“Yes, sire. They swim. One of them wins. Then what?”
“I shall have been closely observing the swimmers, judging them on strength, speed, endurance, and so on—qualities any wife of mine will need in full measure. Among the ten or so who come in first will undoubtedly be some magnificent creatures. I shall choose among the finalists.”
“All will be done according to your pleasure, my lord.”
The white seal who was Proteus swam away, changing himself into a shark as he went—for that is the species best suited for organizing contests.
Thereupon, Poseidon sent for Brontes, a Cyclops, who had won the sea god’s admiration by hammering out a set of enormous silver horse troughs for his herd of surf-stallions.
“I have a task worthy of your skill, Brontes. I want you to make me a gem that I will be proud to offer my bride. It must be a necklace, the most magnificent ever seen or imagined in heaven, on earth, or under the sea. You shall have an entire harvest of pearls—black ones and white ones, brimming with watery lights and filtered moon fire. You shall also have a sunken galleon whose hold is loaded with treasure. From its heaviest ingots you shall forge a golden chain to hang the pearls on. And of the diamonds from the galleon, you shall select the largest, the most brilliant and artfully cut, to stud the boundaries between white pearls and black.”
“How splendid!” cried Brontes. “How generous! All the goddesses will go mad with jealousy.”
“Yes,” said Poseidon. “And my bride, lucky creature, noting their envy, will go mad with joy, which is as it should be. Hasten your labors, good Brontes. I give you ten days.”
“On a task like this, sire, I shall work both day and night.”
Before Brontes could finish his assignment, however, he was visited by Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, the warrior maiden whose tactical skills rivaled those of her half brother, Ares, Lord of Battle. She had come to order weapons—a new-moon sword, a dagger, and a set of spearheads. Brontes was working on the necklace as she entered. Athena moaned with pleasure when she saw what lay on the basalt slab that was his workbench. It seemed as though the forge fire had burst, scattering varicolored coals upon the slab.
“What are you making?” she whispered.
“A necklace, my lady.”
“May I know for whom?”
“For whomever Poseidon chooses.”
Athena was silent. She kept staring at the necklace, naked desire in her gray eyes. She coveted this gorgeous jewel with a craving that scorched her inside, and she was resolved to have it for herself, come what might.
3
Family Council
The Middle Sea was boiling with excitement as the day of the great race approached. The most excited of all, perhaps, was Ceto. Beyond anything else in the world she wanted her beautiful daughter to become Poseidon’s bride. She called the Gorgon sisters to her and said:
“Which of you is which?”
“Why the sudden interest, mother?” said one. “Considering that you’ve never even bothered to name us.”
“Well, you’ve named yourselves, haven’t you?” Ceto replied. “Don’t be impudent, my lass, or I’ll mangle you, brass scales and all. Which one are you?”
“I am Strong,” muttered one Gorgon.
“And I am Swift,” said the other.
“Strong and Swift,” said Ceto. “Well, you are, you are. Ugly as the hinges of hell, but strong and swift, no doubt about that. And I want you to use your strength and speed to help your sister.”
“Help her do what?” said Swift.
“We’re always doing things for her,” said Strong. “She’s been queening it over us since we were born. I suppose that’s all right. We don’t have anything better to do than fly her around and guard her against kidnappers and so forth. But I wouldn’t say she needed anybody’s help, not little sister Medusa. She takes excellent care of herself.”
“Shut your spiteful mouth!” shouted Ceto. “I must know this: Is she fast enough to win Poseidon’s race?”
“She’s fast enough,” said Swift. “She can swim circles around anything in the sea.”
“She can, but will she?” asked Strong.
“What do you mean?” said Ceto.
“Medusa forgets what she’s doing. She starts dreaming. If she even remembers to enter the race, she’ll take the lead easily—then she’ll see a pretty piece of coral or fall into conversation with an octopus. Everyone will swim past her and she won’t even notice.”
“Suppose I swim with her and keep nagging her back on course?” said Ceto.
“Well,” said Swift. “It might work for a while, but if she gets interested in something else, she’ll simply swim away. You won’t be able to catch her.”
“I can catch up with her while she’s looking at the coral or chatting with the octopus.”
“In the meantime,” said Swift, “the race will be over.”
“All right,” said Ceto. “We have to do two things. I have to swim with her and keep her in the race. And, what you two must do is interfere with the other swimmers.”
“How?” said Strong.
“What happens when a gull swoops down on a school of fish?”
“They scatter. They go deep.”
“Well … you two will be my gulls. Or sea hawks is more like it. You will fly over the course, and when you see naiads, Nereids, and other nymphs beneath you, you will plunge through the air, claws gleaming, screeching. Like frightened fish, the swimmers will scatter, dive, and hide in the depths. Then you two will circle above, clashing your brass wings, rattling your brass claws, screeching, and shrieking until I can get your sister on the move again.”
“It’ll be a slow race,” said Swift.
“But she’ll win, she’ll win. She’ll be Poseidon’s bride, and Queen of the Sea.”
“Do you really want her to marry that brawling bully? He’ll make a dreadful husband.”
“He’ll also make her a queen,” Ceto said. “Afterward, she can ignore him through eternity.”
“Yes …,” said Strong. “She might not even notice she’s married. She’ll sit on a rock winding the necklace in her hair, admiring herself in the mirror of the sea, and won’t give Poseidon a thought.”
“He’ll be marrying better than his brothers did,” said Ceto. “Zeus has Hera, the shrew of the universe. Hades abducted Persephone and has been hated by her for a thousand years now. If my beautiful girl grants Poseidon one smile, he’ll be doing better than his hag-ridden brothers. Off with you now! Go practice dropping out of the sky, shrieking as you go. Find a school of dolphins and practice on them. Who knows—you too may profit from your sister’s success. She may be able to find husbands for you.”
“Will she be that powerful?” muttered Swift.
“I suppose anything’s possible,” said Strong. “After all, mother, you found a husband, and you’re no beauty. It was only him, of course.” She pointed a claw at Phorcys, who lay snoring within Ceto’s coils. “But we’d settle for anything, wouldn’t we, sister?”
“Even less,” said Swift.
They flew off, shrieking with laughter.
4
Bride of the Sea
Medusa sat on a rock, plaiting her hair and singing. Her voice harvested the sounds of the sea—gull cry, splash, and sigh; lilt of water and lament of wind; chuckles of the tide among pebbles; and the moon-drunk crooning of naiads catching fishermen. As she sang, she combed the mass of hair. Each strand was a tendril of light, a filament of fire. These rich tresses, trapping the sunshine all day, held it at night and became a false beacon to helmsmen, luring them out of darkness to break their ships upon the rocks. All this she made happen as innocently as a child whipping the heads off flowers. Shipwreck was her pastime; her voice called sailors to drown.
One night, riding in his dolphin chariot, Poseidon heard a voice singing. Although he was as tone-deaf as a mackerel, he knew that this voice could belong only to someone beautiful. Surfacing, he saw Medusa plaiting
her hair; it was a net of moonlight, casting a fragrance of wild grasses upon the salty wind.
The night was cool, but the sea around him began to steam with his desire. He knew that he had found his bride, and tried to tell her so, but could not utter a word. His desperate craving had wiped his lips of speech. He roared wordlessly.
Medusa on her rock looked up to see a huge, green-robed, green-bearded figure balancing himself on the swell. Dolphins frisked about him. He held an enormous three-pronged staff and wore a crown of pearls. He bellowed again and brandished his trident. She smiled at him. And he found speech.
“Who are you?” he said.
“Medusa.”
“You shall be my queen.”
“Are you king of something?” she asked.
“I am Poseidon.”
“But Poseidon, I hear, has a wonderful gift for his bride.”
“Here …”
He spun a hoop of fire toward her. She caught it on her arm. It was the necklace.
“If you take it you are my wife,” he said.
“Yes, your majesty.”
And so it was that Poseidon called off the great race, putting an end to every tender expectation. He had chosen his bride.
News of Medusa’s triumph spread through the Middle Sea, enraging its nymphs. It became unsafe to put out in a small boat for fear that a Nereid would swim under it, capsize it, snatch a sailor, and carry him off to an undersea cave. There, she presented him with a choice: marry her, or be fed to the sharks.
Meanwhile, Medusa sat on her rock playing with her necklace, making its mingled lights flash back at the stars. A small boat scudded by, running before the wind. A fisher-lad had bound the rudder and was standing in the bow, arm raised, ready to cast his spear at one of the big sail-finned fish, which were not the best eating but were the easiest to catch.
He was a slender youth, just ripening into manhood. Standing there in the bow, spear poised, painted by moonlight, he seemed to be carved of marble. Medusa’s heart danced at the sight of him.
The boat stopped suddenly, as if it had hit a rock. She stared in disbelief; she knew there were no rocks around except the one she was sitting on; she thought the boat must have been gripped by an octopus. But it was no octopus. A Nereid surfaced, seized the lad by the hair, and pulled him under. Medusa dived off her rock. She reached the sea nymph in three strokes and took her by the throat. The Nereid writhed and flailed her legs, but Medusa was much larger and stronger. She pulled the nymph to the surface—for you cannot strike hard underwater—and slapped her until she fled, weeping.
Medusa caught the boy, who was feebly struggling in the water. She set him astride her and swam on her back until she reached the rock. There, she lifted him out of the water and climbed onto the rock after him. His teeth were chattering and his lips were blue.
She took him on her lap and hugged him close, feeling the heat of her body enter his, and his shudders subsided. He looked at her and smiled faintly. A big purple bruise was forming on his brow. He closed his eyes. His head lolled against her shoulder. She held him as though he were a child, rocking him in her arms, crooning. Very gently, she kissed the side of his face. His eyes opened. He smiled.
Suddenly, the stars were blotted. A cold wind blew. The sea churned. Medusa, startled out of her trance, lifted her face, tasting the wind with animal alertness. Had Poseidon spied them together on the rock and grown jealous? Sent a squall? Would it grow to the kind of killer storm that the sea god sent against those who offended him?
Quickly, she slid the boy off her lap. “Wait here,” she said, and dived off. She cut through the water toward the drifting boat, caught its line, and towed it back to the rock. She motioned to the boy, who climbed down into the boat.
“Go!” she cried. “You must not stay here—not now!”
He gazed at her sorrowfully. A hot gust of tenderness swept over her. But she knew she must not yield to it; the peril was too great.
“Go now!” she cried. “Go, little love. Sail away.”
“Must I?”
“Come tomorrow at sunset. Sail past the rock. If all is safe, I shall be singing. If I am silent, you must sail away.”
The youth raised his sail; the boat moved into blackness.
5
The Curse
The tidings that had so aroused the sea nymphs reached Athena’s mountaintop. Burning with envy, Athena whistled up her chariot, which was drawn by eight white arctic owls, as large as eagles. She flew off her mountain and skimmed the surface of the water, searching. Finally, she saw a patch of light fracturing, exploding into color. Making herself invisible, she hovered over Medusa’s rock, watching her wind the necklace in her hair. Athena knew that she was gazing upon the most gorgeous creature in the entire world, and that knowledge clawed her entrails, gouged the soft places behind her eyes, and seared every particle of her body with jealousy.
“Very proud of yourself, aren’t you,” snarled Athena. “Well, take a last look. I’m going to make you even uglier than your sisters.”
Medusa raised her comb and felt it snatched from her hand. She looked up, thinking a gull had seized it, but saw nothing. She stared then into the mirror of the sea, and her eyes grew stony with horror. A snake was coiled in her hair; it held her comb in its jaws. Shrieking, she reached up and grasped the snake, trying to pull it out of her hair, but its tail was rooted in her head; to pull it out she would have to rip away her scalp. And now the snake became two snakes, then three! Every lock of her hair was becoming a snake. They stood on their tails, weaving their coils, darting their tongues, hissing.
The sinking sun reddened the water. Medusa, staring at her reflection, saw the snakes writhing out of her head like flames. She could not bear the sight of herself. Red-hot pincers of grief were digging into her heart. But she did not know how to weep, for the tears of creatures that live underwater are lost in the sea. She heard herself howling. She lifted her face to the sky and howled like a wolf.
At that very moment, the fisher-lad she had saved was coming back to her. He yearned to be with her on the rock again and prayed that he would hear her voice, for she had said that if she were singing at sunset it would be safe for him to come. He heard her. He was so enamored of her voice that her wild cries of grief sounded like song.
She didn’t see him. Sailing toward her out of the flaming disk of the sun, he was only a silhouette. He dropped sail, wedged his bow in a cleft of rock, and climbed up beside her.
“Medusa!” he cried.
And she, seeing him appear out of nowhere in the midst of her torment, hearing the love in his voice, lost all sense of everything except his return. She sprang up, lifted him to her, and tilted his face to kiss him. He stared at her, sinking into nightmare. Her beautiful, graceful head was crowned with snakes. They were her hair. Each one separately alive, they were the coiled shapes of evil. They were writhing, lunging, hissing. The horror entered him, freezing every response, petrifying every duct and fiber, damming the flow of blood.
Medusa felt him stiffen in her arms. His eyes grew rigid. The thread of vein at the base of his throat stopped pulsing. She was holding a stone boy. He slipped out of her arms, fell stiffly off the rock, and crashed into his moored boat, splintering it. Amid wrecked timbers, he sank out of sight.
Medusa stared into the purple-red water. She stood there watching as if carved of marble herself, motionless except for the snakes swaying on her head.
“I’m the ugliest sister now,” she cried to the wind, “the worst Gorgon there is. So horrible that anyone who looks upon me turns to stone. Yes-s-s … you came sailing back to me, little love. And saw a change so loathsome that your very heart froze. You’re a marble boy now, sleeping whitely, heavily, at the bottom of the sea. Your bones will turn to coral, and your eyes into black pearls, more precious than those of this necklace, which is the sea god’s accursed gift. As for me, I shall hide my ugliness where no one may ever set eyes upon it again. I shall swim to the end of the
Ocean Stream to the region beyond the North Wind, where it is neither land nor water but foul, icy swamp, unvisited by sun or moon, shunned by fish, and avoided by birds. There shall I abide forever and ever, knowing the full torment of immortality—unwilling to live, unable to die.”
Medusa threw her necklace away. But it never reached the water. The invisible Athena caught it in midair, whipped up her owls, and flew off toward her mountain, laughing triumphantly.
Swimming toward the lair of the North Wind, Medusa found bitter entertainment in turning sharks to stone. One day, however, a dolphin that had been her playmate spotted her. Before she could turn away he had become a stone dolphin and dropped to the bottom of the sea.
From then on, Medusa tried to avoid every living thing, but once, passing a headland, she entangled herself in a heavy net strung between two fishing boats and was hauled to the surface before she could break free. Shouting with joy at the weight of their catch, the fishermen pulled up the net and looked down on Medusa and the snakes that were her hair. They became statues, smiles carved upon their faces. They had died rejoicing.
After that, Medusa swam very fast and without rest. The exercise heated her blood, and, because she was still very young, she sometimes forgot the dreadful thing that had happened to her, and found herself filling with joy. Then she would feel the snakes tugging at her scalp, and remember what she had become. And grief revived was more agonizing than if it had never ceased.
6
Guests of the Tyrant
Polydectes, king of Seriphus, was famous for ferocity even among the cruel rulers of the Middle Sea basin. When enraged, he would kill anyone within reach. By the time he was thirty-seven he had run through three wives and had sent several children to join their mothers in Hades.
Now, he was considering a fourth wife. The target of his dangerous attentions was a beautiful young woman named Danae, who had come to Seriphus from a far place. Since her arrival she had wrapped herself in mystery, refusing to disclose her rank, her parentage, or the father of her son. Anyone looking at her, however, knew immediately that she had sprung from a line of conquerors, both male and female. In those days, women fought alongside their men when they didn’t have more important things to do.
Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two Page 11
