Ithaca Claire North Quotes

Three daughters of Sparta became three queens in Greece, and I love them, power in their voices and fire in their eyes, even Penelope, even the one who smiles and says she does it for her husband, I love her, I love her. But no one ever said the gods did not have favourites, and it is Clytemnestra I love best, my queen above all, the one who would be free.

Athena watches from the shore. Artemis prowls in the forest. And in the belly of the earth, the Furies are stirring.

Beware that child who would spill his mother's blood. Though the gods themselves may turn away, the Furies will not.

Any woman who gives merely all she has to give, and then has no more left in her, we condemn to Tartarus's burning fields, and simply say: it is for the children.

...for it is the poet’s art to make every ear that hears the ancient songs think they have been sung for them alone, the old made new.

Kenamon takes his time to consider this. Penelope does not mind. The silence of men is a novel experience, and she is prepared to thoroughly enjoy it.

There was such hatred in Clytemnestra's eyes, which never left his face - it was an intoxicant unlike any the tyrant had seen before. "I'll have that.' He thought. ''I'll break that.

Dawn should be bloody after a battle, yet it so rarely is. Too many wars are fought beneath her shimmering gaze for her to turn crimson for any but the most spectacular of affairs.

Are you conspiring, little duck?" "When one has neither gold, soldiers, name nor honour, what else is a woman to do?

Scared is how you see the spear coming for your eye. Scared is how you choose where and when to strike.

Penthesilea, for example, fought against Achilles himself…” “And died!” “Against Achilles – everyone died against Achilles, it was his predominant characteristic.

Cassandra did not resist. After the first year of being pulled by the hair into Agamemnon's bed, hand at her throat, tongue wet, she had learned that screaming changed nothing. By the time Clytemnestra killed her, seven years later, Cassandra had given up on speech altogether, knowing no one would believe her, and no one would care. Thus died the prophetess of Troy, plaything of gods and men.

If you dare tell me he’s Odysseus’s son as if that’s some sacred charm, I will scream,” she answers, clear as the ringing of the hollow drum. “I will wail and rend my hair, the whole thing. So help me, Hera, I will do it.” Sweetheart, I whisper, I’m here for it. Many is the time my husband has returned from his frolics and I’ve turned on the waterworks, rent my garments, flung myself upon the ground and sworn that I shall die, scratched at my eyes, drawn blood from my celestial skin and beaten my fists against his chest. It doesn’t change his behaviour long-term, but at least I get to embarrass him some tiny, tiny fraction of the way he humiliates, demeans, dishonours and diswomans me. So you do the wailing; I’ll bring the olives.

This is the world we live in. We are not heroes. We do not choose to be great; we have no power over our destinies. The scraps of freedom that we have are to pick between two poisons, to make the least bad decision we can, knowing that there is no outcome that will not leave us bruised, bloody on the floor.

I catch her as she tumbles, lest her fall be ungraceful, a messy rending of gut and bone. I ease her to the ground lightly, put her head in my lap, stroke her brow, whisper sweet sounds without form to her. My queen, greatest of all queens in Greece, stares up at the sky and does not see her brothers in it...All eyes of gods and men depart, save I.

The assembly dissolves at this point into furious squabbling, accusation and insult. I glance quickly into the nearby shadows, into the hot places of the earth beneath their feet, for Eris, lady of discord, wondering if she has stolen into this little assembly – but no, this is entirely, absolutely the stupidity of man without the interference of gods. It is fascinating in its detail and pettiness.

...I give you again the bowing of Agamemnon's men as they fell before your might and your wisdom , begged your indulgence, grovelled for their sins. You did not punish them for the joy of punishment; you were not a tyrant, you were not cruel. You took away the illusions that they had wrapped themselves in, showed them that their strength was arrogance, their intellect was foolery. You were the queen of honest revelation and level-headed merit, and the great men of Mycenae loathed for you it, loathed you for striking down their pretensions, and I loved you, I love you, I love you...

Oh queen of the gods.' She breathes. 'You were mighty once. Before the poems were rewritten at Zeus's command, before the past was all...made up human things...I remember. You rode with Tabiti and Inanna of the east and the world quivered beneath you. The mortals looked up from their caves with hands painted in ochre and blood and called 'Mother, Mother, Mother.' You tore down the sky upon your enemies, and bade the seas part for the ones you loved. But you trusted Zeus. You swore your brother would never betray you. And look at you now, skulking from the eye of heaven lest he see the footprints you leave upon the earth.

What do you know of men?" Laeneria wants to cry. "What do you know of the things men do, when their stories are broken?

...there is a hint of it in me still, a hint of the fire that only comes from the prayers of the bleeding women who beg that their child does not die.

There was such hatred in Clytemnestra's eyes, which never left his face - it was an intoxicant unlike any the tyrant had seen before. "I'll have that,' he thought. 'I'll break that.

They say she hatched from an egg, and there is something in the swanny length of her neck, the creamy pallor of her skin, the flash of her amber eyes as her gaze flashes this way and that, to mark her as a daughter of Leda.

...on Ithaca, Clytemnestra sleeps, my truest queen, my beautiful one, my lady of the blade, my love.

The silence of men is a novel experience, and she is prepared to thoroughly enjoy it.

To be patient is to feel burning rage, impotent fury, to rage and rock against the injustice of the world and yet – and yet – to hold one’s tongue.

Medon,” Penelope tuts, “what a foolish question. You hide them in precisely the same way you hide your success as a merchant, your skill with agriculture, your wisdom at politics and your innate cutting wit. You hide them as women.

To be patient is to feel burning rage, impotent fury, to rage and rock against the injustice of the world and yet - and yet- to hold one's tongue.

The storm may bend your back, but only you can straighten it again.

He wants to say : it was nothing like I imagined, and I am not a hero. Not a hero. Not a hero. Not a hero.

Be with me, I cry, be with me, be my light, my vengeance, my prayer, my queens!

For some silence is weakness; for a great queen it is a weapon. You are most great, most great, my love, my most great above them all.

Oh - did you forget the women were there too, as this learned assemblage ? So too will the poets, when this song is sung.

Once upon a time, there were three queens in Greece. One was chaste and pure, one a temptress whore, one a murderous hag.

Our living poets are far more dangerous, for they know how to make a monster from a man long after he is dead.

Lady of the secrets ; lady of intrigue, whispering in the shadows where men go.

Love is vengeance, of course. Even the poets understand that.

Teach my women to fight.

It's just not fashionable to have to work at being a hero.

The poets do not sing of women.

Take it from a queen - the greatest power we woman can own is that we take in secret.

I was a queen of women once, before my husband bound me with chains and made me a queen of wives.

Later, as he walks by the sea at midnight, he will think of all the witty things he should have said, the clever little remarks and charming epithets that did not in fact spring to mind when they would have been most needful.

But no one went clamouring for Clytemnestra’s hand while her husband was away – don’t you think that strange?” “Perhaps because that hand was so far up a poet’s arse it’s a wonder he could speak without the fingers showing.” “That is frankly disgusting.

Telemachus calls everyone in the hall “friend”. He finds that saying the names of the suitors themselves makes him want to retch with disgust and shame, so instead he has spent some time cultivating a word that he can speak with acid but the men hear with flowers.

This creature of sea and pearl, seeing Icarius, prince of Sparta and brother to the king, bathing one day by the mouth of the river, exclaimed, “Hey, prince, get a load of this!” or words to that effect, and he, with very little forethought, absolutely did.

She wears a rough tunic of faded hide and trousers that stop just above her knees in a style that would be scandalous if anyone dared attach scandal to one who carries so many bladed things about her person.

Yet for all that they are a hideous crowd, my daughter-in-law also has a taste, it must be said, for women of the fairer sort, hair fabulously washed and braided, oil rubbed into their extremely bare and muscled flesh.

I look down and there is the goddess of the hunt herself, reclining backwards upon the surface of the pool while next to her a maid… let us say she is combing Artemis’s hair, for decency’s sake.

She is patient. She reminds herself of this all the time. To be patient is to feel burning, impotent fury, to rage and rock against the world and yet - and yet - to hold one's tongue. This is what she has come to understand of patience, though no one else seems to comprehend the heat of it in her chest.

A leader should look like their thought is a vibrant, potent thing, consuming all their body, all their might. For many, the performance of thinking oftentimes exceeds the actual energy being expended on the thought itself.

She made the only decision a queen could. Of the three queens of Greece, Helen betrayed her throne by choosing instead to love as a woman might. Clytemnestra, who chose to be a woman, a mother, a lover and a queen, burnt the brightest and could not live long being so many things at once, too beautiful and great for this earth. But Penelope - Penelope is the one who sacrifices all, to be a queen and nothing more. This too, though it wounds me, though I wish it were any other way...this too I can love.

Well then. I suppose we're stuck being family.' 'What an unpleasant notion,' she replies, without rancour or regret. 'Quite.' 'A bond that is, if anything, even more irrational than friendship.' 'I couldn't agree more.' 'And yet somehow we give it sanctity.' 'Indeed.

I have sometimes wondered what upon what it is truly to be wise. Naturally I am the wisest of all the gods, my intellect vastly superior to yours; yet the world turns despite my counsel. Every immortal and mortal may say 'yes, let us be wise' and yet turn their faces away when the best course is set before them. It is...troubling. How is that we can know the most intelligent way to act, yet choose not to do it?

I have sometimes wondered upon what it is truly to be wise. Naturally I am the wisest of all the gods, my intellect vastly superior to yours; yet the world turns despite my counsel. Every immortal and mortal may say 'yes, let us be wise' and yet turn their faces away when the best course is set before them. It is...troubling. How is it that we can know the most intelligent way to act, yet choose not to do it?

Gifts from a Trickster? That doesn't sound like a sound basis for an economy.