Great Goddesses Read online

who challenges us all

  on our small human notions

  of what is truly good and if

  what is good can also then be evil.

  Fleet-footed, silver-tongued prince

  who saw the universe in a day,

  what do you keep searching for

  which does not let you stay?

  The Life of Every Party

  The problem is preferring crimson to gold.

  He is like his mother. Trusting.

  Trusting is best left to mortals,

  not to Gods, never to Gods.

  Hermes tries to teach him this.

  Apollo tells him how he is twice born.

  But no one tells him of the madness

  because they fear their own sanity gone.

  Something about this boy-God

  invokes unspeakable dark fears

  as much as it invokes the need

  for heady wine and happy tears.

  So they send him away, let him travel the earth

  until he becomes hero everywhere he goes.

  When they summon him back

  his half-human is youthful,

  yet his Godhood seems

  so bone-chillingly old.

  Mortals tell stories better than Gods do,

  and the truth has turned him cold.

  As he watches his family

  dissolve into madness and fold,

  he smiles and thinks to himself:

  The answer is preferring crimson to gold.

  Conversations Between Hermes and Dionysus

  ‘Do you miss it?’

  ‘Miss where?’

  ‘Olympus. Being a God.’

  ‘Sometimes. When the moon is full enough to look like a silver coin. When my feet ache like a mortal’s after running for a time too short. You?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘You were always the most human one of us.’

  Hermes is a God of both. Every bad choice, and clever one. Mischief made, and goodness done. Of thieves and all of those nights fuelled by rum and wit and laughter, and those same midnights trailed in mistakes but unforgettable memories.

  Dionysus is the God of Wine, of frenzy, of night after night of hedonistic parties. Being with him is a slow, passion-filled descent into madness. The danger of becoming a slave to every one of your own vices and not recognising what you have done until it is too late.

  Hedonism and wit go well together.

  As far as Gods will ever go, it is no surprise that they are both brothers and best friends.

  ‘Are you lonely?’

  ‘Never. Are you?’

  ‘Without her? Always.’

  Ariadne was everything he did not merit but everything he needed. Graceful till the end, dancing joy into his life, the only one who knew how to bring the truest of smiles to his face, not even his maenads knew how to do that. She was not beautiful but she was grounded and she carried the look of someone who had known sorrow and thus knew kindness. There was something so human about her. Something that called to the crimson in his blood that mixed with the ichor.

  When she was killed, he did everything a God shouldn’t. He reacted with the rage of a man. He shouted curses at his own father, he ripped open a hole in the ground, descended into the underworld, fought Thanatos, almost wrestled Hades to the ground and demanded her back. He was no Orpheus. He had no lyre, no singing voice, but he had something more dangerous, more terrifying: the promise of a madness so profound that even Hades would lose control of his kingdom.

  Many had tried before him, but it took a God with mortal blood to bring the chthonic deities to their knees, and Hermes, who was the only Olympian with free passage into the underworld, had howled with laughter at the sight of the usually gentle-faced Dionysus hold the entire kingdom of the dead hostage over the fate of his wife.

  ‘Is there anyone you once loved?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You are smiling.’

  ‘I can finally see why they call you the God of Lies.’

  Aphrodite.

  Daeira.

  Peitho. Peitho. Peitho.

  Even now he wondered where she was. She made him uncomfortable, tested him, saw him for what he was. She was constantly slipping through his fingers like sand, she had no love for his capriciousness nor worship of his Olympian heritage. She treated him as an equal. It was infuriating to his arrogance, and on more than one occasion he thought he had got the better of her, but she was always one step ahead of him. Their love was a constant sparring contest, riddled in puzzles and mazes and good debates. Always an adventure.

  Of course, he married her. Who else could he ever marry?

  And, of course, she left him.

  He had expected nothing less. He was not the kind to settle down and neither was she.

  ‘One day, you will tire of the constant running.’

  ‘Perhaps. But that day is not today. And today the wine is flowing, the night is warm, the moon is full and we are Gods again.’

  4. A Mortal Interlude

  Persephone, grant me the foresight to know when I must let go my old life to start anew.

  Artemis, grant me the strength of your spine when you helped deliver Apollo, your own twin.

  Athena, grant me the solidarity in your sinews for which you were born in all of your armour.

  Aphrodite, grant me the kind of heart that always follows my passions true.

  Amphitrite, grant me the wish to never fall out of love with the sea or the glisten of its waters.

  Demeter, grant me the love I need to nurture and to foster.

  Hestia, grant me warmth, so that I can aid those in pain, show them how to find their way home.

  And Hera, grant me your fury, so I can remind my enemies I am not the weakness they perceive, I am the oncoming storm, I am war.

  ‘Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand than night and day are one.’

  —Heraclitus, 35, Fragments

  Monster Mine

  I’ve been interviewing

  monsters lately.

  The sirens inform me

  that they were just

  doing their jobs.

  And the Hydra tells me

  she still doesn’t know

  what she did wrong.

  The Stymphalian birds

  said they only wanted

  to protect where they belonged.

  It is a worrying thought

  that the monsters may actually

  have been heroically fighting

  to protect what was theirs

  from invaders and

  against the odds.

  That we may need monsters.

  What else will ever help us

  make sense of the Gods?

  Asterion

  Tell no one how a sister crept through night no longer sacred, across an island once loved, now cursed by Poseidon. Tell no one how under a palace built by a King, there lived a bull-headed boy who only wanted his mother. That the bellows were cries, his horns made to be adorned with marigold garlands his sister created, yet instead around his neck he wore cold cruel chains. Do not tell anyone how they lashed him and broke him until everything gentle in him was gone. A soft-hearted sister was no match in the end for a King’s revenge, as she watched the teenage star-named brother disappear and instead in his place stood the Minotaur. Take this secret to the grave, Ariadne, sweet sister, tell no one of the love in his chest you thought would free him from his destiny. Kings and Gods need monsters to descend into madness so they can kill them to be worshiped and adored.

  Athena to Medusa

  I’ll make you a trade, your beauty for stone,

  Your sea-beloved tresses for v
enom-filled snakes,

  your innocent doe eyes for frigid gaze.

  The sea is in the habit of ravishing

  what does not belong to him,

  taking without consideration.

  But, sweet girl, I promise you,

  I will not allow this to be your ruin.

  You are sacred, one of my own.

  And no cruel chaos will devour you again,

  choose terror over maiden,

  relinquish your human.

  And I will turn you into a Goddess

  in your own right, a deity of monsters,

  a myth that will scare men for all the years

  and their seasons.

  Echidna to Typhon

  You are a loud desecration.

  A thing built to destroy all that is sacred.

  Mother Earth’s most fearsome weapon,

  created to bring the Olympians to their knees.

  Ten thousand years you waged battles against them,

  and still you brought home no glory.

  I remember you then. Fire-eyed and viper smile,

  lava dripping from your teeth, did they ask you,

  Typhon, what you wanted? Did they ask you

  what you needed your purpose to be?

  Loyal son and savage beast, a paradox in

  the same body. You met me here,

  in the innermost sanctum of hell.

  Like you, I too was punished for being created

  hideous, a being of fear that was a wholly

  necessary thing, Yet no one wanted to admit

  me a necessity. Just like no one wanted to admit

  your allegiance to your family. Your loyalty

  to me is the most treasured thing I love

  about you. This dichotomy of being a beast

  who can love his wife in such an unbeastlike way

  and treasure and raise his children too.

  Scylla

  Sweet-mouthed, silver-skinned,

  and the sea’s lullabies in your smile,

  you never meant to be a siren,

  you didn’t try to catch Poseidon’s eye.

  Nymphs are trinkets in the hands of Gods,

  toys from a celestial nursery,

  meant to be played with and forgotten.

  At least this is the case for those who are lucky.

  You, however, were too pretty for your own good

  so instead you kept his attention.

  What happens when a God stays too long

  with something that should be a trifling affection?

  In his hurry to hide you from his God-wife,

  you ended up a botched experiment.

  You were supposed to turn into cliffs;

  instead he took your limbs and gave you serpents,

  four dogs from your waist, and a hunger

  that was apocalyptic devastation.

  A man made you a deep sea monster,

  so you flung yourself into the ocean

  and attacked ship after ship of men,

  making each one your victim.

  At least you had Charybdis,

  a friend with the same afflictions,

  and together you became

  the rock and the hard place,

  the devil and the deep blue sea,

  a fable about choices

  Gods and monsters,

  the ugly truth about

  the beings we worship

  and claim to know so well.

  Gorgon (A Letter to the Patriarchy)

  If a woman does not fit the shape

  of what you think a woman should,

  if a woman is not obedient,

  does not see things the way you do,

  if a woman is too independent

  to need anything more than herself,

  does she automatically become

  a threat filled with such terror to you?

  Did her tresses turn into red snakes

  because she dared to refuse you?

  Did the dulcet voice become unbearable cries

  because you couldn’t stand to hear her laugh?

  Did her gaze turn you to stone

  because she was so completely unafraid?

  Perhaps the truth about Gorgons

  is they are just women,

  women who do not bend to the world

  or fit into the narrow mould you want them too.

  Maybe that’s why you demonised them,

  turned them into monsters,

  because you think monsters are easier

  to understand than women who say no to you.

  Lamia to Scylla

  What is the punishment for catching the eye of a God?

  A wreckage of a human life, a destiny repeated,

  a spell of madness, and every ivory bone defeated.

  Once a queen of Libya, once a nymph fair,

  mortal daughter and granddaughter of Gods,

  who knew how close our fates would fare.

  One of us would murder her own children,

  in a fit of madness I cannot remember.

  The other would spurn the advances of a God

  who was marked to be loved by another.

  One of us was cast into insomnia and grief.

  And the other was turned into a sea fiend

  by a Goddess scorned who took no pity.

  At least I was gifted my monstrous fate

  by the God who loved me to stop all the mockery.

  He handed me fangs as a weapon, the power

  to terrify anything that ever turned on me.

  We are battle-born now, daughter, you to the sea

  and I serpent-like snake through this land.

  They say I devour children, and that I am a whore,

  but they speak in hushed whispers and no one is laughing any more.

  The Erinyes: Vengeance-skinned Fury

  You do not know sacred until you lose your purpose.

  Then sacred becomes anything that reminds you

  of what you once called home. Even if home is

  the inner sanctum of hell itself. You were

  rough-skinned girls, wing-backed and vengeance born,

  they couldn’t define you so they ran from you.

  Daughters of Ouranos’s blood and rage, hungry things

  that could detect the sin of the darkest hearts.

  You are a thing so elemental, even Zeus was afraid.

  One day, you would come after him, set him ablaze,

  and even though it was tempting, and what he did

  to those girls made the scream bubble in your chest,

  you knew one day he would finish, his reign would end.

  So now the Gods are dead and nothing holds you back,

  you stare down at this planet full of monstrous men

  escaping punishment, spread your ancient wings,

  crick your necks and get yourself ready for a new hunt.

  It is time to craft sacred again, and this time,

  you will do it with the blood of men who hurt women

  and children and show absolutely no remorse for their acts.

  5. A Mortal Interlude: To the Poets

  I know why you did it.

  Turned your own wounds

  into the stories of Gods

  and heroes; it’s easier to picture

  the pain that way, turn it sweet,

  so strangers and even loved ones

  who hear you do not realise

  that when you say, this is the way

  Zeus betrayed Hera, you are talking

  about how your first love betrayed you


  and each of Hercules’s twelve labours

  is penance you paid for hurting people.

  The truth is too painful to admit.

  It is digging bodies from a ground

  so unhallowed you hesitate

  to call it memory. It’s better to touch it

  through a veneer of sacred stories.

  Name is Achilles. Call it Helen.

  Christen it Megara. Or Patroclus.

  As long as it makes you feel

  holy, less human, less sullied.

  At least, it cannot harm you that way.

  The Mortals

  ‘Take courage, my heart: you have been through worse than this.’

  —Homer, The Odyssey 20:18

  Defy a God

  Do it.

  Do it for every girl

  and boy who fell

  prey to a Zeus.

  Or a Poseidon.

  Or was called ‘wreckage’

  instead of ‘human’.

  Face him,

  face him and tell him

  how you are still mighty,

  turn the full stops

  in his heroic tales

  into commas where

  they tell your story.

  Remind him

  Remind him

  how you are still valid,

  still majestic

  despite his best attempts

  at your ruin.

  Danaë, Mother of Perseus

  There is a wounding here. A winding, a weathering, my story has been twisted into something it has not. A litany of half-truths follow me wherever I go. She is the daughter of a feckless king who tossed her and her newborn in a box into the sea. This is the truth. She was Zeus’s lover. This is false. He made her with child as golden rain. This is true. She worshipped him and swore she would never love another. This is false. She was chosen by the Storm Bringer. This is true. She did not love the child he gave her. This is false. She loved a fisherman. This is true. She was the whore who tempted his king brother. This is false. She bore a son who would murder her father. This is true. She was glad for his death and danced when she heard of the murder. This is false.