Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

by Natalie Haynes

By the twentieth century, Muses have had their creativity clipped away altogether. Poets, artists, and musicians still have muses, but the role is largely to be pretty and make a man creative.

There really is nothing like Greek myth for reminding us that the countryside is rarely the blissful idyll for young women that it is for young men and gods. More frequently it is the source of sexual threat and constant anxiety.

but as Euripides’s Medea famously declared: If her husband is happy in the marriage, a woman’s life is enviable. If not, it’s better to die.

The spume coalesces around the sperm (sometimes I write these sentences just to see if my editor still has a red pen),

And the unapologetic ambition of Artemis – even as a child, the woods and mountains aren’t enough for her; she wants the moon itself – is part of her nature too.

The romantic ideal of so many love songs, films, and novels is still one which is deeply questionable: the notion that persistence in the face of rejection is a signifier of profound love and not a disturbing refusal to hear the word no.

they’re of one mind, they take joy from one another, they embrace each other and soothe each other’s sore hearts, misery left their souls, they delight in one another.

It is worth pointing out that since 2001, roughly four times as many members of the US armed forces have died by suicide than in military operations.

I am often asked why Greek tragedy retains such a hold on us today, and I always give the same answer: because the unit of currency in tragedy is a human being.