Circe

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.

I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.

Then, child, make another.

Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Wherever you are, I hope you are finding your satisfaction.

Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. 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.

All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal’s voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.

does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

Daedalus had guessed well: that I would like the whole business of it, the simplicity and skill at once, the smell of the wood, the shush of the shuttle, the satisfying way weft stacked upon weft. It was a little like spell-work, I thought, for your hands must be busy, and your mind sharp and free. Yet my favourite part was not the loom at all, but the making of the dyes. I went hunting for the best colours, madder root and saffron, the scarlet kermes insect and the wine-dark murex from the sea, and alum powder to hold them fast in the wool. I squeezed them, pounded, soaked them in great bubbling pots until the stinking liquids foamed up bright as flowers: crimson and crocus yellow and the deep purple that princes wear.

He believed the world’s natural order was to please him.
‘Who is that?’ my father said to Oceanos.
Oceanos had many golden-eyed grandchildren from my father already, and was glad to think of more. ‘My daughter Perse. She is yours if you want her.’

have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.’

Only the air, eating