Godly Gossip: From the Archive of Hermes

Art by Faith Wong

By Faith Wong

In an utterly unsurprising twist, three intercepted letters recovered from the archives of the God of Thieves have surfaced following a crackdown on godly crimes and corruption in Olympus (watch out, Zeus!). Exclusively printed here, for the first time ever!

Lost Letter #1

Dear Friend,

It has been much too long since I last wrote. I wish to express my gratitude for helping me embark on this journey, and to share the fortuitous encounters I have since had. 

Naturally, I could not return home to Corinth after hearing the oracle’s prophecy–that I would bring death and dishonor to my family–lest I allow any of it to come true. I wandered from place to place, imposing on the hospitality of generous men everywhere I stopped. You could say I journeyed well: many of those I met were pious and honest Greeks. There were few minor clashes, but I was able to escape unscathed and with character still intact. 

Most recently, there was one man who drove his chariot without regard for rule or regulation, though his unmanly jaw and poor driving posture ought to have alerted me of his weak character. The scuffle ended as it started: quickly and with the utmost justice done to all sides. I can only thank Hermes and Themis for watching over me and acknowledging the piety with which I have always lived my life. Though I had been reduced to a vagrant, I had not – and indeed never will be – degraded as to provoke unnecessary or unjust violence. 

After a long day, I finally arrived in Thebes, where I am now writing this letter, to find it engulfed in bloodshed and terror. The Sphinx, a terrible creature, had been ravaging the city. Her stomach bulged with the bodies of Thebeans and travelers alike, and her eyes glinted at the sight of me. I confronted the beast and drove her off her perch with my unmatched character, courage, and wit. 

Their queen, a noble woman, had been suffering the plague of the Sphinx alone, their king having been found dead not long after my arrival. In gratitude towards me, and as recognition of my princely upbringing, I was awarded kingship and the hand of Jocasta for freeing Thebes from the Sphinx’s impious tyranny. I must admit, I was relieved to learn of this reward. 

I had been so long without the comforts of a home to which I could return or companions with which I could pass the time. I also liked the city of Thebes: if I must have a place to call home outside Corinth, I’m glad it is here, with such a hospitable ruling family and having freed its long-suffering people. I know that I will be able to bring Thebes to a new age, greater and more famous than it has ever been, being a man of such royal breeding as I am.

Thus I went from prince, to wanderer, to king. I cannot begin to count my fortunes, nor to think how lucky I am to have saved myself and my parents from the Oracle’s horrific prophecy. I truly feel at home here, more than any place I have wandered to before.

If you ever find yourself in this part of Hellas, do take advantage of our hospitality and stay a week or two as my guest. Perhaps–if all goes well, and I have no doubt it will–we shall be able to welcome you as a family of three or more.

Warm Regards,

Oedipus

Lost Letter #2

Dearest Clytemnestra, 

I remember going to you at every stage in my life for advice, though I rarely did listen to you, did I? Still, you were a pillar. I knew that if I told you my troubles– how trivial they seem now!– I would be able to clear my mind. Never before have I needed your confidence and self-assuredness quite so much as now. I took all the talk of fate and destiny to heart and allowed myself to be swept away by my fate as I watched you wrestle the reins of life into your hands. And now I’ve been swept away to this indomitable city. Or is that merely an excuse?

Perhaps I wanted to make him fight for me. Do you remember the day of my betrothal? They had heard of the story here, too, the story of the suitors and of my marriage. Tales that among the ranks of eligible, powerful men, I choose Menelaus. What an idea, that I ever had any choice in the matter. 

I might have willingly married him. I certainly did not detest the idea: he was ambitious, but soft enough, and handsome too. Someone who had known so little of comfort and peace that he should be eternally grateful for a place beside our father and myself, so far above the people of mighty Sparta. I’d forgotten in those early days that all he had ever known was relentless ambition and anger. With every year, this became more apparent. 

Then, standing suddenly beside him, the sun-kissed skin of that pure young man, close enough to touch, but too far to embrace. I remembered who I once was. Who they said I’d always be. Who they said I must be, if I were to be worth anything. I heard his even breaths in the quiet of my room and was relieved of my husband’s suffocating glare. His hands smoothed my skin, returned its golder luster, put the air back into my chest. We ran in a haze–or was it only the morning mist?–drunk from the thrill of it all.

But if I am to return? I shall certainly never be queen again. Even if I were to don the crown and take the place beside my husband, I shall only ever be the deserter, the traitor, the half-beast wife who threw her country away for a youth, his chin and chest still smooth. They would be wrong, of course. I did not throw my country away for Paris. I threw it away for me. I have made my own head the prize of this bloody game.

I see no path for me now. None that would take me back to the spring of my days with you. We were never allowed to be free, were we? But we were content, if not respected. We were as bold as the afternoon sun. For a few glorious years, neither plot nor rumor could reach us. But the sun, too, must sink below the horizon and endure the sighs of relief and endless complaints: “It has been too hot to do anything today,” “working in this heat is a torment,” “burned under the unrelenting sun, all of it.” I can almost hear them whisper about me under the cover of night: “countless husbands and sons lost for a woman who turned her back on us,” “who will decapitate her, when we seize the city?” and “Can I be there to witness it?”

You would know what you want. You have never been without purpose or direction. I have known you to fight a headache of a bull and force it in the direction you choose. I see you now, sitting upright upon your throne, meticulously designing some new plot. I wonder what for, this time. Perhaps you’ve caught some fine young man on your web to wed dear Iphigenia; she must be the marrying age by now. You and I were married off to noble brutes; I hope she is able to escape such a fate.

I wish I could hear what they are saying about you, for I have no doubt that they have heard tell of how you are and what you are doing. But I am treated like a haunted thing: a daily reminder of the lives and fields lost. My needs are taken care of, I suppose, but who could bear standing next to me long enough to whisper rumors into my ear? I feel bitter when I hear “the face that launched a thousand ships.” Any who have lived in the world with their ears and eyes unblocked know this to be impossible. 

Aphrodite’s beauty could not inspire a war. Carnage and bloodshed of this magnitude could only be effected by the greed of men. Men like our husbands.

Yours,

Helen

Lost Letter #3

Dear Cassandra, 

I think I have lived too long my only companion and friend. With no one to write to, but everything to say, I have only myself to turn to. 

They thought I was odd, at first, to shun marriage and motherhood for a place in his temple. But it was an honorable calling; there were enough sons and daughters to become allied with all the world. And even left on their own, the walls of Troy would never bow down in any honest fight. To have one so devoted as to become a priestess in the family, oh, it was just one more triumph that put Troy’s ruling family above every other. And I was to be paraded around like the crown jewel when father had need for me and my god did not. “What a pious, chaste girl,” they said, “what good she does for the city.”

They look at me as if I have gone mad. I would like to go mad. I hear there are some gods that can sweep you away until your head is amongst the clouds, drifting so high up you can’t feel your body or know what you’re doing. My god does the opposite: a moment’s comfort chased away by the curse he placed on me, the curse of looking to the future to see my city in flames and my people slaughtered. 

I once thought I could make them hear me. I told them of my visions. They saw my torment as I screamed and begged for release. They saw everything, didn’t they? But I was ignored and shunned as he tore into my mind, as he still does, too often and too soon. And when it all came to be as I said– it is always as I said– I was still only a liar that marred the glorious name of Troy and brought curse after curse with every word. They saw it all– and heard it too– everything that would befall, everything they needed to know, everything I was cursed with the burden of seeing… seeing that they would watch dumbly as slowly, every single syllable came true, and yet…

Sometimes, in my dreams, I see the heartless shine of a knife, bathed in a terrible red– the very shade that will stain the earth for generations, but I want to rush to it, sink my body in it, let it do what I’ve always been too cowardly to do myself. If there’s anything I’ve learned these last few horrific years, it is that nothing is as sure as fate. Not a mother’s loving embrace, nor a sister’s companionship, nor a queen’s loyalty. This one thing I know to be unconditionally true– this one thing I dare hold on to: it must be soon, for he has been visiting me more frequently these days. 

He is revered as the bringer of light, truth, and healing. They see the lyre he holds in one hand and remember the soothing music of every beautiful moment in their lives: the comforting hum of their mother, the glowing festival lights after dark, the gathering of kin after a long day in the fields. They forget that he holds a bow in the other: a sign of his cowardice and trickery. What dishonorable thing will he not do in the shadows to gain the upper hand? What wicked deed will he not—

[Note: The remainder of this letter is lost or destroyed.]