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Chapter One
You say I'm Zeus's brainchild? You think that he alone gave me my birth, and made me wise?
Listen. I will tell you how it was:
A dark space enclosed me. The bigger I grew, the more its circular wall confined me.
Then came groans, and cries of pain, then thunderous blows crashed down.
Suddenly brightness flashed before my eyes.
"It's the light of day, my darling!" Metis spoke these words to me. Her name means "thought." She was, she is the wisest goddess. With her begins my story.
My father loved her long before he married Hera--and long after, too.
It was after Zeus had married that he got Metis with child.
"This child will be a daughter," the earth's most sacred oracle promised. "But, Zeus, be warned: If Metis bears you another child, that one will be a son. And that son will overthrow you, as you did your father."
True, Zeus had overthrown his father, Cronos, the Titan god-king who had ruled the world before.
Zeus wondered, What should I do? He found Metis so alluring that he could not trust himself to keep from fathering another child on her. Shall I banish her to some place far? ... I mustn't let her stay, yet I don't want to lose her....
There's only one way out ... or rather, in .... He took a deep, long breath. Then, with one tremendous gust, he blew out all the air from inside his chest and belly. Good, now there was room.
He dropped his jaw to his chin, opened his mouth wide, wide, grabbed hold of Metis--and swallowed her down into himself.
This is the secret that tellers of my story hide:
Metis was, and is, my mother. I, Athena, am the daughter she carried in her womb. They lie who say I sprang from Zeus alone.
Inside Zeus's belly, Metis gave me birth.
She touched her lips to my eyelids. "May vision fill your eyes." She touched her fingers to the sides of my head. "May thought bring understanding to your mind." She touched the tips of her fingers to mine. "May techne flow into your hands."
Thus she gave me vision, understanding, skill.
My mother's threefold gift grants me the power to envision new, astonishing devices; to understand how they must work; and to bring them into being.
As surely as Atlas holds up the sky, and Eos brings each day its dawn, I, Athena thanks to techne --invented all of these:
The trumpet, to blare forth triumphant deeds. The plow, to dig furrows in fields. The yoke, to harness oxen. The chariot, for driving into battle. The ship, to carry voyagers over the sea's stormy back.
The loom, and how to weave on it--or else we'd still be wearing the scratchy hides of animals for clothing.
Yes, and the bridle, for taming horses. And the chisel, with which I sculpted the first statue in the world ...
My mother Metis suckled me till I was strong, then helped me struggle upward, into Zeus's head.
There I grew, till Zeus came down to earth one day, to stroll along the pleasant bank of the river Triton. It was then his head began to throb. And he cried out for help.
Gods and goddesses rushed down from Mount Olympus. The smith god Hephaestus brought his hammer and beat on Zeus's head, blow upon blow.
The wall around me quaked and shook.
"Be calm," said my mother, reaching up from deep in Zeus's belly. "Fear nothing."
One last, loudest blow crashed down. A rift sprang open, letting daylight in.
My mother pushed hard on the soles of my feet, helping me to climb out, and said, "Go now. Live in the light forever."
"Mother, come with me!"
"I cannot. Zeus needs my presence inside him, to put wisdom in his mind."
She lifted me up. I squeezed myself through. At once, the rift closed over, and Zeus felt no more pain.
* * *
The story has it that I wore armor, brandished a spear--true. But some say I emerged full-grown--not so. I was a child.
I shouted with glee at the spaciousness and brightness all around.
"This is my newest daughter, sprung from my head," Zeus proclaimed.
The gods cheered loudly and congratulated him.
The goddesses cheered too, but not as loudly. And Hera, Zeus's wife, cheered not at all.
Zeus stood me on his shoulders. "See how her golden armor shines! Is my daughter not wonderful?"
"Yes, wonderful," they all exclaimed.
Hephaestus pointed a sooty finger at me. " I delivered her. Now, Zeus, pay me my midwife fee: Say you'll let me marry her as soon as she grows up."
I knew nothing of the world yet, only that I'd never want to marry. "No!" I cried out, very loud.
Zeus laughed. "Stand back, Hephaestus. You have my thanks; that's pay enough." Then he proclaimed his hopes and plans for me:
"Athena will be wise and strong. She'll fight beside many great heroes. She will lend them strength and cunning, help them slay voracious monsters.
"Athena will thrill to the clash and clangor of arms." He grasped my wrist in his huge hand, and guiding my spear, he jabbed and stabbed the air. "She will prevail in many a bloody campaign. Poets will sing of her victories for as long as time endures--"
"What shall I do in peacetime, Father?"
He wrinkled his brows as though angry that I'd interrupted, but then he grinned and said proudly, "You are bold, my Athena, you'll do noble deeds that will make the whole world glad...." He paused, perhaps to listen to ideas my mother, Metis, sent into his mind.
"I know a city," he continued. "It's in the heart of Attica, which is in the heart of sacred Greece--"
"You promised that city to me !" exclaimed a god with a dark blue, wavy beard, and seaweed in his hair. This was Poseidon. He brandished his three-pronged spear. "Zeus, don't you remember? You apportioned me that city in the heart of Greece, when you divided up the lands and places of the earth."
Zeus answered, "Yes, but that was before Athena was born."
"Just the same, is not your word law? And you said --"
"Well, now I say, you have a rival: Athena, my new daughter. Hear my will, Poseidon: You each shall do the city a service. Whoever does the greater service will be the city's champion." Zeus gave my hand a little squeeze to let me know he hoped it would be me. "Either way, the city will be famous, the foremost city of men."
This perplexed me, and I asked, "Won't women live there too, and children?"
"Yes, of course." Now Zeus grew impatient, swung me down, and spoke grandly on, not to , but about me, as though I were not there: "My new and glorious daughter will counsel me in all great matters. I'll share the power of my aegis with her. She will be second only to me. All you gods will hold her in highest esteem."
Feeling even more perplexed, I asked the goddesses, "Why just the gods? Won't you esteem me, too?"
They laughed at my questions. "How little she knows," said one.
"She has a lot to learn," another said.
"What do you mean?" A new emotion--anger--made my cheeks grow hot. "What have I said to make you laugh?"
They wouldn't answer.
Finally Themis--she's the goddess of politeness!--said rudely, "You're so ignorant! When Zeus says gods , it's just a way of speaking. He means us, too, that's understood."
"Well, I don't understand it. Isn't it discourteous to leave out mentioning us?"
"That's the way it is," Themis said, and shrugged.
I didn't like it. I went down to the riverbank and threw pebbles in the water.
Hera came and sat near me. I thought, since she was Zeus's wife, perhaps she wished she could have been my mother. In any case, she looked unhappy. Or maybe she was thirsty.
I scooped up sparkling river water. She drank it from my hands and took me on her lap.
We sat together, chatting. Then Zeus approached. He pulled me to my feet and said, "Athena, dear, of all my children, even those not born as yet, you will always be my favorite. I will always keep you by my side."
Yes, but by "always" he meant later, when I would be grown.
As sky king, with the whole world to rule, Zeus had no time to care for a small child. I thought perhaps he would ask Hera to care for me and be my foster mother. But she flashed him an angry look and stalked away.
"Is there a shepherd hereabouts?" he shouted, making himself heard far and wide. "Or a kindly goatherd or good farmwife who'll raise this child for me?"
No such person came.
But the river waters parted, revealing a brawny figure shaped like a man, with a fish's tail below. Beads of water sparkled in his green hair and wavy beard. He was Triton, the river's god.
He balanced himself on a rock, and the waters joined back together.
Then pearl-like bubbles as though of someone's breath appeared, and a pair of shining eyes, round and wide apart, looked up at me.... Or were those my own eyes, that the river and the light reflected back?
I looked down at the water again and saw only grasses drifting by.
"With just this one pleasant river to rule, I have not much to do," Triton said. "Great Zeus, I'll gladly raise your child for you."
"Thank you, gracious river god," my father answered.
I kept gazing at the water, wishing that the face would reappear.
When I looked up, I saw the air aglow with radiance as the gods and goddesses soared away, my father leading them back to their dwellings on high.
Triton unfastened the golden shin guards I had on. "Little Athena, be happy here with us," he said.
He took me into the water. He clapped his hands. At once the river girl whose eyes I'd seen rose up and stood before me.
"This is my daughter, Pallas. You'll be playfellows. Come." Triton led the way down to their home, built of spacious caverns deep in the riverbed.
He was the kindest foster father, as loving to me as to his own child. He taught us all the fishes' names; took us to visit wood nymphs in their tree homes on the banks; showed us how to blow on conch shells (which Pallas learned better than I). He warned us against riding the wild river horses, but did not scold us harshly when we rode them all the same.
As for Pallas, no one ever had a livelier, more congenial friend. Slender but sturdy, not with a fish tail but with legs like mine, she was curious, high-spirited, as brave as I, and brimming with ideas for bold adventures.
We raced on foot, on land, and on our backs or bellies in the river. We held underwater contests. I'd stay submerged until I sputtered and had to gasp for air. But Pallas could breathe in the water, so she always won.
We followed the river to the mountain where it was born as a silver waterfall. We scrambled to the top and came sliding, bouncing, somersaulting down.
One day we played that we were warrior chiefs. Our opposing armies had fought too long, at too great cost. It was time we ended the conflict ourselves by fighting hand to hand.
We made ferocious faces, shouted strident battle cries. Our fists shot out, hers first, about to strike.
Just then Zeus looked down. (He often did, he later told me, to see that all was well with me.) He thought we were in earnest. He feared that I'd be harmed and threw down his aegis to protect me.
It landed between us with a heavy thud. Pallas stumbled and failed to deliver her blow. But I delivered mine. I hit her square in the chest, so hard I felt her flesh tear, heard her bones break. In my zeal to win our battle, I forgot the one way we were not alike:
Pallas had a human mother, therefore was mortal and could die.
She lay crumpled at my feet.
I threw myself down beside her. I blew my breath into her mouth, in vain.
We goddesses don't, cannot, weep. Our sorrows, it is said, are quickly over. But mine remained. My whole being thirsted, so parched were my eyes for sorrow-easing tears. I wished for what could never be: to die, in order that my shade could join the shade of Pallas. I called on Hermes. He is the god who leads the dead down to the Underworld. I begged him, "Lead me there."
"It is forbidden. Be glad that you're immortal. Zeus awaits you on Olympus." Hermes held out his hand to me. "Come."
No, I was not ready.
I walked up and down in the shallows of the river, aimless, waiting for my grief to lift. A chunk of wood drifted toward me. I picked it up. I rubbed it smooth, polished it with soft leaves till the lines and tracings in it shone. The way they caught the light reminded me of sunshine glinting on tendrils of Pallas's hair. And this notion came to me: Can I turn the wood into her likeness?
So then I made the implement that I would need for carving: wooden handle, metal edge--a chisel, my first invention. I took a stone, used it as a cudgel to drive the chisel into the wood. And I carved and carved until I had the likeness of Pallas, limb for limb.
I hugged it to me, kissed it on the mouth, and swore, "Beloved friend, your name shall live forever."
And so it lives, for on that day I joined her name to mine: I am often called Pallas Athena.
I'd made the statue look as much like Pallas as I could. But in the act of sculpting, unknowingly I'd blended my own features in with hers. When I looked again, I saw a reminder of our friendship, of how close, how nearly one, we two had been.
I wanted Triton to have it.
But Triton said, "No statue can replace my child. You didn't mean to kill her. But leave me now. Farewell." And he wept so hard, his river overflowed.
Zeus sent his eagle for the statue. The great bird clutched it in his talons and with mighty wingbeats rose into the blue. For years and years I could not learn its whereabouts. My father would not speak of it.
He sent Hermes to the flooded riverbank for me.
Hermes led me up into the sky. This was my first experience of gliding over clouds, rising effortlessly higher--oh, the wondrousness of it!
Soon we reached the gods' and goddesses' bright realm atop the sunlit peaks of Mount Olympus. Zeus himself flung wide the gates. "Athena, welcome."
He led me in. I assumed my rightful place as prized and trusted daughter at his side. In time his hopes and plans for me came true:
I took part in his deliberations and I gave him counsel.
I thrilled to the clangor of weapons in wars. I fought alongside countless heroes. I'll tell you about three:
One was Cadmus. He set out to found the city of Thebes. When he got there, a dragon devoured his soldiers. Cadmus slew the dragon. But how was he to found a city all alone? "Pull out the dragon's teeth, and plant them," I advised. He looked puzzled, but obeyed. To his surprise, the teeth, turned into soldiers, leaped forth from the ground, and with their help he founded Thebes. Something else that Cadmus did was invent the alphabet. That, too, was my idea. I'm glad and proud I thought of it. For wouldn't it be tiresome if there were still no writing, and no reading?
Another of my heroes was Odysseus, king of Ithaca. I loved him best, because he had a supple mind and nimble wit. I inspired him to think up clever strategies. I shielded him from harm throughout the Trojan War and from many dangers on his long, hard voyage home.
A third was Perseus, who battled Medusa, as you soon shall hear....
First, though, what's heroic?
Being brave, you say?
Yes, but what is bravery?
Taking risks? Yes, I agree.
But what is bravest?
Risking your life. For that, you must be mortal. And heroes are.
That's why I love them. But not in Aphrodite's way, which ignites the senses and arouses craving. I'd never crave heroes for lovers, or indeed crave any lovers at all.
I guard against the lust the love goddess inspires. It was lust that made Hephaestus throw himself across my path as I headed for Zeus's council hall one morning. He clutched, he pinched and squeezed. I gave him one good push. He fell, crashed his head against a wall, and I was rid of him. But my body still remembers his hulking shape, his hungry groping hands. And I have no appetite for being grasped and mauled.
I want to stay a virgin and be like the city I champion: unassailable. When would-be invaders threaten, I defend it. The city's intactness and my own are one. And always I renew my pledge: No god or mortal man shall ever conquer me.
Of the monsters my heroes defeated, there was one whom I myself made monstrous: Medusa. She was a Gorgon, but unlike her repulsive sisters, she was very pretty and seductive, with long, luxuriant hair.
One day I visited a favorite temple of mine. The offerings of barley cakes and first fruits of the season had been pushed aside. Instead there lay Medusa consorting with her sea-god lover, none other than Poseidon, on my altar!
This outraged me so, I punished her at once: caused her tongue to swell into a bulbous lump; her teeth to grow jagged and crooked; her hair to turn into a mass of writhing serpents. I made her so chillingly hideous that whoever looked her in the face would turn to stone--but, in my haste, I failed to envision the consequence: I had made her invulnerable. She traveled the countryside wreaking destruction, rendering inanimate anyone who tried to stop her.
Finally along came Perseus, as fearless a hero as ever there was. " I'll stop Medusa," he vowed.
Hermes lent him winged sandals. The three Graiae, ancient, grizzled goddesses, lent him a cap that made him invisible.
But neither cap nor sandals would prevent his turning to stone when he looked at Medusa, as he would have to do in order to strike at her. How to get around this?
Perseus had no idea. (Fearless heroes aren't all brilliant.)
But I knew a way.
Hephaestus, sorry for his rude behavior, had forged me a strong, smooth shield, and had made it mirror-bright, as I had asked him to.
I came to Perseus in a dream. (When goddesses or gods appear undisguised to mortals in their waking life, it can happen that our splendor overwhelms their eyes, and they go blind, or else they die.) In the dream I told him, "When you do battle with Medusa, look only at her mirror image, reflected in this shield."
When he awoke, the shield lay beside him.
Then we flew--he, on Hermes' sandals; I, as a swallow--to the land of the Gorgons, at the northernmost end of the earth. We found Medusa in a forest, sleeping.
She lay with her back to us. The serpents sprouting from her head slept also. And stones stood everywhere about. Some were in the shapes of beasts, but most were human.
Perseus hovered close above her.
"Now!" I urged.
He drew his sickle.
Medusa woke to its curved blade a hair's breadth away from her throat. The serpents woke with her. They darted their wedge-shaped heads at Perseus's heels. But he winged his way up beyond reach.
Medusa stretched forward, hands around her throat to protect it from the sickle, and chanted in a voice like ice and iron, "Invisible one, look at me!"
Perseus remembered to look only at the shield, and wielding the sickle with lightning speed, slashed her in the foot, the thigh, the small of the back, ever higher.
"Now in the heart!" I cried in my own voice.
Medusa's hands flew to her breast. But I had instructed Perseus that "in the heart" would mean "Cut her head off!"
Her throat now bare, Perseus's sickle sliced it through. Serpents lashed forward, breathing their last, as Medusa's head dropped to the ground.
Blood gushed upward from her neck.
From this crimson fountain a marvelous creature took form: pure white, with gleaming mane and silver moon-shaped hooves--Pegasus, the winged horse, fathered by Poseidon on Medusa in my temple. His nostrils quivered. He breathed his first breath. His hooves pawed the air, then he spurted off into the clouds.
I willed myself after him and watched him gambol: He fluttered and bounced on air, then, with mighty wing beats, went spiraling up, swooped lower, and galloped from billow to billow.
I held out my arms, "Come, little foal!"
He looked at me with lustrous eyes the color of the sea. "I'm wild as the winds, and I want to go where I wish," his high, clear whinny said.
I coaxed him with soft, clucking sounds. He approached. Cautiously I reached out my hand. He did not draw back but let me stroke his cheek and smooth his mane. I felt a sweet contentment, as though Pallas were beside me, as though we two together delighted in his company.
A shout cut short my reverie. "Welcome, Pegasus, at last!" Apollo came striding through a cloud. He is the god of prophecy. He had long known that such a horse would be born. And he knew where Pegasus was needed.
"You must take him to Mount Helicon," Apollo said to me. Mount Helicon is home to the Muses, and Apollo is their leader.
"Why? Haven't I a right to keep the horse? After all, he was begotten on my altar when Poseidon and Medusa defiled my temple with their lewd embraces."
"Yes. But if you bring him to Mount Helicon before the sun goes down, he will do a wonder there. Athena, please." Apollo's golden eyes beseeched me. I could not refuse.
The sun already stood low. Helicon was far, and Pegasus not tamed.
We were near Olympus. I went and fetched the bridle I'd invented. I'd braided it together of three pliant, gold-embroidered strips of leather, not knowing then what horse would wear it.
Pegasus flung his head from side to side and snorted. But seeing that I was determined, he took the bit into his mouth and let me fit the leather parts around his head.
I mounted and rode, firmly holding the reins. Alpine peaks glowed rosy in the late light; the sun was beginning to sink below the edge of the sky when Helicon came into view.
"Quick, Pegasus, fly down!" I pressed my knees against his sides. I pulled on the left rein, hard, to steer him to a landing spot. He faltered.
I slid forward, clung tight to his neck. Then--clash!--his metal hoof struck stone.
Pegasus found his footing. I dismounted.
The nine Muses came running and greeted us. Urania hung a garland of fresh-picked flowers around the horse's neck.
"Look!" cried Calliope, pointing to the ground.
At my feet lay two round segments of the rock that Pegasus's silver hoof had broken. Water seeped up, slowly at first, then flowed freely from a spring as clear as dew.
Clio dipped her finger in, and spoke to it: "Be known as Hippocrene, the horse's spring, for Pegasus created you when his hoof struck the rock."
"Well named," Apollo said, appearing in the Muses' midst. "Let us taste how fresh the water is."
The Muses drank from it.
"Athena, you, too." Apollo bent down, filled his hand with water, and put it to my lips.
It tasted almost like the nectar, indescribably delicious, that we immortals drink.
Euterpe played her double flute. Thalia put on her comic mask. Melpomene, Erato, and Polymnia sang. Terpsichore led them all in a new dance.
I was never known for nimble feet or tuneful voice, but I joined in. Having sipped the water from the spring, I found that I could dance quite prettily, and sing on key, for once.
"Well done," Apollo said. "We thank you, Pegasus."
We thank him still, and always shall. For the water from the spring that Pegasus let flow inspires the Muses. And they in turn inspire poets, dance and music makers, all who add to beauty and enjoyment in the world.
Poseidon, just as Zeus had willed, became my rival over the Attic city in the heart of Greece. He hated me from far, far back.
And just like Pegasus, Poseidon, too, caused a spring to flow, though of a different sort....
Zeus had given Hades the Underworld, and Poseidon the sea to rule. But Poseidon was restless, not content to stay in his watery domain. He liked to roam about on land and wished the bottom of the sea were tillable, could yield good crops of grain.
One day he wandered through a rocky meadow where Demeter and I were playing. This was soon after I'd left Triton's river. I had not forgotten Pallas, and I never will. But Demeter's companionship--she was a girlish goddess then--gave me some ease from grieving.
Demeter leaned her face against a tree to give me time to hide. I ran and crouched behind a boulder.
"Here I come," she called, and started seeking.
Copyright © 1999 Doris Orgel. All rights reserved.
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