egyptians.”
“Better-looking, too,” said Mother. Now it was Father’s turn to be needled. “They say they are so striking, even the gods can’t keep their hands off them. Zeus took up with Ganymede, and Aphrodite herself could not contain her passion for that shepherd, what was his name? Why, once when you were away, one came on a diplomatic mission. I entertained him alone, of course.” She smiled. “It was not a difficult task.”
I could almost feel the swan feathers stirring in the little box, mocking Father.
“All right, no foreigners,” Father finall
y said. “There should be enough of our own kind to choose from.”
I was about to make my presence known when suddenly Mother said, “I think it is time. Time for Helen to be seen. Then the word will spread, and when she is old enough to wed, bidding will be at a frenzied peak.”
“Yes! And we can let it be known that she’s the most beautiful woman in the world!” Father sounded jubilant, trumpeting his favorite phrase.
Mother frowned. “But wait . . . might that not detract from Clytemnestra’s chances? Perhaps the suitors will decide to wait for Helen.”
“Ummm. . . yes, that could be a problem,” Father admitted. “But it seems a shame to keep her hidden when all these people gather. When would we have such an opportunity again?”
“There are advantages either way,” said Mother. “Let us think about it, do nothing hasty.”
In the glorious summer, when the sun was at his height, the suitors came for Clytemnestra. One by one they climbed the steep hill to the palace, bearing their hopes and their gifts. One by one they were received by the king and queen, and settled in their quarters.
The rules in the competition for the hand of the king’s daughter had been observed since the days of long ago, and they were rigid. Father must feed and house the suitors until one was chosen; it was permissible for a suitor to send a representative rather than come in person, if he lived far away or was too powerful to appear as a supplicant; there might be some sort of contest, like a footrace or an archery match, although the results were no longer binding.
As I watched the parade of hopefuls arrive, I wondered where all these men would stay. Beds were laid out under the wooden porticoes, where they could sleep still partially protected but in the open air. Mother had gotten hold of every spare woven blanket and sheep’s fleece to serve as bedding, and the goatherds brought in their kids and ewes and began the slaughtering to feed the crowd. Endless jars of grain and oil were produced and the great amphoras of wine were opened for drinking and libations. It was as important for Father’s wealth and hospitality to appear limitless as it was for the suitors to pose as guardians of the door of promise.
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