Madeline Miller

Name one hero who was happy.”

“I can’t.”

“I know. They never let you be famous and happy.”

I do not speak. I can see the temper rising in him. It is like watching a storm come, when there is no shelter.

That night, slipping among us like a snake, quick and silent and flickering, the plague began.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say

He must live, because his life, I think as I scrape backwards over the grass, is the final dam before Achilles’ own blood will flow.

I am air and thought and can do nothing.

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.

fingered their metal,

“Then here it is. I believe that we should let Helen choose.” Odysseus paused, to allow for the murmurs of disbelief; women did not have a say in such things.