Elektra

by Jennifer Saint

People only ever spoke of her dazzling radiance, sometimes moved to poetry or song in praise of it. No one ever mentioned that she was thoughtful or that she was kind.

Menelaus and Agamemnon were sons of Atreus, whose brother, Thyestes, had murdered him for the throne and cast them out.

I truly had the gift of prophecy, breathed into my mouth by Apollo himself. But no one would ever believe another word I said.

I was used to being misheard and misunderstood. I had been a timid child and an awkward young woman, always striving to make my voice clear and brave. I was no stranger to struggling with my words, feeling them die in my throat when people looked at me.

Such was the power of Apollo: he could shatter my existence from beginning to end.

Such a man speaks poetry in place of facts and thinks he tells a higher truth when all he spins is fantasy.

If he had said it was Athena who advised him thus, perhaps it would have been credible. But everyone knew that Aphrodite had no care for peace or harmony, and it was not love between nations that excited her.

My husband sailed soon to slaughter enemies in the pursuit of power and glory, but I had been slaying monsters for years, smoothing the path at my children’s feet so that they could step confidently into the future.

We would lay down our lives for our children, and every time we faced birth, we stood on the banks of that great river that separated the living from the dead. A massed army of women, facing that perilous passage with no armor to protect us, only our own strength and hope that we would prevail.

A long time later, I would hear the bards sing of my daughter’s death, along with all the other stories they told of Troy. Often, they would say that at the very moment Agamemnon raised the knife, Artemis took pity on Iphigenia and swapped her for a deer. In this version of the story, my daughter lives on as a priestess and favorite of the goddess on an island somewhere. Crucially, in this telling, Agamemnon did nothing more than slaughter a simple animal. It’s poetic and pretty, and so very clean.

Somehow, women always came after a death.

The last things I could do for her. The things I did for my child so she could rest, even while my body felt like it would split apart, that no one could hold this much pain inside them and not shatter.

Let him come back and die at the hands of his bitterest enemy. Let him come back so that I can watch him suffer. And let me make it slow.

What a savage

I preserved his kingdom, not to present to him upon his return, but to keep as my own.

But the man you think of—he who wore Achilles’ armor—his name was Patroklos.” He glanced at me. “Achilles will want my blood for it, that much I know. Patroklos cursed me as he died, warned me of what will come.”

My son

“He swore to slit their throats at Patroklos’ funeral pyre. But he would not burn his beloved’s body until he had sated his vengeance and, for this, only the death of Hector would suffice.”

Thats so gay

His arrogance gives him a blind confidence that everything will be exactly as he expects.

He exults in her degradation; sees it as fitting for the child of his enemy. But she is my child too.