Helen of Troy Read Online Free PDF

so chooses.”

    It was decided that we would go at the time of the celebration of the Greater Mysteries, in the autumn. I could begin my initiation now so that when I arrived at the sanctuary I could experience the secret rites in their fullest measure. Only those who had trained and been accepted by the goddesses could look upon their secret nature.
    An older woman who had served my mother since childhood instructed me in private. We are forbidden ever to reveal what we learned, but I can tell of the things everyone knows. Mother’s friend Agave began by taking me on a walk through the newly planted fields, while telling the story in a singsong voice. I was forced to wear a veil to hide my face lest any of the field-workers see me. It made the clear day seem overcast. Tramping beside us were two guards, armed with stout swords. They, too, were initiates.
    Though my sight was dimmed, I could still hear, and the birds and cries of human voices told me it was that exultant time of year when the earth rejoices as it warms again. I could smell the musty odor of just-turned earth, and hear the snorting and deep rumbles of oxen pulling the plow. Behind the curved plow came the farmer scattering the seeds, dropping them into the fur-row, and behind him, a boy with a mattock to cover them over again. Cawing and wheeling around his head, the crows were looking for a meal. Even the low rasp of their cries sounded happy to me. The boy yelled and beat them off with his hat, laughing all the while.
    “The earth rejoices, and why?” Agave suddenly stopped, so abruptly that I ran into her. She turned around and peered at me, but she could not see me through the veil.
    “Because Persephone has returned from the underworld,” I dutifully recited. Everyone knew that; you did not have to be an initiate.
    “And?”
    “And now her grieving mother, Demeter, who withered all the blooming and growing things, will bring them back to life again. And that is why we have the planting, and the flowering of the fruit trees.”
    She nodded. “Good. Yes. And might we see and hear Demeter? Walking here amongst us?”
    I was puzzled. “I am not sure. If we did, I think she would be in disguise. She disguised herself when she went searching for Persephone, did she not?”
    “Yes.” Agave took my hand and we began walking again, skirting between two fields—one of barley, one of wheat. Now the rows were just little green hairs, looking very fragile. “While the daughter is with her, the mother will be gracious to us all,” she said. “But when she leaves again, then it is we who are punished. The vines shrivel and the cold kills the flowers, and we call it winter.”
    “And we hate it!” muttered one of the guards. “Blue toes, stiff fingers, still we’re expected to fight as if it’s summer. The fields get to rest, the bears to sleep, but a Spartan soldier must carry on.”
    Agave laughed. “No wars are fought in winter, so you cannot whine about that.”
    “Kings must be guarded in winter. Princesses, too.” He winked at me. “Yes, and where were Persephone’s guards that day that Hades got her? If Demeter had been a good mother, she wouldn’t have left her unprotected like that.”
    “Don’t demean her or she’ll strike these fields, and you, my friend, won’t be eating,” said Agave.
    “No danger of anyone making off with Helen here. The king keeps a guard on her at all times, even though she’s locked up in the palace grounds. What’s he so worried about, I ask?”
    “It is best you don’t ask,” said Agave. Her voice changed. “Demeter may be in these very fields, so watch your words,” she told us all. Then to me she said, “But the correct answer to my question is just that. We might see her here. But you will surely see her at the Greater Mysteries. That I promise you.”
    I felt a shiver of excitement just thinking of that. But it was Persephone I most wanted to see. She was young, like me.

    Persephone chose