fair huntress beloved by the very prey she dispatches?”
“Ha! She never hits them, that’s why. Tittering around the woods with a pack of Vassar freshmen whose so-called virginity not a doctor in Arcadia—”
“Hush, child!” The centaur brought his hand toward her lips and in his extremity of alarm almost did touch them. He had heard faint thunder behind him.
She backed off, startled at his presumption. Then she looked skywards over his shoulder and laughed in recognition;it was a mirthless laugh, a high heated syllable defiantly prolonged; it tightened her face across her skull and sharpened her perfect features cruelly, out of all femininity. Cheeks, brow, and throat flushed, she shouted toward Heaven, “Yes, Brother: blasphemy! Your gods, listen to them—a prating bluestocking, a filthy crone smelling of corn, a thieving tramp, a drunken queer, a despicable, sad, grimy, grizzled, crippled, cuckolded tinker—”
“Your husband!” Chiron protested, striving to keep himself in the graces of the firmament above him. His position was difficult; he knew that the indulgent Zeus would never harm his young aunt. But he might in annoyance toss his bolt at her innocent auditor, whose Olympian position was precarious and ambiguous. Chiron knew that his own intimacy with men was envied by the god, who never visited the created race except, in feathers and fur, to accomplish a rape. Indeed it was rumored that Zeus thought centaurs a dangerous middle-ground through which the gods might be transmuted into pure irrelevance. But the sky, though it had darkened, remained silent. Gratefully Chiron pursued his tactic, telling Venus, “You fail to appreciate your husband. Hephaestus is dexterous and kind. Though every anvil and potter’s wheel serves as an altar to him, he remains humble. The calamity of his fall upon Lemnos purged all dross of arrogance from his heart; though his body is bent, there is not a mean bone in it.”
She sighed. “I know. How can I love such a ditherer? Give me that mean bone. Do you think,” she asked, with the expectant and subtly condescending face of a not usually curious student, “I’m drawn to cruel men because I have a guilt complex about my father’s mutilation? I mean, I blame myself and want to be punished?”
Chiron smiled; he was not of the new school. The skyabove had paled. Feeling safe, he dared a touch of impudence. He pointed out, “There is one deity you have exempted from your catalogue.” He meant Ares, the most vicious of all.
The girl tossed her head; her orange hair flared into a momentary mane. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m no better than the rest. How would you list me, noble Chiron? ‘A compulsive nymphomaniac’? Or, less circumspectly, ‘A born whore’?”
“No, no, you misunderstand me. I did not mean yourself.”
She paid him no heed, crying, “But it’s un
fair
!” She clutched the towel about her emphatically. “Why should we deny ourselves the one pleasure the Fates forgot to take from us? The mortals have the joy of struggle, the satisfaction of compassion, the triumph of courage; but the gods are perfect.”
Chiron nodded; the old courtier was familiar with the way these aristocrats blithely extolled the class that in the previous breath they had calumniated. Did the girl imagine that her petty set of jibes went near to the heart of the real case against the gods? He felt a weight of weariness; he would always be less than they.
She corrected herself. “Perfect only in our permanence. I was cruelly robbed of a father. Zeus treats me like a pet cat. His blood love is reserved for Artemis and Athene, his daughters. They have his blessing; they are not driven again and again to clasp into their loins that giant leap that for a moment counterfeits it. What is Priapus but his strength without a father’s love? Priapus—my ugliest child; worthy of his conceiving. Dionysos made me perform as if I were another boy.” She touched
“Ha! She never hits them, that’s why. Tittering around the woods with a pack of Vassar freshmen whose so-called virginity not a doctor in Arcadia—”
“Hush, child!” The centaur brought his hand toward her lips and in his extremity of alarm almost did touch them. He had heard faint thunder behind him.
She backed off, startled at his presumption. Then she looked skywards over his shoulder and laughed in recognition;it was a mirthless laugh, a high heated syllable defiantly prolonged; it tightened her face across her skull and sharpened her perfect features cruelly, out of all femininity. Cheeks, brow, and throat flushed, she shouted toward Heaven, “Yes, Brother: blasphemy! Your gods, listen to them—a prating bluestocking, a filthy crone smelling of corn, a thieving tramp, a drunken queer, a despicable, sad, grimy, grizzled, crippled, cuckolded tinker—”
“Your husband!” Chiron protested, striving to keep himself in the graces of the firmament above him. His position was difficult; he knew that the indulgent Zeus would never harm his young aunt. But he might in annoyance toss his bolt at her innocent auditor, whose Olympian position was precarious and ambiguous. Chiron knew that his own intimacy with men was envied by the god, who never visited the created race except, in feathers and fur, to accomplish a rape. Indeed it was rumored that Zeus thought centaurs a dangerous middle-ground through which the gods might be transmuted into pure irrelevance. But the sky, though it had darkened, remained silent. Gratefully Chiron pursued his tactic, telling Venus, “You fail to appreciate your husband. Hephaestus is dexterous and kind. Though every anvil and potter’s wheel serves as an altar to him, he remains humble. The calamity of his fall upon Lemnos purged all dross of arrogance from his heart; though his body is bent, there is not a mean bone in it.”
She sighed. “I know. How can I love such a ditherer? Give me that mean bone. Do you think,” she asked, with the expectant and subtly condescending face of a not usually curious student, “I’m drawn to cruel men because I have a guilt complex about my father’s mutilation? I mean, I blame myself and want to be punished?”
Chiron smiled; he was not of the new school. The skyabove had paled. Feeling safe, he dared a touch of impudence. He pointed out, “There is one deity you have exempted from your catalogue.” He meant Ares, the most vicious of all.
The girl tossed her head; her orange hair flared into a momentary mane. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m no better than the rest. How would you list me, noble Chiron? ‘A compulsive nymphomaniac’? Or, less circumspectly, ‘A born whore’?”
“No, no, you misunderstand me. I did not mean yourself.”
She paid him no heed, crying, “But it’s un
fair
!” She clutched the towel about her emphatically. “Why should we deny ourselves the one pleasure the Fates forgot to take from us? The mortals have the joy of struggle, the satisfaction of compassion, the triumph of courage; but the gods are perfect.”
Chiron nodded; the old courtier was familiar with the way these aristocrats blithely extolled the class that in the previous breath they had calumniated. Did the girl imagine that her petty set of jibes went near to the heart of the real case against the gods? He felt a weight of weariness; he would always be less than they.
She corrected herself. “Perfect only in our permanence. I was cruelly robbed of a father. Zeus treats me like a pet cat. His blood love is reserved for Artemis and Athene, his daughters. They have his blessing; they are not driven again and again to clasp into their loins that giant leap that for a moment counterfeits it. What is Priapus but his strength without a father’s love? Priapus—my ugliest child; worthy of his conceiving. Dionysos made me perform as if I were another boy.” She touched
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