Ariadne

by Jennifer Saint

Mean while to Athens your swift Ship does run; There tell the wondring Crowd what you have done. How the mix’d Prodigy you did subdue, The Beast and Man, how with one stroke you slew. Describe the Labyrinth, and how, taught by me, You scap’d from all those perplext Mazes free. —ARIADNE’S LETTER TO THESEUS, OVID’S HEROIDES

Gods might enjoy mortal skill in hunting or music or weaving, but they were always alert to hubris—and woe betide a human whose skills came close to those of the divine.

What I did not know was that I had hit upon a truth of womanhood: however blameless a life we led, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.

No longer was my world one of brave heroes; I was learning all too swiftly the women’s pain that throbbed unspoken through the tales of their feats.

The stories of Perseus did not allow for a Medusa with a story of her own.

I would be Medusa, if it came to it, I resolved. If the gods held me accountable one day for the sins of someone else, if they came for me to punish a man’s actions, I would not hide away like Pasiphae. I would wear that coronet of snakes, and the world would shrink from me instead.

Asterion. A distant light in an infinity of darkness. A raging fire if you came too close. A guide that would lead my family on the path to immortality. A divine vengeance upon us all. I did not know then what he would become. But my mother held him and nursed him and named him, and he knew us both. He was not yet the Minotaur. He was just a baby. He was my brother.

The cold green of his eyes. Like the shock of the chill waters when the seafloor drops away unexpectedly beneath your feet and you realize that you have swum out far beyond your depth.

Why mortals bloomed like flowers and crumbled to nothing. Why their absence left a gnawing ache, a hollow void that could never be filled. And how everything they once were, that spark within them, could be extinguished so completely yet the world did not collapse under the weight of so much pain and grief.”

I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness, and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze.”

I would not let a man who knew the value of nothing make me doubt the value of myself.

“You do not understand what being a god means,” he said, at length. “It means you will have an eternity after we are gone. Perhaps you should think of that,” I said softly. His head snapped up toward me. “I think of nothing else!” He stood, looking too tall for the small space, all of a sudden a caged creature, restless and prowling its confines. “Being a god and loving mortals means nothing more than watching them die. I know that all too well. Every time I see my children learn a new skill, acquire a new word, take another step away from us, I see their shadows drifting in Hades’ halls years from now, beyond my reach. You as well—one day nothing but smoke and ashes.” The passion in his voice subsided, but his words remained just as cruel. “Can you blame me for thinking it better to garner the love of a thousand mortals instead, to hold the adoration of a city instead of one consort’s frail, mortal flesh?” I turned my face away from him. I would not let him see the tears in my eyes. “You have always known this,” I reminded him. “You told me once that one lifetime of human love was worth the loss.” “I was a fool,” he said.

I had fallen in love with his vulnerability all those years ago. I had thought it made him different from all other men and gods alike. But it was his misery that made me so uneasy now. Because if I had learned anything, I had learned enough to know that a god in pain is dangerous.

I float in the inky blackness. A tiny dot of light from where you stand, but bright as a flame. I flare into life as Helios leads his chariot down below the horizon, the glimmering jewel in the center of the crown. My thoughts are slow and ponderous now, rumbling in the deep heart of eternity, but I see the whole of life beneath me.

Up here, drifting in the infinite dark, I hear their prayers: the women of Naxos, of Crete, of Athens and Argos and every far-flung corner of the world. They call to me when the throes are upon them, when they tussle with the greatest struggle of humankind, when they summon every ounce of resolve and determination that they possess to bring another light into the universe. They call to me to guide their babies to safety, warm and damp in their arms. And here, in the dark bowl of the night sky, I hear them. I turn my light toward them and I bathe them in its unquenchable glow, gathering them all to share our inexhaustible strength together.