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There is no peace for a woman with ambition No love for a woman with a crown She loves too much she is lustful Her power is too strong she is ruthless She fights for vengeance she is mad Kings are brilliant mighty godlike Queens are deadly shameless accursed
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Clytemnestra dances for herself; Helen dances for others.
When men grow proud, they become too trusting.
“Ambition, courage, distrust. You will be queens soon enough, and that is what you will need if you want to outlive the men who’ll wish to be rid of you.”
“People have always challenged each other. The strongest rise and fall, the weaker come and go. But some keep standing.”
“I’m saying that it is hard to find a man who is really strong. Strong enough not to desire to be stronger than you.”
“Men who find solace only in other men are to be distrusted,” Castor told Clytemnestra and Helen one morning as they were watching Theseus and Pirithous fight in the gymnasium. “They don’t respect anyone else, let alone a woman.”
Tyndareus doesn’t join in with the laughter, but he does nothing to stop it.
“It is noble to be gentle, to save others from pain. But it is also dangerous. Sometimes you have to make life difficult for others before they make it impossible for you.”
“I’d rather die than submit to you.”
“Of course they are angry,” Phoebe replies. “They are men. They are used to getting what they want.”
“But it didn’t teach you to accept defeat and that to achieve what you want from the men around you, you must allow them to believe that they are in charge.” “If that is what a woman must do, I don’t want to be one.”
They say that you rule Mycenae, that you are growing strong in the palace, that you “maneuver like a man.” I find this last one fascinating—as if women couldn’t maneuver. I know many more maneuvering women than men.
Such is the fate of a woman, no matter how shining and brilliant she is, to be crushed like grain under a pestle.
“Gods do not care about us. They have other concerns. That is why you should never live in the shadow of their anger. It is men you must fear. It is men who will be angry with you if you rise too high, if you are too much loved. The stronger you are, the more they will try to take you down.”
As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her better. Let her be hated forever.
But even so, words can grow roots inside one’s heart. You can bury them, hoping they will wither and die, but roots keep finding something to latch on to.
