Hekuba Remembers

I was young once, but now I am old. I was a queen once, but now I am a slave… but my life as a slave is not so bad. I am a slave of Helen, Queen of Sparta. I don’t know why she is called Helen of Troy. She was born in Sparta. She is the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, so she was and is again Queen of Sparta. The only time she spent in Troy was the ten years when she was bewitched by Aphrodite. The reason she is kind to me now is that I was one of the only ones who was kind to her while she was in Troy bewitched and with my son.

Why am I writing my recollections of those days? I have heard Homer, who is a great poet, recite his first epic, the Iliad, four times, and his more recent epic, the Odyssey, twice. These are great poems, but they simply have changed and left out far too much material for them to go uncorrected. I have told Homer the truths he has omitted, so he knows about them, but the parts of the tale that deal with women who were not mere passive objects of men’s need for power seem not to interest him. He is, after all, a man, but both the background before the war and the story of my daughter, Jolia, need to be told. Have you not wondered why there is no tale of the homecoming of the Mighty Ajax? There is a reason for this. Have you thought vile thoughts of Clytemnestra? You were wrong. Helen’s half-sister was justified in everything she did. I will tell you about that, too. We were friends, and I will speak on her behalf.

Homer believes in beginning his story in the middle. I don’t. A story should begin at the beginning so you know what is going on, where it came from, and why it wound up where it did.

First and foremost, all the heroes of his tale knew each other well. The small area of the eastern inland sea was easily traversed, and every few years this or that royal family would host the others for several weeks in the spring. I had been to Sparta, to Athens, to Mycenae, even to the island of Ithaca where I spent many happy hours chatting with my good friend, Anticlea, the mother of Odysseus. I miss her dearly. The Greeks all had been to Troy. Priam and I were good hosts, and they liked visiting us when it was our turn.

And I need to say a few words about Odysseus. I knew him from when he was a small child. He was like no other child I ever met. He was not just brilliant. He could figure out problems like no one else, and he was driven to learn anything he did not understand. Among the travelers to Greece were several traders from the land northeast of Egypt. These were Jews who brought with them a strange game that was far more complex than anything we had. They called it chess. All the pieces moved differently from each other, and they hopped about their board every which way. Odysseus was 14 when he saw them playing it, and he immediately began to study it. The traders seemed to be amused that this outsider was interested, and they explained to him how it worked. He grasped the concepts immediately and began competing with them at it. Of course, since he was a beginner, they beat him badly, but he went home, and spent an entire summer walking around the board and playing against himself. When he next met them, he beat them all.

They told him there was a great champion in their land who could beat him easily. He told them to bring him to Greece, and he would play this champion. They laughed and said the champion was a woman, and she only would travel to Greece if it was worth her while. Odysseus said he would play a tournament against her and post 100 pieces of gold, but she must post 100 pieces of gold which would be his if she lost. The traders agreed, and a year later they returned with Rebecca, their great champion who had beaten all the men in their land.

The rules of their tournaments were simple. They would play twenty-one games. Whoever won eleven games first was the victor. Each game began an hour after sunrise, and it would continue until it was over. There were breaks when a player could answer nature, take a drink of water, or eat a bit of food, but otherwise they were to sit at the table until that game was done. The next game was to be played two days later. In the first game Odysseus found himself confounded by some of her moves, and he lost quickly and badly, but he understood what she had done.

The second game lasted long into the night, and he lost again, but only marginally. By the third game he had an understanding of the very elaborate subtleties of the game, and although this game again ran well into the night, this time he won. She had gotten overconfident that she would sail away with his gold, and now she knew she was in a serious competition. She lost two more games more quickly, and managed to salvage a victory in number six, but from there on it was all Odysseus. She was beaten in only fourteen games. She muttered something in her own language at the end.

A few days later Odysseus asked her very politely as is our custom among young people if she would consider lying with him. He said that not only was she very intelligent, she was very beautiful, and he would like to dine with her, chat, get to know her, and if they liked each other, they could lie with each other. To Odysseus surprise, she said that among her people, young, unmarried people were required to be chaste, and that lying with each other before marriage was considered forbidden by their one and only god. Odysseus asked her how they could judge wisely whom to marry if they had had no close contact with their future mate, and Rebecca told him that she had no choice in whom she would marry. Her parents would pick her husband for her. She said their god ordained this. Odysseus told me this, and, like him, I was perplexed at this foolishness.

I tell you this part of the story so you can get better insight into why Homer gave Odysseus the adjective polymachinos, many crafted. Although he gave all the other heroes adjectives like “fleet” for Achilles or “mighty” for Ajax, he gave a much different kind of adjective to Odysseus. Some have said it means “wily” or “tricky’ or “shrewd,” and it means all of these, but it means so much more. Odysseus was a great and mighty warrior, brave, too, but his strong point was his mind. It just was sharper than that of anyone else among us, and he always looked for ways to stretch the rules or even go completely around the rules.

Our young people all chewed the roots of the atrimus plant which made it so that there was no issue when they would lie with each other. When they were older, at least seventeen, but usually when they were around twenty, they would choose a mate, marry, stop chewing the atrimus roots, and begin to have their families.

The story begins one morning when Priam and I were in Sparta with our son, Paris, who was twelve at the time. It was morning, and I entered his room and found him pleasuring himself. I apologized for the intrusion, but I asked him why he was doing this when so many of the young women would have been happy to share pleasures with such a handsome young fellow of royal birth. He replied that he had no desire for them. He could think only of young Helen who was sixteen at the time, and already seemed to have chosen Menelaus for her future husband. I told him that he really must direct his energies elsewhere because Helen was beyond his range of possibilities, and he replied that he could think only of her. I could not imagine that this was other than a childish crush. That it would lead to our destruction was incomprehensible.  I said only, “Finish yourself. Take your little nap, and come to breakfast.” Of course, this moment later came to haunt me.

Like everyone else, I was aware that Helen already was the most beautiful woman in the world. Men desired her wherever she went. Like most of our young people, she had shared pleasures with several young fellows, and Priam once said to me, “Sixty years from now when one of these chaps is old and on his death bed, the last thought that crosses his mind before he passes on to the next life will be the hour when he held in his hands those most perfect breasts that stood straight out from Helen’s chest and ended in nipples which puffed out in perfect tips.”

But Helen was far more than just beautiful. She was delightfully and vibrantly alive. She was a joy to be with. She made whoever was in her company feel they were the center of her caring attention, they mattered deeply to her, and this was not a pretense. She really cared about the thoughts of the people in her company. And she was brilliant. She read and could discuss the great philosophers with those with that interest. She had skills as a painter and sculptor that were on a very high level, and she could discuss the meaning of the great dramas. Lastly, she had a wonderful sense of humor. She could tell a joke as well as any of the great comedians. As you can see, I knew her well and liked her a lot.

Now let me introduce my daughter, Jolia, the treasure of my life. Yes, she was my daughter, and I loved her as a mother is supposed to love a daughter, but she simply was extraordinary. She was beautiful, but we were a beautiful people. We all were only a few generations removed from the gods. As you well know, Helen was the daughter of a god. What I mean about my beloved Jolia is that she was filled with goodness. She cared deeply about other people, a trait some among us had not at all and few had to the degree she did. From when she was quite small, she kept company with her grandparents on both sides, and she did everything she could to help them live lives of comfortable old age. She waited on them, sat with them, listened to them, ran little errands for them, and generally made their lives blessed. I looked forward to the time when Priam and I might be old and blessed with her caring for us.

Unlike most of our young people she chose not to lie with several young men. She picked one when she was twelve, and kept company only with him. She had other friends, of course, and she joined in all the little excursions that young royals did, picnics, parties, and the like, but when it came to pleasures, there was only Aristines. He was not of royal blood. His parents were successful grain merchants, and when Jolia picked him, Priam and I invited them to the palace and got to know them. When it was clear that Jolia was firm in her choice, we made clear to them that if their son married our daughter, he would not be able to grow up and take over their business. We would have to raise him to the nobility, give him a title, and he would have to become a warrior in service to the army of the city.

Both they and Aristines agreed that this was necessary, and they purchased for him all the accoutrements of a warrior including a chariot and horses. We asked Hector to take charge of Aristines’ training, and as the next few years passed, Aristines progressed quickly in the martial abilities which were appropriate for the son-in-law of the royal house. Although this was a time of peace, he took his responsibilities seriously and Hector reported to us that he had become a significant asset to the army of the city. Priam and I also were pleased that he brought great joy to the life of our beloved daughter.

It is now time for me to mention Ajax. I first encountered him when he was five years old. The best word I can think of to describe him is brat. He was large for his age and attempted to dominate the other children, both royals and servants. He was given to hitting them to get his way, and since he already was quite strong, he inflicted nasty bruises on all the children around him. He also spoke very disrespectfully to the adults. The simple fact was that his parents, Telamon and Periboea, were negligent to say the least. They never discipline him, and they objected vigorously whenever anyone else did. This led to their not being invited to many gatherings, but since they were members of the nobility, they could not be avoided completely.

Anticlea told me that when he was seven, he had pushed Cholia, the little sister of Achilles, so that she fell and skinned her knee and elbow. Achilles was also seven and already was bad tempered. He confronted Ajax who stood a head taller than him, and unlike the other children, Achilles refused to be cowed. To Ajax surprise, Achilles flew at him and began striking him with very substantial blows for a child. Ajax realized he had to fight seriously and began pummeling Achilles. Again, to Ajax surprise, Achilles seemed to be immune to pain. This was very unlike the other children around them, and it was not long before Achilles had Ajax down on the ground. He stomped on him several times, kicked him in the side, and said, “Swear to me you will never strike my sister again, or I will end your miserable life this very instant.” Ajax never had faced fury like this before, and he realized that his life actually was in danger. He backed off, pretended to apologize, swore that he never again would assault Cholia, and Achilles simply said, “Don’t forget this instant. I won’t.” He then turned and walked off. From that day forward Ajax avoided Achilles.

This was the first evidence of how Achilles was protected by the magic worked by his mother who had dipped him in the River Styx while holding him by his heel. It was only later that we came to understand that the only part of him that was vulnerable to attack was that heel by which she had held him so it never had been in contact with the water.

There was another example of Ajax’ bad behavior and its repercussions. When he was twelve, he was sitting on a bench by a patio of Agamemnon’s palace. Four year old Orestes slipped and knocked over Ajax’ cup. Orestes who had been trained to be polite, bowed to apologize, but suddenly Ajax struck him quite soundly thinking they were alone. A second later Agamemnon, who had been watching his son from a palace window, was standing above him. Agamemnon already was well established as the leader of a united Greece due to the support of his brother Menelaus, and he looked at this young man who just had senselessly struck his child and said, “If you ever strike my son again, I will slay you where you stand. He is a small child, not some fool who bumped into you in a tavern.”

Ajax realized that his life was in grave danger from a great warrior, and again he apologized as best as he could. He was learning the hard way that there were people whom he had to be very careful not to anger, people whom he could not cow by his size.

One insight I have had about him is that there are people who grow very large, are very strong but somewhat ungainly, and who are not very smart. Ajax was one of those people.

Matters with Ajax only grew worse when he reached puberty. Word spread among the young girls that Ajax was a giant in another way, too. His male member was nothing short of huge. They saw him as a sort of freak, but they wanted to experience this oddity, so they each in turn flirted with him, but none of them were interested in him because he was a dolt. Each took her turn with him, and they all discussed what the experience with him had been like. He also lay with many servant and slave girls who had no choice in the matter. They could not say no. I even heard that a number of married women chose to lie with him but each only once. Apparently, this situation suited him because he had no desire to get to know a woman. Women only were to satisfy his carnal desires which were quite strong.

It is into this situation that my precious Jolia inadvertently stumbled when she was fifteen and we were visiting in Sparta. He asked her, “Do you want to find out if what they say about me is true?” Jolia was amazed that he was so direct and impolite, but she only replied, “I have chosen the man I will marry, and I do not choose to lie with another man.”

Ajax never had experienced rejection before. He had no social skills. He had no idea what to do next, but he did know he was angry with this woman who was the first to say no to him. He began following her around making impolite comments about what pleasures she was missing. He even began threatening to take her by force. Jolia reported these affronts to me, and I reported them to Priam. Priam was the essence of tact and diplomacy, but this required a response. He went to Menelaus who was our host, and he described what had happened. Menelaus remembered Ajax’ history of bad behavior, and he went to him and told him that Priam and his family were guests in his house as was Ajax. He made clear that he was expected to show civility to the other guests. Menelaus recognized that Ajax was developing into a great warrior whose skills in battle might someday be of real value to Greece, and Menelaus did not wish to anger him, but he had to be firm in demanding propriety. Ajax, dense as he was, realized that it was necessary for him to restrain himself, something at which he was not very experienced or adept. This resulted in his developing both hatred of and lust for Jolia.

It was at this time that Zeus chose to have a great party on Mt. Olympus. He invited all the gods and goddesses, all of them except Eris who was known as the Goddess of Discord. No one liked to have her around because she always was stirring up animosity between the gods. “Hermes, did you hear what Apollo said about you yesterday?” and if Hermes had said nothing of the sort, Eris would make up something.

She showed up anyway with a golden apple on which was inscribed, “For the Fairest.” If Zeus had been as wise as he is powerful, he would have summoned Hephaestus, given him the apple, and told him to cast it into the volcano which was his forge, but he did not, and the three leading goddesses began squabbling over the apple just as Eris had intended. Zeus thought this was a humorous example of feminine bitchiness, and watched as they became increasingly angry. Eventually they came to him and asked him to decide who merited the apple. Zeus recognized that there was nothing but a bad outcome for himself if he decided this conflict, and he remembered that my son, Paris, had made a very wise decision in a contest regarding a cow. He summoned my son, told him the circumstances, and told him he knew he could settle this better than anyone else. This appeal to my son’s vanity worked. He took up the task.

There standing before him were the three goddesses stark naked and divinely beautiful, just the wrong place for a twenty-year-old young man. He had no choice but to look at them and examine them for flaws. Of course, there were none. They were goddesses. They all appeared to be twenty-five-year-old women in the prime of life.

Immediately Hera decided that bribery was the way to victory over her fellow goddesses and bragging rights on Olympus with the gold apple on the shelf in her apartments. Hera thought about what a young man might want, and she said, “If you pick me, I will give you power.” Paris knew that he was the son of a king, and that his older brother, Hector, did not wish to be king, only battle commander of the Trojan army because the day-to-day nuts and bolts of being king did not appeal to him, so he knew that the path to power lay in the death of his father. Paris loved his father, and he knew that he need only be patient and power would come to him. He wisely understood the situation. Then Athena saw him hesitate at accepting power, and she said, “If you pick me, I will give you wisdom.”

What young man does not believe he is filled to the brim with wisdom? Athena lost, too. Then Aphrodite played the trump card. “If you pick me, I will give you the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.” Paris knew exactly who this meant. It meant the fulfillment of almost a decade of longing for what he had been told repeatedly he could not have. Unlike his wise analysis of Hera’s offer where he realized if he chose power, his father would have to die, he made no such analysis here. He saw only Helen in his arms, his erect member within her velvet pocket as her smiling face looked up at him love struck, and he said, “Aphrodite is the fairest.”

Do I wish he had done otherwise? Of course. Do I blame him for his foolishness and everything that came later? Only occasionally. A mother will forgive her children their mistakes, and I forgive mine for theirs.

He looked at Aphrodite with a look that said “Pay up.”

Aphrodite picked up the apple and looked it over with delight. Then she said only, “Sail your ship to Sparta. She will leave with you eagerly.”

He did as he had been told. He entered the palace unannounced, went to Helen’s apartments, and the instant she saw him she leapt into his arms. He said, “My ship is in the harbor. We sail at midnight.” At midnight she walked onto his ship with only the clothes on her back, and they sailed as soon as she was on board. My son was in such a state of elation that he did not notice anything wrong. He knew only that this treasure among women was his.

When he returned to Troy with her, I immediately saw the difference my son had failed to notice. She was not the Helen I had known. She obviously was bewitched and was merely the fulfillment of his adolescent fantasies. The real Helen was gone. She no longer was the vibrant, brilliant, and spirited woman of the past. She was a mere shadow of her former self. Only her beauty was the same.

I told him what was obvious to me, that she was not the Helen we had known. I told him Aphrodite had robbed her of her very being, the heart and soul of herself, and this was a horrible thing to do to someone. My son was angry and said that I was accusing him of doing something he never would do, and he persisted in refusing to see the change in Helen. He must have feared I would try to make him ask Aphrodite to undo the spell so she could be herself again because he knew she immediately would demand to be returned to Sparta, but for the time I kept silent.

It was not long before news reached us that the Greeks were divided and unsure what to do. Menelaus knew all about the “dispute” that Paris had settled and how he had been bribed to decide in Aphrodite’s favor. He knew that Helen never would have left him willingly, and since there was no evidence that Paris had kidnapped her, he knew the only explanation was that she was bewitched. He knew that he was a favorite of Poseidon and always had made sacrifices on his altar. He decided to approach the god and ask him to demand that Aphrodite return what she had taken from him, remove the spell and let Helen do as she chose.

While he was making these plans and contemplating what he might say to Poseidon that might move him to intervene on his behalf, to have his brother Zeus demand that Aphrodite release Helen from this bondage, Agamemnon appeared in Sparta ranting about how this was an insult to all Greece and how only the destruction of Troy itself could satisfy Greek honor. He was very angry that his brother, Menelaus, was not ready to go to war immediately. He brought Ajax with him, and Ajax was ready to leave for war as soon as an army could be raised. I knew Ajax. He did not give a fig for Helen, Menelaus, or Greek honor. He just knew that if Troy was defeated, he would get possession of Jolia as a slave to do with as he wished. Of course, even a dolt like him knew better than to say anything about this.

Agamemnon attempted to persuade Menelaus, and Menelaus resisted as best as he could, but eventually Agamemnon threatened to accuse him of treason against Greece itself if he would not go to war with Troy, and Menelaus began to fear for his throne in Sparta, so he submitted. At this point Odysseus joined them, heard the tale, and told Agamemnon he was crazy. He said the aggrieved party was Menelaus, and Menelaus quite reasonably wanted to seek the support of a god against Aphrodite. Odysseus counseled patience, waiting to see if Poseidon could be prevailed upon to demand Aphrodite withdraw her spell. The army already was assembled in part, and Agamemnon said to him, “If you won’t join us, when this is over and Troy is destroyed, I will sail our fleet down to your stinking little island and lay waste to every bit of it.”

Then Achilles arrived, and he analyzed the situation as follows, “It does not matter that I defeat everyone at athletic contests. The only way I will be known as the greatest warrior is for me to slay many enemies on the field of battle. This is the best chance I ever will get to establish myself as the greatest warrior of all time.”

The details I did not know at the time I later heard from Clytemnestra.

I also had another source of information. It is widely known that many of the gods on occasion lay with mortal women. What is less widely known is that the goddesses sometimes did the same with mortal men. They were less dramatic about it than the gods, and there was no issue of their unions. They just appeared to a man, opened their cloak to reveal a flawless body, and let nature take its course. Some of them liked to gossip, and the men so gifted often heard tales of the private lives of the Olympians. I knew a man who was such a source.

Just to put this in perspective, have you ever wondered why Odysseus was such a favorite of Athena? Here is your answer. A man who is very intelligent can be happy with a woman who is not so bright, but a brilliant woman will be unhappy lying with a man who is a dolt no matter how handsome he may be. This is especially true of Athena who is wise. She found Odysseus to be a good companion when their fleshy desires had been satisfied. He could discuss almost any topic which interested her at the moment, and he was affectionate in ways most men would not consider.

The Greek fleet was assembled at Aulis, and the winds refused to blow. This had nothing to do with Artemis and a deer. It was Zeus who was very unhappy about the outcome of the beauty contest that had taken place on Olympus. The idea that this would start a war might have appealed to his son, Ares, who was the God of War, but Zeus saw no reason to see the destruction of one or both of the two potential combatants both of whom worshipped him devoutly. Also, he had a personal interest in Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Zeus was well known for the unusual manner in which he formed unions with human women. The episode of Leda with him as a swan was going to be a hard one to top, and he had been considering taking Helen as a dolphin in the sea when he was distracted by other problems. Zeus thought he could prevent a war by setting a requirement for the sailing of the Greek fleet that they could not meet, but even Zeus underestimated the bloodthirsty, violent, and single-minded nature of Agamemnon.

Another fact that is part of this saga is that some among us, Greek as well as Trojan, were of such a disposition that they preferred to lie with members of their own sex and not those of the opposite sex. Clytemnestra was in this group. She married Agamemnon because she was of royal blood, and she understood the need for noble heirs to the throne, so she married Agamemnon and did her duty to provide Mycenae and Greece with heirs to the throne. Throughout her marriage she spent much of her time with a childhood friend named Aurelia. As for Aegisthus, he was a man who preferred men, and as is well known, women of this disposition often form friendships with men of this disposition. They were not lovers.

One last such relationship: Achilles did not give any thought to Briseis as a concubine. She merely was his property and a servant whom he liked. The conflict with Agamemnon resulted because Achilles rightfully felt Agamemnon was showing him disrespect. Achilles loved Patroclus and had since they were children. Stories which tell you otherwise are told by people who do not want the truth to be known because it threatens their view of the world.

It is in this situation that Iphigenia is now brought to the center stage. She is fifteen years old, and she is a much loved child of Mycenae. Since she was quite young, she had striven to assist people less fortunate than herself, a woman whose son had died in service to the city, a child orphaned by such a death. Iphigenia helped them where and when she could. People said that Agamemnon must be a great king to have produced such a kind child.

She knows her father is on his way with his fleet to do battle with the Trojans. She is fearful that he might be injured. She loves her father dearly and hopes no ill befalls him. She receives a message from her father on Aulis. She is to come to Aulis to be married to Achilles. She knows Achilles predilection for lying with men, and she knows of his love for Patroclus, but she also knows Achilles needs an heir and she will be a wife knowing that she will bear him a son who will rule in Phthia. Once she has provided him with an heir and another in reserve in case something happens to the first, she will be free to keep company with whom she chooses, and she remembers Patroclus as a very kind fellow who loved Achilles very much. This company she thought, once the war was over, would be delightful in which to live.

She arrived in Aulis. She thinks of a time when she was small when her father bounced her on his knees. Her father’s servants attire her for a wedding and lead her to the temple to the very altar. Her father appears, and she has no inkling of his true intent. He steps to her at the altar, grabs her harshly and lays her on the altar. She has no idea what is about to happen, but she is terrified. She can see a look in her father’s eyes she never has seen before. Then she sees him draw his great knife, and hears him say, “Oh, Zeus, now I make the sacrifice you demanded. Let the winds blow that my ships may set sail.”

She feels him move her hair away from her throat. She starts to question him, “Oh, Father, what are you doing…” But she does not finish her sentence. His knife slashes her throat, and there is a great rush of blood on the altar. As her eyes grow dim and she moves on to the land of the dead, her whole being is filled with a sense of betrayal and confusion. She brings with herself to the land of the dead a complete lack of understanding of how this person to whom she had been devoted all her brief life could slay her without any warning or explanation in such an act of personal treason. This vile death means she will inhabit the land of the dead lost and in darkness for many years.

Back home her mother, Clytemnestra, learns what has happened, and she knows everything it implies including a tormented next life. She murmurs to herself, “You have slain my innocent daughter so that you can sail your fleet to make war over my bewitched and innocent sister. Sooner or later, I will have my chance to avenge the death of my child.”

Orestes, now seventeen, looks at his mother and vows, “If you don’t, I will.”

It is under these cursed circumstances that the Greeks appeared on the field before Troy. The guards of the towers saw them approach, and they closed and barred the gates. We stood on the battlements and saw them, and thought, “We are well defended by our great walls, and we are prepared for a long siege. We have deep wells in the city which are fed by an underground river, and we have several long tunnels through which we can bring food for many people.” Then I looked out in the distance and saw something I had hoped not to see, the green chariot flying the golden pennant of Odysseus. I feared from the beginning that sooner or later he would devise some trick, some stratagem that would overcome our defenses which would have been able to withstand anyone but him.

It was not long before the Greeks made a frontal attack on the walls of the city with climbing ladders and scaling equipment. Our archers made them pay dearly for this foolhardy assault, and they were driven back with many casualties. After that the war settled into a lengthy routine of the Greeks and their heroes appearing in the field before Troy challenging us to send out our soldiers and our champions for battle, and we opening the gates and sending out our troops. Combat would last several hours and some would die, and many more would be injured. At the end of the day our troops would retreat into the city with their wounded, and the Greeks would return to their ships to lick their wounds.

After such a battle as this it might be a month before there was further combat. This stalemate dragged on for over nine years. Once Aristines was badly wounded by Ajax, his thigh bone broken. As Ajax was about to slay him, several of our troops came at Ajax from the sides to distract him, and others picked up Aristines and carted him back into the city. The bone setter came and set the fracture and tied it up with a splint. He was unable to do much of anything for several months, but as soon as the bone setter declared the bones fused, he immediately began to train again.

During this long part of the siege, there were many lulls when we went about our daily lives as if nothing was wrong. In the evenings Priam and I often went to visit Jolia and Aristines who soon blessed us with first one and then a second granddaughter. They were the treasures of our lives, delightful, bright little girls who loved to play board games with their grandparents. I thought often of the day when they would be grown, married, and blessing us with great grandchildren. We would put the girls to bed, and then the four of us would drink a glass of wine and talk of better times.

For a long time, we wondered why Achilles made no appearance on the field of battle. Rumors reached us that he had had a falling out with Agamemnon, but all we knew for sure was that without their grand champion, we continued to get the better of them in the monthly or weekly battles. Then one day the chariot and armor of Achilles appeared on the field. Hector rode out and slew he who wore the armor, but it was not Achilles. It was Patroclus who was trying to raise the spirits of the Greek soldiers. The effect was the opposite, but word soon reached Achilles that his beloved Patroclus was dead. Hector had shown no disrespect for the body of Patroclus making no effort to remove his armor as a battle trophy. As soon as he looked at the body, he knew who it was and showed it proper respect.

A day later the armor of Achilles again appeared on the field, this time with Achilles himself in it. Hector had been preparing for this combat for nine long years, and he rode out unafraid. He knew Achilles weakness, and he hoped to be able to exploit it. The two men stood there on the field and did battle for several hours. Twice they both were so exhausted that they retreated from each other and sat down to rest. Hector made several attempts to get at Achilles’ vulnerable heel, but Achilles thwarted him. We watched it all from the walls. They fought with swords and shields. One would advance and the other parry his attack. The other would raise his sword to make a telling blow, but the first would raise his shield to protect himself. It was a noble, fair battle up to this point. Finally in exhaustion Hector left Achilles an opening, and Achilles made a thrust around the side of Hector’s shield. In an instant it was over with a great rush of blood.

Achilles stood there triumphant and rested for a few moments. Then for reasons I never have understood, he tied Hector’s foot to his chariot and rode up and down the field dragging the corpse of my son desecrating it so that he was not recognizable. From the walls of the city my son Paris saw what was being done to the dead body of his beloved brother. He had not been on the field that day because he was recovering from several recent wounds. He took his bow, placed an arrow on the bow string, and drew it back. The distance was well beyond anything anyone would have imagined an arrow could reach, particularly at a moving target, but I heard him say to himself, “Goddess, you owe me this,” and as Achilles turned to circle around and was facing directly away from us, Paris shot his arrow. Achilles never saw it coming, but Paris’ aim was true. The arrow struck Achilles in the center of his heel, and he instantly fell to the ground dead. Aristines who had been watching from slightly off to the side of the field drove his chariot over to the body of Hector, picked it up onto his chariot, and drove straight for the gates. The gate keepers blew the horns to call our soldiers back into the city, and our retreat occurred unimpeded in the tumult among the Greeks at the death of Achilles.

The Greeks held a great funeral for Achilles, and we did the same for Hector. The entire city turned out in the main plaza to hear several orations praising Hector as the greatest of the sons of Troy. There was not a dry eye in the vast throng that were there to honor him. We even planned to build a mausoleum for him after the war was over.

This was a very somber occasion, and following it, Paris seemed to undergo a significant change. Where once he had been in denial that Helen was bewitched, now he faced the fact that the Helen he lived with every day was not the same woman with whom he had fallen in love as an adolescent. He came to his father and me, and acknowledged he was guilty of a terrible crime, possessing a woman of noble birth who never would have been with him if she had not been bewitched. He realized that the entire last nine years of war were due to his childish obsession with Helen. He proposed that we meet with Agamemnon and Menelaus on the field before the city under a flag of truce. To them he would acknowledge his crime against Helen and Menelaus, and then he would offer to ask Aphrodite to remove the spell she had cast upon Helen for him. Helen then would be free to return to Menelaus and to Sparta. With this settled, the Greeks could leave having achieved their primary objective, the return of Helen, and hopefully this admission of guilt accompanied by the restoration of Helen to Menelaus would be an adequate basis of peace.

The next day Aristines went out from the city to the center of the empty field where the battles before the city usually took place. He carried with him a white flag of truce and sat down and waited until the Greeks sent an emissary to ask him what he wanted. He told them that Paris would like to speak with Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Odysseus, and that Paris would bring with him to the meeting Priam and Aristines. By this point Aristines had become a trusted counsellor of the leaders of Troy. The Greek emissary left and returned an hour later. Menelaus and Agamemnon would meet with them the next day at noon. No mention was made of Odysseus.

The next day just before noon Paris with Priam and Aristines set out from the gates of Troy and quickly arrived at the appointed location. Shortly thereafter Menelaus and Agamemnon arrived. The five men stood facing each other, and Paris said to Menelaus, “I have done you great harm. I am deeply saddened by the realization that my adolescent infatuation with your wife has led not just to your suffering and the suffering of your wife who is innocent in this affair, but in the deaths of many great warriors, noble men, on both sides of this war. You arrived with a thousand ships which were manned by at least forty men each. Of the forty thousand men you brought with you, ten years of war have reduced this army to little more than ten thousand some of whom have been maimed for life by these battles. The army of Troy has suffered similar losses. Every one of them is my fault, and I will take the horrible knowledge of responsibility for this decimation of our peoples into the land of the dead when it is my time to go there. I still am beset by my obsession for your wife, but it is time for me to set her free, to return her to you. I will call upon Aphrodite to release Helen from the spell she has cast upon her so that she can return to loving you and go home with you to Sparta. This way you will achieve what you came for, the recovery of your wife. The Greek army can return home without suffering further losses, and we can begin to restore the good will that existed between our peoples before I acted in the stupidity that has eaten ten years of all our lives.”

Menelaus stood with his head down deeply in thought. He remained this way for several minutes. It seemed that he was about to speak and accept Paris’ offer when Agamemnon sensed that his brother might accept this offer. Agamemnon looked at his brother and said, “How can you consider such an offer? This bastard stole your wife and assaulted the honor of all Greece. If we were to accept this foul offer, we should betray the honor of all Greece for generation after generation long into the future. Men everywhere would denounce us as cowards worthy of nothing but derision.” Then he looked at the Trojans and said, “Your cowardice disgusts me. Accepting this offer would dishonor Greece forever. I would slay you all right now if did not know that the gods would pursue me forever for breaking the oath of truce. Get away from me this instant.”

Menelaus looked at his brother as if he wanted to say something, but Agamemnon drew his sword pointing it first at Menelaus and then at Priam, Paris, and Aristines. The Trojan delegation immediately backed away quickly.

Paris said, “It is too bad I did not have the sense to pick the bribe of wisdom from Athena.”

It was many years later when Odysseus told me they never had informed him about this meeting.

The endless days of war took their toll on the warriors who survived this long. Jolia told me that Aristines slept very badly, had terrible nightmares, and awoke unrefreshed from his sleep. Several other wives of our soldiers told me similar stories of their husbands’ disturbed sleep. I do not doubt that many of the Greek warriors had similar troubled sleep.

The war had taken a repetitive form. The Greeks had abandoned the idea of a frontal assault on the wall, and they did not know of the underground river and its wells or the tunnels through which we brought food from distant farms. Our armies would choose a day and mass in the courtyards inside the gates. Then at a time chosen by the battle commander, the gates would open and the chariots would rush out and make straight for the Greek camps. This required the Greeks to be ready for an attack at any hour of the day from sun up to sun down. Our troops would make a frontal assault on the Greek camps, and the Greek archers would loose great flights of arrows toward our troops who would hold their shields above their heads. When our troops would near the Greek lines, the Greek warriors would drive their chariots toward our oncoming wave, and they would both meet and enter into single combat. Since one of the points when the Trojan army was vulnerable was when the Greek archers let fly with a sky full of arrows, some part of our troops would seek to avoid conflict with the massed Greek troops and instead drive past them toward the archers beyond them. Then they would try to slay as many of the archers as they could. In this manner a great many Greek archers met their doom. The Greek archers were not skilled at hitting individual chariot drivers coming at them obliquely, so this was a very effective plan of attack which lowered the number of arrows that could fly at them the next time.

Our warriors also were diminished in number as the battles continued, so that they represented a smaller target area as they approach the Greek lines, and to compensate for this, our battle commander, first Hector and later Paris, spread out our attacking chariots so that the archers who were fewer than they originally had been now had to spread out to cover a wider area with fewer archers. The attrition on both sides was substantial. After ten years the original Greek force of 40,000 was down to under 10,000, and the original Trojan force of about 40,000 also was down to under 10,000. In our case this included a small but not insubstantial number of young men who had been children at the outset of the war but who now were old enough to enter the battles.

As the war reached nine and a half years of conflict, Paris prepared for another day of attacking the Greek lines. He was to be among those who rode through the lines and attacked the archers. Unbeknownst to him, the Greeks had brought in a great archer of their own, one who had the skill of shooting at single charioteers as they drove swiftly toward the archers. As Paris drove toward him at top speed, the only vital target he presented was from below his helmet to the top of his armor, his neck. This archer, whose name I later learned was Philoctetes, drew back his bow as Paris closed on him, and shot an arrow which struck my son through the neck. His spine was severed, and he died almost instantly. Philoctetes also struck several other Trojan warriors that morning. In the evening, as was the custom, the Greeks brought the dead Trojans out toward the city wall and left them after the battle had ceased for the day. Priam and I were devastated to lose the second of our sons, particularly after he had tried his best to make peace with the Greeks but been thwarted by Agamemnon. Again, the city turned out for a huge wake to honor his service to the city. There was talk of a great mausoleum to honor both Hector and Paris. Of course, it never happened.

The morning after the funeral of Paris, Helen came to me. She was completely lucid. The spell had been lifted from her. She said, “I am saddened for you for the death of your son. Please accept my condolences for your loss. I knew I was bewitched, but I had no control over myself and the childish infatuation the spell of Aphrodite cast upon me. I don’t have any feelings for him, and now that I am restored to who I was before this bewitchment, I want only to be restored to my husband whom I still love. I know what has happened through the last nine and a half years, and I know that it is entirely the fault of the goddess and her vanity. If I harbor ill will toward anyone, it is she. I greatly appreciate the kindness you have shown me while I was not myself. Is there any reason why I can not simply walk out the gates of Troy and go to my husband?”

I answered her, “I thank you for your understanding. I recognized right away that you were not yourself and that Aphrodite had bewitched you. I felt it was my responsibility as Paris’ mother to look out for you. I tried several times to get him to ask the goddess to remove the spell, but he just could not bear to part with you. The effect you have on men is like that of no other woman.”

Helen replied, “That part of beauty is a curse beyond your imagining. The fields before your city are littered with the spirits of tens of thousands of dead men who are dead because of my beauty. Whether I live another hour or another decade, their deaths will torment me for as long as I live. I did not ask for this beauty. It was cast upon me because of my divine father, Zeus.”

Then I told her of Priam, Paris, and Aristines attempting to talk with Agamemnon and Menelaus and Paris offering to ask the goddess to free her from the spell she had cast upon her. I told her that Paris had told me that Menelaus had seemed willing to accept his offer but that Agamemnon had threatened to kill him on the spot if he did not refuse the offer. “It was clear that Agamemnon was filled with insane rage about how this act of the goddess had dishonored all Greece, and only the complete destruction of Troy would satisfy the honor of all Greece.”

“Bah,” said Helen, “He always has been a swine threatening to slay my husband if he did not do his will. Menelaus knew his only choices were to obey his older brother or to slay him, and Menelaus simply was not willing to take the life of his brother. He is a despicable bastard for murdering his own daughter. Sooner or later my sister, Clytemnestra, will take her righteous vengeance on him. I suppose I have no choice but to stay in Troy until the war is over. With the depletion of the Greek forces, it can not be that much longer. I just pray that my husband survives to be reunited with me when the war is over.”

I told her, “You are welcome to stay with us as long as it pleases you.”

“Thank. you,” she replied.

Priam continued a strategy of attrition against the Greek army. Our soldiers would go out on the field at times of their own choosing and seek to avoid combat with the Greek champions, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus, and Ajax. They sought to slay as many as possible of the Greek foot soldiers so that eventually there would be few left, and those few would be forced to abandon the siege. We even began training women to defend the wall so that if all or almost all of our men were slain, the city still could be defended against the greatly reduced Greek forces. It appeared to be working. Both the Greeks and we Trojans were down to about 3,500 combat troops each.

Aristines led our troops out on several occasions and was successful in taking the lives of more than a few of the Greek foot soldiers while avoiding the Greek heroes. The problem with this was that as there were fewer and fewer troops engaged in combat, it became increasingly difficult for Aristines to avoid Ajax who we saw constantly searching about the battlefield for him. Eventually about nine years and eight months into the siege, Ajax spotted Aristines on the field and rode straight for him. There was no avoiding this combat, and Aristines simply did the best he could. He had been training using opponents who were large in stature, and he had tried figure out ways he could turn Ajax’ size against him, but when it came down to it, Ajax’ strength and fury were beyond his ability to withstand.

Jolia and I watched this confrontation from the wall little more than a hundred and fifty meters away. Several times Aristines made thrusts that were well timed, but Ajax was able to parry them, and finally Ajax was able to make a sword thrust that clearly entered Aristines chest. Aristines fell to the ground immediately, and it appeared he was dead. Ajax looked at his fallen enemy, believed him to be slain, turned toward us on the wall, and made an obscene gesture toward Jolia. While his back was to Aristines, Aristines with his dying breath reached up with his sword and slashed Ajax badly across the back of his calf. Aristines then collapsed on the ground, dead at last. For a second Ajax appeared ready to desecrate Aristines’ corpse, but then he realized he was bleeding badly and would be very vulnerable to attack even by an ordinary foot soldier, so he quickly mounted his chariot and sped from the field of battle. The sight of their champion fleeing disheartened the rest of the Greek troops, and they began an orderly retreat. This enabled several of our troops to retrieve Aristines’ body without it being despoiled.

Jolia witnessed it all and collapsed into my arms. She had lost the only man whom she ever had loved, and who was the father of her two daughters. She had served as a nurse throughout the siege, and she had seen many dead soldiers. She even had seen her own husband badly wounded, but there was a finality to this scene which she could not bear. She simply fainted. We took her to her quarters and told the girls their mother was unwell but would recover. I left her with her serving maid, and I made my way to the gate to receive Aristines’ body. He had become almost a son to me, and he had done great service to Troy. With his dying breath he had managed to inflict severe injury on his tormentor, and while his funeral was not on the scale of Hector or Paris, many people turned out to listen to the speeches made over his body.

Two days later Jolia was able to return to her duties as a nurse. She said it was vital that the people see the royal family working to defend the city.

You may wonder why I have not mentioned my oldest child, my daughter, Cassandra. The truth of the matter is that we never had been close. Even as a small child she never had formed the usual familial bonds with her father and me that our three other children did. She was only twelve when she announced that she was moving to the temple of Apollo to be a priestess. This was a calling with which we could not interfere, and we rarely saw her after that. This continued true throughout the siege.

Many stories are told about her relations with the god, but no one really knows what happened between them other than the two of them, and they never told anyone as far as I know. I do know she was very beautiful, second only to Helen, and the god being male probably was attracted to her, but what did or did not happen between them remains a mystery. I do know the stories of her being cursed that no one would believe her prophecies is not true. The case was more that she was very sharp tongued and told people things they did not want to hear. The most famous example was when a grain merchant went to the temple to ask if he should engage in a particular business transaction. Cassandra looked at him carefully and then said, “You need to stop beating your wife.”

He complained that she had not answered his question, and she said that was the god’s answer. He actually came to me and complained, and I asked him, “Is it true you beat your wife?”

He replied that all men beat their wives, and I told him that many men do not beat their wives, that Priam never had struck me. Hector never beat his wife, and Paris certainly never hit Helen. I suggested his business might improve if he stopped beating his wife and instead listened to her counsel about his business. He left very disgruntled, but many women over the years told me that they appreciated my standing up for them. The fact that Cassandra never had met this man before but still knew he beat his wife is more an indication that she was not so much cursed to have her predictions disregarded as she was given to telling the truth to the powerful, truth they did not want to hear.

This brings us to the great wooden horse. It had been the night of a new moon, and the guards on our wall had been unable to see what was happening on the ground below them much less in the distant camp of the Greeks. The sun rose, and there was this giant horse on wheels only a dozen meters from the gates. We also could see that the Greek camps were empty, and their ships were gone. We believed that our strategy of attrition had worked, and they had given up. Many people went out to the horse and looked at it. The horse was an animal much revered by the Greeks, and we thought this was an object of worship which they had been unable to take with them because it was too big to put on a ship.

The people were overjoyed at what appeared to be the end of the siege, and then Cassandra appeared. She walked around the horse and appeared deep in thought as if she was trying to use her powers to perceive something. The various Greek writers have put a very interesting and poetic line in her mouth, “Beware the Greeks bearing gifts.” This is not what she said. I know. I was standing right by her when she finally spoke. What she said was, “If you do not burn this piece of Greek shit to ashes this very instant, Troy is doomed.” The mood of the people was joyous at the seeming end of the war, and they were in no mood for dark prophesies, so the murmur in the crowd was, “Oh, it’s just cranky Cassandra being her usual pessimistic self. Just ignore her. Let us bring the horse into the city and place it in the central square as a monument to our victory”

Seeing that her directive was not followed, she immediately returned to the city. Since she turned up several months later as a priestess of the Oracle at Delphi, she obviously escaped the destruction of the city. She probably left right away by one of the tunnels out of the city and got as far away from it as she could before the night fell. I do not think she knew that there were Greeks hiding in the horse, because if she had known, she would have said so specifically, but she did know that we were doomed once the horse was brought through the city gates. I have not seen her since that morning on the plains before the city, but several people have reported to me that she was serving the god at Delphi. She knows I am in Sparta at the court of Helen and Menelaus, but she has made no attempt to communicate with me, so I assume she does not wish to, and I leave her alone.

What followed the apparent “victory” was an orgy of staggering proportions. Wine that had been kept in cellars for a decade was brought out and drunk. The women lay in the streets with any man who still was able to do the act. This went on well into the night. Priam, Jolia, and I chose to retire later than usual but still during the festivities. Apparently, most people had collapsed with gleeful exhaustion not long after midnight. At this point the Greeks in the horse led by Odysseus climbed down silently, slew the sleeping guards at the gates, and then opened the gates to the Greek army which had returned not long after midnight. They began by slaying every sleeping man they could find first outdoors in the streets and then indoors in houses they entered.

Priam and I were awakened by the commotion. Jolia joined us and then made her way to the plaza below the palace. She returned and told us what had happened. Priam picked up his sword and armor and went out to defend the city. I never saw him again. I went to Jolia’s apartments and found her with a knife in her hand. She was speaking to her daughters. She said, “There is a fate worse than death for a woman. Mommy loves you, and she is going to save you from this fate. You must trust me that what I am going to do is done to save you.” She looked at the girls who looked back at her with confusion and fear. Before the scene could continue, she took hold of her seven-year-old and slashed her throat quickly and powerfully. There was a gushing of blood from the child’s throat, and the five-year-old was paralyzed in terror. Jolia then took hold of her and did the same to her. “You are safe now, my precious ones,” she said loudly enough for me to hear. Then she dragged the bodies to a small clothes storage room adjacent to her bed chamber.

She looked at me and said, “He will be here very soon, and I must be ready for him. You should stay and watch from the clothes room so there is some record of what happened.” Having just watched my granddaughters murdered, I was too dumbfounded to resist and went behind the drapes covering the doorway. The light was dim with the soon to rise sun, and I could make out the next room faintly.

I knew what she meant when she said, “He will be here soon,” but I had no idea what she planned to do. Indeed, it was not long before Ajax entered her apartment and found her lying on the bed almost naked. He looked at her with scorn and said, “Now you are going to get what you deserve, you bitch.”

He drew back his armor and exposed himself. He really was huge, and I could not imagine that Jolia simply planned to submit to him, but that is exactly what she did. He spit on himself and then climbed on her. He forced his member within her and began making the motions of the act. As he was reaching the peak of his ecstasy, I saw Jolia reach down toward her calf, and I could see she had drawn a knife with a hooked blade. As he was distracted in pleasure, she stretched her arm as far around his thigh as she could and then slashed him from the inside of his thigh across the back of his leg. The knife was so sharp that he did not immediately feel it. Then she extended her arm as far as she could and slashed him across the back of his other leg and inward toward the inside of his other thigh attempting to reach the artery on the inside of his other leg. I then saw two great spurts of blood as his heart pumped its last. There was some moment of realization that this was not his moment of triumph but his moment of defeat. He rose up trying to act, but the moment of his orgasm prevented him. I can not imagine what he might have felt, but whatever it was, he deserved it. An instant later he was still upon her. She waited a few seconds to be sure he was dead, and then she pushed him off herself. She got up, dragged his body to the clothes room, and got back in bed. She said, “There will be other men who enter here tonight. I will do my part for the defense of the city just as I have done here. I watched as she slew eight men one at a time over the next two hours. Then two men entered at the same time, and although she slew the first one, the second saw what had happened to his partner, and cut off her head.

I wandered dumbstruck out of her chambers and without thinking I found myself in Helen’s room. A man entered, and she looked at him and said, “I am Helen, Queen of Sparta and wife of King Menelaus. Touch me and the death you suffer will be beyond anything you can imagine.” Then she saw me and added, “This woman is my slave. Do not touch her.” The man stopped dead in his tracks then turned, and fled. That scene repeated itself several times, and each time the man or men turned and left us alone. I later realized that Helen had spoken with the command voice of a Queen, a voice I had not heard from her in all her time in Troy.

A few hours later Helen told me to follow her. It was as if I was in a trance, and I obeyed her without thought or hesitation. I only realized my entire world, my entire life as I had known it was over. I slowly started to realize that Helen had described me as her slave and addressed me as if this was now my status. It was months later that I learned that Helen did this to keep me alive. She knew I would be devastated by my loss, and unless she took charge of me in this way, I would take my own life. She did this because I had been kind to her while she was under Aphrodite’s spell.

Helen walked very deliberately out of the palace, across the city to the now open gates, and then across what had been the battle field, to the Greek encampment. She looked around for the standard of Menelaus. When she saw it, she walked straight toward it. A man in armor whom she recognized was standing before this tent. She addressed him, “Tryphon, it is I, Helen, your Queen. I have been freed from the spell which has enchanted me these last ten years. Where is my husband, the King?”

This man, who was Menelaus’ chief bodyguard looked at her carefully, realized who she was, and replied, “Your majesty, welcome back. I will find the King immediately.”

Menelaus appeared shortly, looked at Helen in wonder, and Helen said, “Menny, it is your Helen returned from the land of the enchanted. Since the spell was lifted, I have missed you deeply. It was vile what the goddess did to me. It must have caused you terrible pain. This saddens me greatly, my love.”

It took Menelaus several more seconds to absorb what just had happened, and an instant later he grinned and opened his arms. Helen jumped up into his arms with her legs spread on either side of his hips, and they embraced very tightly with only his feet on the ground.

The city was burned and the wall at least partly dismantled. The surviving Greeks all wanted to return to their homes as quickly as possible, and Menelaus set sail with Helen near him on the deck. I sat not far away in a corner waiting to see what orders Helen might give me. My mind was almost completely blank. It would be months before I began to deal with the shock that fate had dealt me.

Once home in Sparta, Menelaus set about the mundane business of running a city which had been done badly if at all during his ten years’ absence. News soon reached us that Clytemnestra had slain Agamemnon. “Serves the bastard right,” was all Helen said. Menelaus was silent. Shortly after that Clytemnestra appeared in Sparta with Aurelia asking for permission to find a small house not too far from the forum. She had brought some of her personal assets with her, and she told Helen that they planned to live a quiet life as weavers not telling their neighbors who she once had been. Menelaus agreed and they moved in unobtrusively. It was not a lot later that Orestes did the same. They were through with Mycenae, and other nobles came to fill the vacuum left by their departure. Helen and Menelaus had them visit the palace fairly often. Helen loved her sister, and they enjoyed each other’s company.

I settled into the life of a palace servant with few responsibilities. Slowly I came to terms with how life had treated me so badly, and I took consolation for the deaths of all my family by considering that I soon would be reunited with them in the land of the dead. I had to wait twelve years before the one last event I wanted to experience, meeting again with Odysseus whose tale reached me well before he did when he and Penelope eventually came to visit us. I never had been able to bring myself to hate him. He was such a likable fellow, and by the time they came to stay a while with us, I had come to realize what kind of man he was. I had met Nausicaa when her family came to visit us, and I thought, “What a faithful and devoted man he had to be to be well into his forties and loved by a most beautiful child woman who would have cared for him gently and lovingly in his old age, and then to awaken and realize he had a wife in her late forties who certainly no longer was young and beautiful, and then to leave this loving child woman and return home to his aging wife.”

Then they came to stay with us for a season, and he never treated me as anything other than a Queen. We talked several times at length about life, and we concluded that the gods had created us out of a cruel interest in watching us destroy ourselves, and when we did not destroy ourselves with sufficient violence, they intervened and threw even more brutal obstacles in our way. The way he put it was, ’They use us to amuse and distract themselves from the boredom of eternity.’”

This came from a man who knew more about the gods than anyone else ever has.