Circe

Highlights

Page 418

My father’s halls were dark and silent. His palace was a neighbour to Oceanos’, buried in the earth’s rock, and its walls were made of polished obsidian. Why not? They could have been anything in the world, blood-red marble from Egypt or balsam from Araby, my father had only to wish it so. But he liked the way the obsidian reflected his light, the way its slick surfaces caught fire as he passed. Of course, he did not consider how black it would be when he was gone. My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it.

Page 538

My father smiled. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘what talk is this? Is there not smoke and savour for all? This Zeus does well enough.’ Zeus, if he had heard, would have been satisfied. But he could not see what I saw, plain on my father’s face. Those unspoken, hanging words. This Zeus does well enough, for now. My uncles rubbed their hands and smiled back. They went away, bent over their hopes, thinking what they could not wait to do when Titans ruled again. It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.

Page 12

blow on soup to cool it!

Page 607

‘You are a daughter of Helios, are you not?’ he said, when he had finished, and I’d stepped back. ‘Yes.’ The question stung. If I had been a proper daughter, he would not have had to ask. I would have been perfect and gleaming with beauty poured straight from my father’s source. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’ I did not know if I was kind, I felt I did not know anything. He spoke carefully, almost tentatively, yet his treason had been so brazen. My mind struggled with the contradiction. Bold action and bold manner are not the same.

Page 617

I looked down at the empty cup, willing my courage. ‘You aided mortals,’ I said. ‘That is why you are punished.’ ‘It is.’ ‘Will you tell me, what is a mortal like?’ It was a child’s question, but he nodded gravely. ‘There is no single answer. They are each different. The only thing they share is death. You know the word?’ ‘I know it,’ I said. ‘But I do not understand.’ ‘No god can. Their bodies crumble and pass into earth. Their souls turn to cold smoke and fly to the underworld. There they eat nothing and drink nothing and feel no warmth. Everything they reach for slips from their grasp.’ A chill shivered across my skin. ‘How do they bear it?’ ‘As best they can.’

Page 643

found that I was not afraid of the pain that would come. It was another terror that gripped me: that the blade would not cut at all. That it would pass through me, like falling into smoke.

Page 647

her hand is her own. But that is what I was then, an infant.

Page 734

Pressure-cooking also helps to shave off cooking times by almost 50 per cent. One of the hardest legumes to cook, the chickpea (chana), can be cooked to perfect softness if you add a pinch of baking soda to the pressure cooker. Baking soda (see Chapter 5) breaks down pectin, the hard substance that holds the plant’s cell walls together, and accelerates the cooking of chickpeas (or any other legume for that matter). As always, our knowledgeable grandmothers will also throw in a teabag into the pressure cooker when making chana. They might tell you that it’s meant to impart a lovely dark brown colour to the pale white chana, but the more useful, non-cosmetic purpose is to neutralize all the unused baking soda, which has a nasty, bitter and soapy aftertaste. Tea, as we will learn in Chapter 4, is an acid, while baking soda is basic. Acids and bases tend to react and neutralize each other. Another minor annoyance when cooking dal is the foam it produces in the pressure cooker, which makes it hard to clean the lid afterwards. A teaspoon of oil added to the water in the pressure cooker will significantly reduce foaming when cooking legumes.

Note: Tips on dal

Page 059

I lay on the dirt, weeping. Those flowers had made him his true being, which was blue and finned and not mine. I thought I would die of such pain, which was not like the sinking numbness Aeëtes had left behind, but sharp and fierce as a blade through my chest. But of course I could not die. I would live on, through each scalding moment to the next. This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.

Page 196

I had a wild thought there, beneath that sky. I will eat these herbs. Then whatever is truly in me, let it be out, at last. I brought them to my mouth. But my courage failed. What was I truly? In the end, I could not bear to know.

Page 386

Among those empty, perfect rooms, I felt – I could not say. Disappointed. There was a part of me, I think, that had hoped for a crag in the Caucasus after all, and an eagle diving for my liver. But Scylla was no Zeus, and I was no Prometheus. We were nymphs, not worth the trouble. There was more to it than that, though. My father might have left me in a hovel or a fisherman’s shack, on a bare beach with nothing but a tent. I thought back to his face when he spoke of Zeus’ decree, his clear, ringing rage. I had assumed it was all for me, but now, after my talks with Aeëtes, I began to understand more. The truce between the gods held only because Titans and Olympians each kept to their sphere. Zeus had demanded the discipline of Helios’ blood. Helios could not speak back openly, but he could make an answer of sorts, a message of defiance to rebalance the scales. Even our exiles live better than kings. You see how deep our strengths run? If you strike us, Olympian, we rise higher than before. That was my new home: a monument to my father’s pride.

Page 473

I brought a withered flower back to life. I banished flies from my house, I made the cherries blossom out of season and turned the fire vivid green. If Aeëtes had been there, he would have choked on his beard to see such kitchen-tricks. Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.

Page 480

But Aeëtes had been right, my greatest gift was transformation, and that was always where my thoughts returned. I stood before a rose, and it became an iris. A draught poured onto the roots of an ash tree changed it to a holm oak. I turned all my firewood to cedar so that its scent would fill my halls each night. I caught a bee and made it into a toad, and a scorpion into a mouse. There I discovered at last the limits of my power. However potent the mixture, however well woven the spell, the toad kept trying to fly, and the mouse to sting. Transformation touched only bodies, not minds.

Page 492

He was huge, even bigger than I had imagined a boar could be. His spine rose steep and black as the ridges of Mount Cynthos, and his shoulders were slashed with the thunderbolt scars of his fights. Only the bravest heroes face such creatures, and then they are armed with spears and dogs, archers and assistants, and usually half a dozen warriors besides. I had only my digging knife and my basket, and not a single spell-draught to hand. He stamped, and the white foam dripped from his mouth. He lowered his tusks and ground his jaws. His pig-eyes said: I can break a hundred youths, and send their bodies back to wailing mothers. I will tear your entrails and eat them for my lunch. I fixed my gaze on his. ‘Try,’ I said. For a long moment he stared at me. Then he turned and twitched off through the brush. I tell you, for all my spells, that was the first time I truly felt myself a witch.

Note: How can you not love such a protagonist?

Page 562

He looked up, the fire caught in his face. ‘Do you sing?’ That was another thing about him. He made you want to spill your secrets. ‘Only for myself,’ I said. ‘My voice is not pleasing to others. I am told it sounds like a gull crying.’ ‘Is that what they said? You are no gull. You sound like a mortal.’ The confusion must have been plain on my face, for he laughed. ‘Most gods have voices of thunder and rocks. We must speak soft to human ears, or they are broken to pieces. To us mortals sound faint and thin.’ I remembered how gentle Glaucos’ words had sounded when he had first spoken to me. I had taken it for a sign. ‘It is not common,’ he said, ‘but sometimes lesser nymphs are born with human voices. Such a one are you.’ ‘Why did no one tell me? And how could it be? There is no mortal in me, I am Titan only.’ He shrugged. ‘Who can ever explain how divine bloodlines work? As for why no one said, I suspect they didn’t know. I spend more time with mortals than most gods and have grown accustomed to their sounds. To me it is only another flavour, like season in food. But if you are ever among men, you’ll notice it: they won’t fear you as they fear the rest of us.’ In a minute he had unravelled one of the great mysteries of my life. I raised my fingers to my throat as if I could touch the strangeness that lay there. A god with a mortal’s voice. It was a shock, and yet there was part of me that felt something almost like recognition.

Page 593

‘Will you bear my child?’ he asked me. I laughed at him. ‘No, never and never.’ He was not hurt. He liked such sharpness, for there was nothing in him that had any blood you might spill. He asked only for curiosity’s sake, because it was his nature to seek out answers, to press others for their weaknesses. He wanted to see how moonish I was over him. But all the sop in me was gone. I did not lie dreaming of him during the days, I did not speak his name into my pillow. He was no husband, scarcely even a friend. He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves.

Page 644

‘I meant to tell you,’ he said. ‘I heard a prophecy of you. I had it from an old seeress who had left her temple and was wandering the fields giving fortunes.’ I was used to the swift movements of his mind and now I was grateful for them. ‘And you just happened to be passing when she was speaking of me?’ ‘Of course not. I gave her an embossed gold cup to tell me all she knew of Circe, daughter of Helios, witch of Aiaia.’ ‘Well?’ ‘She said that a man named Odysseus, born from my blood, will come one day to your island.’ ‘And?’ ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the worst prophecy I’ve ever heard,’ I said. He sighed. ‘I know. I think I lost my cup.’

Note: Haha, love the prophecy

Page 150

I stayed and watched her dance, arms curving like wings, her strong young legs in love with their own motion. This was how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practise and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savour rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind. Ariadne’s light feet crossed and recrossed the circle. Every step was perfect, like a gift she gave herself, and she smiled, receiving it. I wanted to seize her by the shoulders. Whatever you do, I wanted to say, do not be too happy. It will bring down fire on your head. I said nothing, and let her dance.

Note: The author is capable of such casual poetry

Page 215

The boy knelt, like an infant courtier. ‘Noble lady,’ he piped. ‘I welcome you to my father’s house.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And are you a good boy, for your father?’ He nodded seriously. ‘Oh, yes.’ Daedalus laughed. ‘Don’t believe a word. He looks sweet as cream, but he does what he wants.’ The boy smiled at his father. It was an old joke between them.

Note: Foreshadowing. Icarus doesn’t listen.

Page 286

‘It is funny,’ she said, ‘that even after all this time, you still believe you will be rewarded, just because you have been obedient. I thought you would have learned that lesson in our father’s halls. None shrank and simpered as you did, and yet great Helios stepped on you all the faster, because you were already crouched at his feet.’ She was leaning forward, her golden hair loose, embroidering the sheets around her. ‘Let me tell you a truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power. It is not enough to be an uncle’s favourite, to please some god in his bed. It is not enough even to be beautiful, for when you go to them, and kneel and say, “I have been good, will you help me?” they wrinkle their brows. Oh, sweetheart, it cannot be done. Oh, darling, you must learn to live with it. And have you asked Helios? You know I do nothing without his word.’ She spat on the floor. ‘They take what they want, and in return they give you only your own shackles. A thousand times I saw you squashed. I squashed you myself. And every time, I thought, that is it, she is done, she will cry herself into a stone, into some croaking bird, she will leave us and good riddance. Yet always you came back the next day. They were all surprised when you showed yourself a witch, but I knew it long ago. Despite your wet-mouse weeping, I saw how you would not be ground into the earth. You loathed them as I did. I think it is where our power comes from.’ Her words were falling on my head like a great cataract. I could scarcely take them in. She hated our family? She had always seemed to me their distillation, a glittering monument to our blood’s vain cruelty. Yet it was true what she said: nymphs were allowed to work only through the power of others. They could expect none for themselves. ‘If all this is so,’ I said, ‘why were you so savage to me? Aeëtes and I were alone, you might have been friends with us.’ ‘Friends,’ she sneered. Her lips were a perfect blood red, the colour all the other nymphs had to paint on. ‘There are no friends in those halls. And Aeëtes has never liked a woman in his life.’ ‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘Because you think he liked you?’ She laughed. ‘He tolerated you because you were a tame monkey, clapping after every word he spoke.’ ‘You and Perses were no different,’ I said. ‘You know nothing of Perses. Do you know how I had to keep him happy? The things I had to do?’ I did not want to hear more. Her face was naked as I had ever seen it, and every word sharp as if she had spent years carving it to just that shape. ‘Then Father gave me to that ass Minos. Well, I could work with him, and I have. He is fixed now, but it has been a long road, and I will never go back to what I was. So you tell me, sister, whom should I have sent for instead? Some god who could not wait to scorn me and make me beg for crumbs? Or some nymph, to mince uselessly across…

Page 361

I did not open those crates until we were out of sight. I wish I had, so I might have thanked him properly. Inside one were undyed wools and yarns and flax of every kind. In the other, the most beautiful loom I had ever seen, made from polished cedar. I have it still. It stands near my hearth, and has even found its way into the songs. Perhaps that is no surprise, poets like such symmetries: Witch Circe skilled at spinning spells and threads alike, at weaving charms and cloths. Who am I to spoil an easy hexameter? But any wonder in my cloth comes from that loom, and the mortal who made it. Even after so many centuries, its joints are strong, and when the shuttle slides through the warp, the scent of cedar fills the air.

Page 379

Daedalus did not long outlive his son. His limbs turned grey and nerveless, and all his strength was transmuted into smoke. I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

Note: Beautiful

Page 550

At last the man pushed back his plate. ‘My name is Jason, heir by rights to the kingdom of Iolcos. My father was a virtuous king but soft-hearted, and when I was a child, my uncle seized his throne from him. He said he would return it to me when I was grown, if I gave him proof of my worth: a golden fleece, kept by a sorcerer in his land of Colchis.’

Note: I knew Colchis was familiar when they mentioned Aeetes going there. The Argonauts story didn’t strike me

Page 629

I felt numb, barren as a winter field. ‘Does Jason know all this?’ ‘Of course he does not, are you mad? Every time he looked at me, he would think of poisons and burning skin. A man wants a wife like new grass, fresh and green.’ Had she not seen Jason flinch? Or did she not want to see? He shrinks from you already.

Note: We do not see that which we do not want to see

Page 648

She was staring at me, but I did not stop. My words were tumbling out, catching fire as they went. ‘You will find no safety there, no peace. Yet still you may be free from your father. I cannot undo his cruelties, but I can ensure that they follow you no further. He said once that witchcraft cannot be taught. He was wrong. He kept his knowledge from you, but I will give you all I know. When he comes, we will turn him away together.’ She was silent a long moment. ‘What of Jason?’ ‘Let him be a hero. You are something else.’ ‘And what is that?’ In my mind I saw us already, our heads bent together over the purple flowers of aconite, the black roots of moly. I would rescue her from her tainted past. ‘A witch,’ I said. ‘With unbound power. Who need answer to none but herself.’ ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Like you? A pathetic exile, who stinks of her loneliness?’ She saw the shock on my face. ‘What, do you think because you surround yourself with cats and pigs, you are deceiving anyone? You do not know me for an afternoon, yet you are scrabbling to keep me. You claim you want to help me, but who do you really help? “Oh, niece, dearest niece! We will be the best of friends and do our magics side by side. I will keep you close, and so fill up my childless days.”’ She curled her lip. ‘I will not sentence myself to such a living death.’ Restless, I had thought. I was only restless in those days, and a little sad. But she had stripped me to my skin, and I saw myself now in her eyes: a bitter, abandoned crone, a spider, scheming to suck out her life. Face stinging, I rose to meet her. ‘It is better than being married to Jason. You are blind not to see what a weak reed he is. He flinches from you already. And you are what, three days married? What will he do in a year? He is led by his love for himself, you were only expedient. In Iolcos your position will rest on his goodwill. How long do you think that will last, when his countrymen come crying that the murder of your brother brings a curse to their land?’ Her fists were clenched. ‘None will learn of my brother’s death. I have sworn the crew to silence.’ ‘Such a secret cannot be kept. If you were not a child you would know it. The moment those men are out of earshot they will start their gossip. In a day, the whole kingdom will know, and they will shake your trembling Jason till he falls. “Great king, it was not your fault the boy died. It was that villainess, that foreign witch. She carved her own kin, what worse evils does she work even now? Cast her out, cleanse the land and take a better in her place.”’ ‘Jason would never listen to such slander! I delivered him the fleece! He loves me!’ She stood fixed in her outrage, bright and defiant. All my hammering only made her harder. Just so must I have seemed to my grandmother when she said to me: Those are two different things. ‘Medea,’ I said. ‘Listen to me. You are young, and Iolcos will make you old. There is no safety for you there.’ ‘Every day makes me old,’…

Note: No point helping. Such cutting words, after receiving help.

She sneers at Circes “living death” but what would her supposed dream life be like?

Page 770

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I do not want them here, truly. I am not being funny.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘you are not. You are being very dull. Use your imagination, they must be good for something. Take them to your bed.’ ‘That is absurd,’ I said. ‘They would run screaming.’ ‘Nymphs always do,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you a secret: they are terrible at getting away.’ At a feast on Olympus such a jest would have been followed by a roar of laughter. Hermes waited now, grinning like a goat. But all I felt was a white, cold rage. ‘I am finished with you,’ I said. ‘I have been finished a long time. Let me not see you again.’ If anything, his grin deepened. He vanished and did not return. It was no obedience. He was finished with me too, for I had committed the unpardonable sin of being dull. I could imagine the stories he was telling of me, humourless, prickly and smelling of pigs.

Note: Her bad reputation comes from Hermes talking shit

Page 799

I watched until the last flame was gone, then went back inside. A pain was gnawing in my chest. I pressed my hands to it, the hollows and hard bones. I sat before my loom and felt at last like the creature Medea had named me: old and abandoned and alone, spiritless and grey as the rocks themselves.

Page 099

Later, years later, I would hear a song made of our meeting. The boy who sang it was unskilled, missing notes more often than he hit, yet the sweet music of the verses shone through his mangling. I was not surprised by the portrait of myself: the proud witch undone before the hero’s sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Note: Perfection.

Stories of women written by men like Homer

Page 186

‘Do you know who truly wins wars?’ he asked me one night. We lay on the rugs at the foot of my bed. Moment by moment, his vitality had returned. His eyes were bright now, storm-lit. When he talked, he was lawyer and bard and crossroads charlatan at once, arguing his case, entertaining, pulling back the veil to show you the secrets of the world. It was not just his words, though they were clever enough. It was everything together: his face, his gestures, the sliding tones of his voice. I would say it was like a spell he cast, but there was no spell I knew that could equal it. The gift was his alone. ‘The generals take the credit, of course, and indeed they provide the gold. But they are always calling you into their tent and asking for reports of what you’re doing instead of letting you go do it. The songs say it is heroes. They are another piece. When Achilles puts on his helmet and cleaves his red path through the field, the hearts of common men swell in their chests. They think of the stories that will be told, and they long to be in them. I fought beside Achilles. I stood shield to shield with Ajax. I felt the wind and fan of their great spears. Those soldiers, of course, are yet another piece, for though they are weak and unsteady, when they are harnessed together they will carry you to victory. But there is a hand that must gather all those pieces and make them whole. A mind to guide the purpose, and not flinch from war’s necessities.’ ‘And that is your part,’ I said. ‘Which means you are like Daedalus after all. Only instead of wood, you work in men.’ The look he gave me. Like purest, unmixed wine. ‘After Achilles died, Agamemnon named me Best of the Greeks. Other men fought bravely, but they flinched from war’s true nature. Only I had the stomach to see what must be done.’ His chest was bare and hatched with scars. I tapped it lightly, as if sounding what lay within. ‘Such as?’ ‘You promise mercy to spies so they will spill their story, then you kill them after. You beat men who mutiny. You coax heroes from their sulks. You keep spirits high at any cost. When the great hero Philoctetes was crippled with a festering wound, the men lost their courage over it. So I left him behind on an island and claimed he had asked to be left. Ajax and Agamemnon would have battered at Troy’s locked gates until they died, but it was I who thought of the trick of the giant horse, and I spun the story that convinced the Trojans to pull it inside. I crouched in the wooden belly with my picked men, and if any shook with terror and strain, I put my knife to his throat. When the Trojans finally slept, we tore through them like foxes among soft-feathered chicks.’

Page 256

the Communist Party still pays lip service to traditional Marxist–Leninist ideals, but in practice is guided by Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxims that ‘development is the only hard truth’ and that ‘it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice’.

Note: This fucking guy

Page 285

They think I grieve for their dead comrades, and I do. But sometimes it is all I can do not to kill them myself. They have wrinkles, but no wisdom. I took them to war before they could do any of those things that steady a man. They were unmarried when they left. They had no children. They had no years of lean harvest, when they must scrape the bottom of their stores, and no good years either, that they might learn to save. They have not seen their parents grow old and begin to fail. They have not seen them die. I fear I have robbed them not only of their youth, but their age as well.’

Note: Poetry

Page 289

He rubbed at his knuckles. He had been a bowman when he was young, and the strength it takes to string and nock and shoot taxes hands like nothing else. He had left his bow behind when he went to war, but the pain had followed him. He’d told me once that if he had brought the bow, he would have been the best archer in both armies. ‘Then why leave it?’ Politics, he had explained. The bow was Paris’ weapon. Paris, the pretty wife-stealer. ‘Among heroes, he was seen as cowardly. No bowman would ever have been made Best of the Greeks, no matter how skilled he was.’ ‘Heroes are fools,’ I had said. He had laughed. ‘We are agreed.’

Page 458

Then you will return here, for a single day, as there may be more help I can give you.’

Note: I don’t remember the original story clearly but he will betray her. That’s the foreboding I have

Edit: I was wrong about this

Page 485

And last of all, still in its cedar box: silphium ground with wormwood, the draught I had taken each moon since the first time I lay with Hermes. Each moon except the last.

Note: Morning after pill. This plant is extinct now from over cultivation

Page 621

His mortality was always with me, constant as a second beating heart. Now that he could sit up, reach and grasp, all the ordinary objects of my house showed their hidden teeth. The boiling pots on the fire seemed to leap for his fingers. The blades slipped from the table a hair’s breadth from his head. If I set him down, a wasp would come droning, a scorpion scuttle from some hidden crevice and raise its tail. The sparks from the fire always seemed to pop in arcs towards his tender flesh. Each danger I turned aside in time, for I was never more

Page 663

On her chest shone her famous aigis, leather armour fringed with golden threads. It was said to be made from the skin of a Titan that she had flayed and tanned herself.

Page 716

Children are not sacks of grain, to be substituted one for another.

Page 717

‘I will pass over the fact that you think me a mare to be bred. The true mystery is why my son’s death is worth so much to you. What will he do that the mighty Athena would pay so dearly to avoid?’ All her softness was gone in an instant. Her hand withdrew, like a door slamming shut. ‘You set yourself against me then. You with your weeds and your little divinity.’ Her power bore down on me, but I had Telegonus, and I would not give him up, not for anything. ‘I do,’ I said. Her lips curled back, showing the white teeth within. ‘You cannot watch him all the time. I will take him in the end.’ She was gone. But I said it anyway, to that great empty room and my son’s dreaming ears: ‘You do not know what I can do.’

Note: Firstly good on Circe for standing up to Athena. But secondly, if she loves reason so much why not reason with Circe. Fucking Ben Shapiro of Olympus.

Page 885

‘See? Just this once, will you drop the spell? I am sure they will be very grateful.’ How would you know? I wanted to say. Often those men in most need hate most to be grateful, and will strike at you just to feel whole again.

Page 526

He looked down at my fingers a moment, then up into my face. ‘You pity me. Do not. My father lied about many things, but he was right when he called me a coward. I let him be what he was for year after year, raging and beating the servants, shouting at my mother and turning our house to ash. He told me to help him kill the suitors and I did it. Then he told me to kill all the men who had aided them, and I did that too. Then he commanded me to gather up all the slave girls who had ever lain with one of them and make them clean the blood-soaked floor, and when they were finished, I was to kill them as well.’ The words jolted me. ‘The girls would have had no choice. Odysseus would have known it.’ ‘Odysseus told me to carve them into joints like animals.’ His eyes held mine. ‘Do you disbelieve it?’ It was not one story that I thought of, but a dozen. He had always loved his vengeances. He had always hated those he thought betrayed him. ‘Did you do as he said?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I hanged them instead. I found twelve lengths of rope and tied twelve knots.’ Each word was like a blade he thrust into himself. ‘I had never seen it done, but I remembered how in all the stories of my childhood the women were always hanging themselves. I had some thought that it must be more proper. I should have used the sword instead. I have never known such ugly, drawn-out deaths. I will see their feet twisting the rest of my days. Goodnight, Lady Circe.’ He picked his knife up from my table and was gone.

Note: JFC, what made him like this?

Page 557

Odysseus’ favourite pose had been to pretend that he was a man like other men, but there were none like him, and now that he was dead, there were none at all. All heroes are fools, he liked to say. What he meant was, all heroes but me. So who could correct him when he erred? He had stood on the beach looking at Telegonus and believing him a pirate. He had stood in his hall and accused Telemachus of conspiracy. Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

Note: How does she write like this

Page 690

The words seemed to echo in the quiet air. Telemachus was silent, as if waiting for the sound to fade. At last he said, ‘It was a bad life.’ ‘There are many who are unhappier.’ ‘No.’ His vehemence startled me. ‘I do not mean a bad life for him. I mean that he made life for others a misery. Why did his men go to that cave in the first place? Because he wanted more treasure. And Poseidon’s wrath that everyone pitied him for? He brought it on himself. Because he could not bear to leave the cyclops without taking credit for the trick.’ His words were running forward, like an undammed flood. ‘All those years of pain and wandering. Why? For a moment’s pride. He would rather be cursed by the gods than be No one. If he had returned home after the war, the suitors would never have come. My mother’s life would not have been blighted. My life. He talked so often of longing for us and home. But it was lies. When he was back on Ithaca he was never content, always looking to the horizon. Once we were his again, he wanted something else. What is that if not a bad life? Luring others to you, then turning from them?’

Note: New perspective on Odysseus

Page 757

‘You see it as a sort of vengeance then. Bringing a god down on my head.’ ‘I see it as payment in kind.’ She would have made an archer, I thought. That cold-eyed precision. ‘You have no ground to make bargains, Lady Penelope. This is Aiaia.’ ‘Then let me not bargain. What would you prefer, begging? Of course, you are a goddess.’ She knelt at the foot of my loom and lifted her hands, lowering her eyes to the floor. ‘Daughter of Helios, Bright-eyed Circe, Mistress of Beasts and Witch of Aiaia, grant me sanctuary on your dread isle, for I have no husband and no home, and nowhere else in the world is safe for me and my son. I will give you blood every year, if you will hear me.’ ‘Get up.’ She did not move. The posture looked obscene on her. ‘My husband spoke warmly of you. More warmly, I confess, than I liked. He said of all the gods and monsters he had met, you were the only one he would wish to meet again.’ ‘I said, get up.’ She rose. ‘You will tell me everything, and then I will decide.’

Note: Shaming her by kneeling

Page 766

We faced each other across the shadowed room. The air tasted of lightning. She said, ‘You have been talking to my son. He will have implied that his father was lost in the war. That he came home changed, too soaked in death and grief to live as an ordinary man. The curse of soldiers. Is it so?’ ‘Something like that.’ ‘My son is better than I am, and better than his father too. Yet he does not see all things.’ ‘And you do?’ ‘I am from Sparta. We know about old soldiers there. The trembling hands, the startling from sleep. The man who spills his wine every time the trumpets blow. My husband’s hands were steady as a blacksmith’s, and when the trumpets sounded, he was first to the harbour scanning the horizon. The war did not break him, it made him more himself. At Troy he found at last a scope to equal his abilities. Always a new scheme, a new plot, a new disaster to avert.’ ‘He tried to get out of the war.’ ‘Ah, that old story. The madness, the plough. That too was a plot. He had sworn an oath to the gods, he knew there was no getting out. He expected to be caught. Then the Greeks would laugh at his failure, and think that all his tricks would be so easily seen through.’ I was frowning. ‘He gave no sign of that when he told me.’ ‘I’m sure he didn’t. My husband lied with every breath, and that includes to you, and to himself. He never did anything for a single purpose.’

Note: Mind blown holy crap. From Telemachus’ story I thought he was afflicted by ptsd. I never saw this twist coming

Page 855

‘Of course. This wash is excellent, what is it?’ ‘Thistle, artemisia, celery, sulphur. Magic.’

Note: I wouldn’t be surprised if this is modern soap

Page 120

Penelope’s face was bent to the floor. ‘I have, goddess. He is set in his course. You know his father’s blood was always stubborn.’ ‘Stubborn in achievement.’ Athena snapped each word like a dove’s neck. ‘In ingenuity. What is this degeneracy?’ She swung back to Telemachus. ‘I do not make this offer again. If you persist in this foolishness, if you refuse me, all my glory will leave you. Even if you beg, I will not come.’ ‘I understand,’ he said. His calmness seemed to enrage her. ‘There will be no songs made of you. No stories. Do you understand? You will live a life of obscurity. You will be without a name in history. You will be no one.’ Each word was like the blow of a hammer in a forge. He would give in, I thought. Of course he would. The fame she had described was what all mortals yearn for. It is their only hope of immortality. ‘I choose that fate,’ he said. Disbelief shone naked on her cold, beautiful face. How many times in her eternity had she been told no? She could not parse it. She looked like an eagle who had been diving on a rabbit and the next moment found itself in the mud. ‘You are a fool,’ she spat. ‘You are lucky I do not kill you where you stand. I spare you out of love for your father, but I am patron to you no more.’

Note: This is why Homer never spoke of Telemachus.

Page 246

The words hung in the air. His eyes were discs of ignited gold, but I did not look away. ‘If I do this thing,’ he said, ‘it is the last I will ever do for you. Do not come begging again.’ ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I never will. I leave this place tomorrow.’ He would not ask where, he would not even wonder. So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself. ‘You have always been the worst of my children,’ he said. ‘Be sure you do not dishonour me.’ ‘I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.’ His body was rigid with wrath. He looked as though he had swallowed a stone, and it choked him. ‘Give Mother my greetings,’ I said. His jaw bit down and he was gone.

Note: Sahiiiiii 🔥

Page 507

‘I have long wondered something,’ I said. ‘When we fought over Athena, how did you know to kneel to me? That it would shame me?’ ‘Ah. It was a guess. Something Odysseus said about you once.’ ‘Which was?’ ‘That he had never met a god who enjoyed their divinity less.’ I smiled. Even dead he could surprise me. ‘I suppose that is true. You said that he shaped kingdoms, but he also shaped the thoughts of men. Before him, all the heroes were Heracles and Jason. Now children will play at voyaging, conquering hostile lands with wits and words.’ ‘He would like that,’ she said.

Note: Good for Odysseus I guess

Page 084

Afterwards I heard the words of mockery and blame, proud words, “How could God give up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from his sores with a pot-sherd—and for no object except to boast to the devil! ‘See what My saint can suffer for My sake.’ ” But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery—that the passing earthly show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise; “That is good that I have created,” looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations, and for ever and ever, since for that he was ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and what lessons there are in it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, what strength is given with it to man! It is like a mold cast of the world and man and human nature, everything is there, and a law for everything for all the ages. And what mysteries are solved and revealed!

Note: God damn

Page 831

Britain’s sprawling trans-continental empire covered nearly a quarter of the globe. Despite the many different climates, ecosystems and resources it encompassed, there was one obvious lack: oil. With no meaningful deposits to speak of in any of its territories, the war offered Britain the chance to put that right. ‘The only big potential supply’, wrote Sir Maurice Hankey, bookish Secretary to the War Cabinet, ‘is the Persian and Mesopotamian supply.’ As a result, establishing ‘control of these oil supplies becomes a first-class war aim’. 60 There was nothing to be gained in this region from a military perspective, Hankey stressed when he wrote to the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, the same day; but Britain should act decisively if it was ‘to secure the valuable oil wells’ in Mesopotamia.

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