by James Welsh
Many years before the crowning of Athena, long before the first Olympic Games or the wellspring of democracy in Athens or even the decade of devastation at Troy, there was change of another kind. King Zeus and his beautiful Queen Hera stood at the edge of Mount Olympus, breathing in the world beneath them. The two of them had been husband and wife for only a short time. Each had promised their hand to the other in marriage, but only when they had defeated their parents, the Titans, and had overthrown them. In the ashes of that final battle, the two had joined together as one living, breathing being. You could not talk to one without talking to the other.
But the glue that held them was weak, and all things wither in time’s winter. Sometimes, Zeus had left – what he called trips, but what Hera called abandonment – for days at a time, weeks even. He would claim that he was hunting, but whenever Hera looked down at the world, she couldn’t see him anywhere in the wilderness, where he should have been, armed with his bow-and-arrow. Hera never mentioned this to him, but she was working towards that moment.
“Where are you going this time?” Hera asked quietly one morning. Zeus had risen before the sun even, anxious to get down to the mortal world before the day got too hot.
Zeus pointed a fat finger down at the lands east of Greece. “Our sister Demeter has seen leopards in that land. I want to hunt one down.”
“Why would she tell you that?”
Hera was confused – Demeter had loved the wilderness too much to let anyone destroy it, even if the hunter was her own brother.
Zeus smiled slightly. “I told her I wanted to see how beautiful a leopard looks in its home. And, of course she doesn’t know this, but I want to see how beautiful a leopard looks in our home too, when we use its skin as a blanket.”
He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I will be back in a few days. Don’t worry about me.”
He always said those same words before leaving for one of his adventures. But the consistency did not give Hera any comfort. If anything, his reassurances were mocking, as if Zeus expected her not to know any better.
As she watched Zeus walk away to prepare his bow and his chariot, she felt the beginnings of her now-usual rage. She wondered why he could not give her a straight answer. What was Zeus up to? She wondered if it was because Zeus didn’t want a child – she always saw the unusual fear creep in his eyes when she mentioned it. She wondered if it was because she seemed old to him now, even though she was never old, not ever. She wondered if it was because he was seeing someone else. She didn’t want to think any of those things, because the longer you think of something, the more true it becomes. And she still wanted to love Zeus, even after the doubts began to grow. But Zeus was gone for so many long days, and Hera had no one to love but herself. Yet, when Zeus returned, like he always did, she felt even lonelier. They say that since the world is round, when someone leaves you, that means they’re only walking towards you. But Hera didn’t find that joy in Zeus’ leaving – if anything, she wished that he had simply vanished, never to return. Then, she would at least have an answer from him. But if Hera had known the truth behind the trips, if she had squeezed the answer out of his lungs, then she would have wished she had never asked.
When Zeus told her that he was hunting in the forest, he was telling part of the truth. Zeus was in the forest, yes, but he wasn’t hunting leopards – he was hunting for answers. His long trips were spent at the feet of the Fates who knew everyone’s future, begging those witches for help, as much as he feared them. All of this because they once made the mistake of telling him too much – for Zeus, knowing too much of his future was like knowing too little. Even if the Fates had broken down and revealed everything, Zeus would have needed more. Every answer just became another question.
But what Zeus discovered isn’t important to us, at least not right now. No, what was important was Hera, and what she wanted to know. She wanted to know what it was like to give birth. She wanted to know what it was like to cradle a child, its heartbeat pressed against her heartbeat. She wanted to have a legacy, as immortal as she was. All of this was a mother’s curiosity.
