Circe

A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy you a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred.”

I thought once that

gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than

anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.

“We are not our blood,” he answered.

But I

would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say,

some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.

But perhaps no parent can truly see their

child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults

“I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so

clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing

no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.

would I be like

Achilles, wailing over his lost lover Patroclus?

Daedalus had said to me once: Even the best iron grows brittle with too

much beating.

Diomedes, Odysseus’ ruthless right

hand

cyclops Polyphemus, a savage one-eyed giant who

was a son of Poseidon