Penelope Of Ithaca Quotes

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.

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.

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

...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.

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.

However the gods move in our lives, good sister, let us not imagine they move for any whims save their own.

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

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

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.

Penelope’s face is luminous. “My father used to tease me and say that I would marry some forgotten king on a forgotten island.” Clytemnestra nudges her. “Well, you are.” Penelope laughs. “Who knows about Ithaca? Who will remember Odysseus?” “Probably no one. The clever ones are always forgotten.

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.

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.

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

Gifts from a trickster? That doesn’t sound like a sound basis for an economy.

For many, the performance of thinking oftentimes exceeds the actual energy being expended on the thought itself.

I’ll say this for Athena – she is not afraid to simply stand and think.

There are those who are beginning to realise that honour has nothing over a still-beating heart.

But you are a queen.” “Hera be praised, am I? I hadn’t noticed.

I know.” Voice soft as the butterfly wing, loose as cobweb, Penelope stares into a future, and is so tired of looking.

No songs are sung of a life lived quietly, of a man and a woman growing old in contentment.

Beauty is a whim, it changes as easily as the tide. I was once considered the most beautiful, until familiarity bred tedium.

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

Telemachus has all sorts of funny ideas about parental wisdom. My old man ate me as soon as I was born; our fathers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

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

Every little twerp is descended from Heracles these days, it’s practically a requirement for entry to polite society

They do not burn any lanterns on their decks, but skim across the ocean like tears down a mirror.

The boy hadn’t earned such a clean death, but neither, I suppose, had he lived long enough to deserve the one that came for him.

Let us speak briefly of Ithaca. It is a thoroughly backwards, wretched place.

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.

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.

I know very little about killing,” she replies with a shrug. “That is the men’s business. But it is the women who come to dress and wail at the corpses when the killing is done, no?

Ah,” mutters Penelope. “I see. Medon, forgive me. I find myself overcome with womanly weakness and must retire.” “I have always admired the exquisite timing of your weaknesses, my lady.

Friendship will not stop the battle. Friendship does not unite the kingdom. Friendship is as much subject to the great sweep of politics, to the richness of the harvest and the motion of the skies, as any fluttering butterfly. Mortals create friendship to give themselves the illusion of safety and a sense of self-worth. We are gods. We should be above such trivialities.

But one thing is certain: those daughters of Leda are a plague on their menfolk. Did Odysseus worry that he would receive a similar welcome here on Ithaca? That I, the devout Penelope, would treat him as Clytemnestra had treated her husband? The idea is preposterous. My name is a byword for patience and loyalty, no matter which bard sings it. But that is my Odysseus. And your Odysseus. Always finding things out the hard way.

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.

Athena loves it when a hunky warrior clad in bronze kneels before her inner sanctum, and when a man violated a woman upon her altar, it was the woman whose hair she turned to snakes in retribution for this sacrilege. So much for the wisdom of Athena.

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.

It also occurs to Telemachus that Elektra is, in a strange way, the most sexual woman he has ever seen, and yet oddly, and at the same time, about as attractive as a nosebleed. He is a young man who finds this dichotomy very confusing, though perhaps in time he will learn.

She understands, of course, that this is society and how society works. She is smart; she has learnt these lessons. What she doesn’t understand is why, being the way it is, society is so insufferably stupid, run by flaming idiots. On that point again, we are inclined to agree.

But Eos held her hand and Ourania her feet when Penelope screamed and Telemachus was born, and when a woman has spent that much time staring into another woman’s dilated vagina, you can either shut that other woman out for ever and pretend it never happened, or you can get over yourself and admit to a bond that runs deeper than blood.

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.

For… myself?” Penelope’s voice is a slap across the face, a rise of stifled fury. “You think I let a hundred slobbering men dribble over my body and my land every single night for myself? You think I tolerate their endless slander, their relentless talk and insult, demeaning myself every day, for myself? I do it for my people, and I do it for my son!

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 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 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.

PART III THE TRIUMPH OF ODYSSEUS CHAPTER XXIX. Athena Advises Telemachos XXX. Telemachos Astonishes the Wooers XXXI. Penelope's Web XXXII. The Journey of Telemachos XXXIII. Telemachos in Pylos XXXIV. Telemachos in Sparta XXXV. Menelaos Relates His Adventures XXXVI. The Conspiracy of the Suitors XXXVII. Telemachos Returns to Ithaca XXXVIII. Telemachos and the Swineherd XXXIX. Telemachos Recognizes Odysseus XL. Telemachos Returns to the Palace XLI. Odysseus is Recognized by His Dog XLII. Odysseus Comes, a Beggar, to His Own House XLIII. Conversation of Odysseus and Penelope XLIV. Eurycleia Recognizes Odysseus XLV. Penelope's Dream XLVI. Athena Encourages Odysseus XLVII. The Last Banquet of the Suitors XLVIII. Odysseus Bends the Bow XLIX. Death of the Suitors L. Eurycleia Announces the Return of Odysseus to Penelope LI. Odysseus Visits His Father Vocabulary and Notes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

In the clouded night, I squint down from the heavens and I think I see… … yes, look again, and there she is. Athena sits and hoots like an absolute bloody idiot, an owl upon the blackened branch of an ancient withered tree. Hoot bloody hoot she goes, blinking reflective darkness, as if I wouldn’t see her, as if I can’t always see through her pitiful disguises.

Clytemnestra has mighty eyebrows, most suited for arching. “Maybe the little duck isn’t so stupid after all.

But for tonight, to avoid bloodshed I am giving you a chance – call your men off. You have nothing to gain here. Your plan will not work, and if you continue down this path, I will destroy you.

Even a man who knows how to look good thinking is sometimes caught looking stupid.

Penelope, when she first came to Ithaca, learnt a lot about what it was to be a queen from Anticlea. She learnt that when the south wind is dull and heavy, you do not sweat; nor when the north howls in the harshest of winters must you shiver. The storm may bend your back, but only you can straighten it again.

The gods are foolish and blind – they think the greatest poems are the ones of death in battle and the ravishing of queens. But the stories that will live for ever are of the lost ones, the fearful ones, who through bitter hardship and despair find hope, find strength – find their way home.

How strange it seems that to make men of these boys, Athena first makes them children, driving from their minds all thoughts of mortality, all notion of blood as they run, run, run for Laertes’ farm.

Donning his tatty, faded grey cloak, he nods once and, with the dignity of the centaur, proudly runs away.

But perhaps one day, he will remember that she was there, that she wept for him, that her love surpasses all others. Perhaps one day yet to come.

How do you hide an army?” “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.

Artemis’s lips thin. I wait. If there is one thing the huntress dislikes more than not getting her share of a kill, it is weddings.

I don’t like talking. But I do like Athena looking stupid.

I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I was praying.” She was not praying.

Elektra gives a scream, an animal howl of fury and rage, a little too loud, a little too dramatic for my taste, but it gets the job done.

Nevertheless, that war and blood would likely have been mine, and that of my child.” “Ah yes, Telemachus. He’s a mess, isn’t he?

There is a woman still living inside Penelope full of hope and fear and dreams and despair. But she has been a queen far longer than she was ever anything else, and the queens of Greece are not given many choices that are their own.

Antinous did not learn many lessons from his father, save this: if you make enough people believe you are important, one day it may actually be true.

this is entirely, absolutely the stupidity of man without the interference of gods. It is fascinating in its detail and pettiness.

At the walls of Troy, the Achaeans followed Agamemnon, but the Myrmidons followed only Achilles. Didn’t that turn out well?

This is how Agamemnon, greatest of all the Greeks, mightiest king in east and west, conqueror of Troy, lord of Mycenae, died. “Fucking whore, fucking whore, come here, you little bitch, you slut, you… come here! When I catch you, I’ll…

Ithaca is nothing if not sufficient. It’s practically the island’s motto.

It would be kind now for Elektra to speak her mind, to lay it out fully. But she is not kind. She has sworn never to be kind ever again.

It occurs to Penelope that she does not know if she likes her son. She loves him, of course, and will stand before spears to save his life. But does she like him? She is not sure there is enough of the man who will be Telemachus for her to know.

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

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.

I sit in a corner, and find the whole affair fantastically boring. Where is Eris, goddess of discord, when I need her? Where are the fights, the schemes, the knives in the back? By my name, I miss Medea’s filthy jokes, and that thing Thalia can do with a bendy stick.

And where should I be, goddess of war? Up on Olympus wheedling with Zeus to send your Odysseus a favourable wind? Or are you done debasing yourself for a man?

You have a soft spot for needy young men, don’t you?

It seems that there is a great deal that has been left unsaid, and that unsaid things, in her experience, often grow upon a silent tongue into a deluge of words that should have been screamed.

Stepdaughter, one day you will learn how to give me thanks.

And so the moon rises and the moon sets, and though things are much the same, some things are most definitely different.

Penelope raises an eyebrow. She practised arching it most magnificently for hours in front of the dusty bronze mirror in an attempt to mimic her cousin Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, who really nailed imperial hauteur in a way that evaded the Ithacan queen. It is one of very few of Clytemnestra’s magnificent qualities that Penelope successfully emulates.

Once upon a time, there were three queens in Greece. One was chaste and pure, one a temptress whore, one a murderous hag. That is the how the poets sing it.

That is how there came to be three queens in Greece, voices uttering prayers that no poet-prince, husband-king nor king-above will ever hear.

Now Isis – that’s a woman with a bit of pluck, that’s someone who gets things done, she and I once played tavli for the soul of a manticore and both cheated so much it was practically fair!

I am a stranger to this place. I am unfamiliar with your customs. In my land when a man seeks a woman…” “In your land, I am sure men do not seek other men’s wives, no?

Do I… seek a husband? That is… such a curious thought. My husband is Odysseus. No body has been found. Therefore he lives. I am married to him and that vow is unbreakable. I do not, therefore, seek a husband.

He looks… my age.” It is not seemly for a queen to discuss her age, but when there are so few men on the island to compare to, sometimes even a lady has to reference herself.

Men think that Autonoe is the optimist of the two, but they are mistaken – she is simply more willing to laugh at the darkness. No one laughs now.

It is not dignified for a queen to climb jagged rocks up to a smuggler’s cave. Athena would tut; Aphrodite would exclaim, “Her poor nails!” and feign a swoon. Perhaps only Artemis, goddess of the hunt, would give a single short, sharp nod of approval.

Is this Illyrians?” asks Anaitis, looking up towards the crimson sky beyond the jaws of stone as if Artemis might send a falcon as a sign to answer her enquiry. Artemis will not. She is far too busy bathing naked in a dappled forest brook to give a damn about such things.

two maids move Penelope’s loom into place, so that the suitors may watch her work upon it in her shadowed corner. She is weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. When it is finished, then she will marry a man – so she says.

Argos likes you, friend.” 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.

The women, of course, are the impious ones – not the men. My husband Zeus has made this point very clear, and mortals do learn from their gods.

Come, see with me the unfolding of all things; know the world as a goddess might.

I half close my eyes at the prophecy now unfolding, but see, see – we must not be afraid, you and I, to see the future in its full.

Kenamon, you gorgeous little mortal, if I could squeeze your beautiful face; if the touch of my fingers wasn’t instant death to your naked flesh, I’d be all over you, yes I would.

Damn damn damn triple-cursed Titan-chewing damnation!

The future hangs upon the edge of a blade. Here at least I have a certain subtle knack, and so I lay a hand upon Telemachus’s shoulder and murmur, Don’t be a sardine-brained pillock, boy.

One of the disadvantages of a well-appointed palace of white marble and gold trim is that your words may echo mightily through its halls.

Telemachus turns, and though he is forced to walk away from the direction he actually wanted to go in, it is the only direction he can walk to make a point of turning his back on his mother as he strides down the hall. Later, once she’s gone, he sneaks back the way he’s come, so as not to ruin the effect.

So instead they became beasts, performing sacrilege upon the living and the dead, for their fathers had taught them no other way to be a man than to howl at the crimson sun.

Andraemon wouldn’t do that. He is a good man.” “Do you believe that?” “I do.” She believes. She does not. The hearts of mortals are fickle things, fluttering their way to death with the irregular beat of the butterfly’s wings.

It seems to Anaitis that the world is full of people trying their best, and that rarely means anything. Yet perhaps trying their best is all she can really ask.

You come into my home and sully my honour in front of my guests? By all the gods, if I were a man I would strike you down, whoever you were. It is only my womanly modesty that restrains me.

Her eyes run past Elektra to Penelope, and again, a smile, sadder now, another nod. “Little duck,” she breathes. “Learnt to be a queen after all.

On Ithaca that’s what you do – you just get on.

Heroism, if you believe the bards, is an innate quality gifted at birth, and the idea that prior to your manly adventures there is a fifteen-year training period replete with pulled muscles and using the baby bow just doesn’t fit the valiant milieu.

This is it, boy, I whisper in his ear. This is your chance to not be an absolute bloody moron.

They say Menelaus washes in a golden bath.” “Menelaus has never taken a bath in his life.

Odysseus is a terrible sailor. I do not see any sign his son has inherited a better sense of direction.

Pertinent?” Penelope’s eyelashes are not like those of her cousin, Helen. She is not skilled in fluttering them, but has seen others try, so gives it her best shot now. It is markedly unsuccessful.

The old men stay behind, studying their hands, before finally Medon, who always had a decent head for these things, glares at his assembled colleagues and snaps: “I’ve had sneezes with more guts than you,” and follows Penelope out.

Teodora looks at the woman with dark grey eyes who stands in the door, and does not know that she looks at a queen. Semele rises, which is a bit of a clue, but it seems too late for Teodora to stand now without being an idiot, so like a different kind of idiot she remains where she’s sitting.

Follow me through the halls of the palace of Odysseus; follow to hear the stories that the men-poets of the greedy kings do not tell.

These are the men of note. We regard them as one might regard a rash – hopeful that it does not spread further – and then move on.

This is not Penelope's heart breaking. She has woven so much rope around her heart, tied it and tied it and tied it shut, that though it shatters, yet it cannot fall apart. Not yet. This is not the sound of her world falling apart, for every morning she stands upon Ithaca's soil and says to herself, I am here, and I will do what is done.

At her side stands Semele, the daughter of mothers, the mother of daughters, an old farmer who dares to define herself by something other than a man.

There is also a scar down her back that should have killed her, but Apollo remembered he was a god of medicine that day, which is unusual for the prancing little squirt.

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.

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 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?

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.

Some people can nonchalantly lean against a narrow wall, casual as a cat, as though to say – oh, is it me you were looking for, lucky you? Medon cannot. He is graceful as a fart,

The island of Ithaca guards the watery mouth of Greece like an old cracked tooth,

They lie without knowing what they do, 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.

Every little twerp is descended from Heracles these days, it’s practically a requirement for entry to polite society.

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

Elektra touches the base of her neck with two fingers. It is so thin he can see each ridge of her windpipe like the steps of a ladder down to the bridge of her collarbone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Martin gave him an ecstatic welcome—as he always did. Ulf had read that dogs believed when their owners left them behind in the house they would never see them again. Dog memory, however long it might be when it involved smells, and the remembrance of smells, was not all that strong on events, and a dog might well forget that his owner usually returned after going out. So the poor dog would go through the agony of abandonment—seemingly permanent—every single day, sometimes more than once a day. And when the owner returned, the dog’s joy would be immense, as great, in its way, as the joy of Penelope on the return of Odysseus. Or, for that matter, of the hero’s dog when his master turned up once again in Ithaca, although poor Argos, lying on his dungheap, was too old to do much more than raise his ears and wag his tail, much as he would have liked to turn somersaults, bark with delight, and confer slobbering canine kisses.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We must rule out all merely sentimental reasons. Calypso’s island is more beautiful than Ithaca is. Calypso is more beautiful than is Odysseus’ wife, Penelope. Odysseus has been told that when he reaches Ithaca, he will have to deal with more than a hundred suitors for Penelope, who have descended upon his estate like an invading army. They have devoured his goods and turned his home into a banquet hall and brothel. He has no idea what kind of young man his son, Telemachus, has become. He cannot depend upon the loyalty of any single person; even his wife, who he supposes will have been true to him, is not utterly beyond suspicion. He cannot depend upon the citizens of Ithaca. Many of them will wish that he had starved on an unknown shore or been cut down in battle. The goddess Athena has told him that he will return and will succeed, but she is a crafty liar, as he himself is, and in any case, if you trust the gods, you will deserve what you get. Odysseus wants to go home because it is his home. It is as simple as that.

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. That is what she has come to understand of patience, though no one else seems to comprehend the heat of it in her chest.

The world does not tumble away from you when you have spent so much time learning to walk upon it.

I realise that what makes him king amongst the gods is less the thunderbolt he wields, and simply that he believes himself set upon high.

Only grief sits now where there should have been the memory of the woman he loved, and grief is unacceptable. Sorrow unmans him. He will never look upon it, never wash it away with cool balm, nor name it, nor call it his own, and so instead inwards, inwards, inwards it curls like the weedy root that becomes a tree within the unwatched soil of his heart. So goes the spirit of a sometime-was-good man.

Here, Andraemon paces. A little to the left. A little to the right. Zeus used to pace in such a manner when contemplating matters of great import. He found that the action of movement, of striding this way and that, made it seem less dumb than when he simply stood, jaw drifting down, eyes up, lost in thought. 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.

Run, run, my beauties, run, my huntresses, run, my women of the night! - Artemis

if you make enough people believe you are important, one day it may actually be true.

Leaneira will not weep. Later- perhaps tomorrow, while dangling her fingers through the cold water of the running stream, or in the evening, when the smell of vines hits her senses like a lover's lips - she will weep uncontrollably, run howling to a place of darkness. But not now. Not now.

When I undo a man, he will not know to curse my name on his way to Hades.

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.