Athena's Companion

I was born from the earth. I hatched from its soil, bursting like a green bud, drenched in the springtime sun. I did not have eyes yet, but already I could see the great temple surrounding me. Hers was the face I saw first, though she was not my sculptor. She watched as Hephaestus seized me, blacksmith of the gods, and pounded my body with his meaty palms until it was a perfect weapon.

He crafted my face next. I screamed, but Hephaestus had not yet made my mouth, and there was not a voice to come out of it. As he designed my countenance to be that of an immortal goddess, still her nocturnal gaze transfixed me. Athena. Such pale blue irises, they emitted a silver light all of their own. She stood beside Zeus, who sat on the edge of the fountain facing us. As he gulped from his kylix, its shallow brim sent diluted wine trickling down his beard.

“Marvellous,” Zeus roared. “She is a marvel, Hephaestus. She shall be the glorious ruin of mankind.”

“What shall you call her, Father?” Hephaestus grunted.

“She shall be known as Pandora,” he declared, staring down at me without meeting my gaze. “The all-giving. For we shall give her to the mortals, a heavenly gift, and she shall give to them what they are owed.”

Hermes emerged from the shadows, smirking. Hephaestus set me down, and Athena turned from me. I looked instead to Zeus. His eyes burned blue too, but not like Athena’s; his sang of the sky and summer storms. With my new nose I inhaled the air. I could smell the rain up there, hanging in the clouds on Zeus’ every word.

“Athena,” when Zeus spoke her name, Athena’s face blazed. I am yet to decipher whether it was love or hatred I saw. “You must teach her how to weave. All good Athenian women know how to weave. Pandora must be the best, second only to you. I shall send for the Graces to conjure her jewels. You may clothe her.”

“Oh, must we?” Hermes’ yellow eyes flicked from Zeus back to me.

Zeus ignored him, “Her dress must be fit for a nymph – use your finest cloth.”

Athena nodded and placed a firm hand upon my shoulder, her nails digging into my new flesh like talons. Like that, she dragged me along to her chambers.

“Wait outside,” she commanded when we arrived at two marble doors that stretched to the golden ceilings. “You are not to enter.”

I wondered what lay inside that chamber. Another goddess, or another plot of soil like the one I came from? Perhaps an entire kosmos, all hers. She had the power. I could smell it on my shoulder, where her palm had indented me. Her power didn’t smell like the rain. It smelt like war.

“Come,” Athena emerged, holding a large jar and a silver pail. She floated soundlessly down the corridor. My footsteps slapped against the marble floors, sticking and unsticking.

We arrived in a room with tall windows and a great archway with no door, leading to the forests of Mount Olympos. Golden light spilled in, illuminating the giant loom that sat between two pillars, hand-painted with green olives. Athena set down the jar, and whatever was inside gleamed with a light even paler than her eyes. She turned to the doorway and made a sound that was not quite a melody, and not quite a battle cry. It fell somewhere in-between.

“Take the pail and fill it from the stream in the forest. Glaukopis will show you the way.”

I waited for a man to appear – another face to add to my collection – when a large barn owl swooped in, its plumage speckled like early snowfall. It landed on Athena’s shoulder, its white face framed as if with one of her helmets. She murmured something in its ear, and it dived once more, out towards the forest.

“Go on then. Follow her.”

***

Glaukopis guided me along a path surrounded by trees. Some I knew to be oaks, others were strangers. I found the knowledge I had could be grouped; there was that which I had been born knowing, like the names of the gods and the oceans and the creatures. There were some things that had appeared strong and sudden: my sense of smell, the blood in my veins. Then there were matters – technical, emotional, moral – that I didn’t know, and feared I may never learn unless I was taught. I decided then that I would glean everything I could from Athena, soaking in her words like sunlight.

When I spied the stream I ran to it, but Glaukopis let out a screech like a sea monster.

“Where would you have me fill the pail, then?”

The owl continued further downstream, until we arrived at a clearing, flooded with wildflowers and fig trees. It settled on one of the stepping stones, crystal clear water gushing either side.

“Beautiful,” I breathed, as I stooped to fill the pail.

“You’re beautiful,” I heard a voice from the meadow on the other side.

“I am?” I looked up to see three nymphs; each face as enchanting as the last. They were the first creatures I had encountered who did not tower over me.

“Do you not know what you look like?” the tallest nymph stared at me, only the narrow stream and its stepping stones separating us. Her black hair ran down to her hips and her skin was like nacre.

“Not yet,” I admitted.

“What is your name, woman?”

“Pandora.”

“All-gifted and all-giving,” one of the nymphs smiled. She looked so different to the other nymph, with red curls and burnt freckles. “Look down into your pail, Pandora, and admire your reflection.”

I did as she asked. It had not occurred to me that I might disobey a command. I could see that I was beautiful, as I could see that the nymphs’ meadow was. My hair was the very brown of the oak tree, my skin like milk, my eyes evergreen wreaths.

“I am not as beautiful as Athena,” was all I said, and Glaukopis stirred at her name, its eye glinting like onyx.

The third nymph cackled so violently one of the flowers she had weaved into her golden hair fell to the ground, “Athena is not beautiful,” she said simply. “For men do not desire her.”

“They worship her,” I argued.

“For her wisdom, not her beauty. They will not lie with her.”

“Well, I think she is beautiful. Her eyes are like this stream,” I said.

“Well, perhaps you should lie with her then,” the nymph cackled back.

“What are you, Pandora?” the black-haired nymph spoke again, stepping forward. Only now did I notice her gown, which frothed around her feet in breaking waves of white. It was the first time I felt aware of my nudity.

“She is a mortal,” the gold-haired nymph spoke. “Look at her stature. The gods must have brought her here because of her beauty.”

“She is too perfect to be a mortal. How old are you, Pandora?” the red-haired nymph asked. She wore only a long purple skirt, trailing through the wildflowers behind her.

“Oh, I was born today,” I explained. “From the earth in the temple courtyard.”

The nymphs gasped, their mouths gaping at me like tiny caves. I was concerned I had somehow given them the wrong answer. All of a sudden, a shadow fell over us. The nymph in the white gown dived into the stream, vanishing into its current. The red-haired nymph became a fig tree, right before my eyes. The gold-haired nymph darted towards the trees, transforming into a hare as she scurried into a burrow. Glaukopis swept over my head, and I turned to see Athena, tall as a tree herself.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, as though her disappointment had stolen my voice. “Glaukopis led me here.”

“I don’t doubt she did,” Athena offered the owl a single finger, and for the first time I saw a glimmer of warmth in her face. “What did you tell the nymphs?”

“Only that I was born today from the earth. I didn’t get a chance to tell them Hephaestus used the water from their springs to mould me. They looked horrified.”

“It matters not how we come into this world, only why. It is said when I was born I burst forth from Zeus’ forehead.”

“His head?”

“Indeed. Yet now, it is the least important thing about me. Now, come, Pandora, I must weave.”

I wanted to ask her why the gods had brought me into this world, but I did not want to enrage her. I also wasn’t sure if I was ready for the answer. “May I watch?”

“Only if you are silent as nightfall.”

***

By the time night had fallen, Athena had silently woven a peplos that put the nymphs’ garments to shame. She wove the water from the stream into a silver belt, fit for a frock of dreams. The jar had contained a single moonbeam, which Athena had drawn out and spun into a gown that spoke of liquid stars and moonlit wings.

“Try it on,” she commanded, though she already knew it would fit me perfectly. Athena never wove a thread wrong. “Then we must go to Artemis to ensnare another moonbeam – that was my last one.”

In my peplos I felt like I belonged; to the temple, to the nymphs, to Athena. As I followed Athena and Glaukopis out into the moonlight, the cloth glowed even brighter, as if calling to its brothers and sisters still falling from the moon to the earth.

“Keep an eye out for deer, Pandora,” Athena called. “Artemis is never far from deer when the moon is high.”

“Athena?”

“Yes?”

“The nymphs told me men will not lie with you. That they do not desire you. What did they mean?”

“I need not deal with this. Aphrodite is to be your mentor, not me. She is meant to pour charm upon your head and teach you to command desires.”

We walked in silence for some time. The only sound was my bare feet padding across the fallen leaves. Athena sighed.

“Male desire is not like an empire, Pandora. It is easy to come by, effortlessly won, yet fleeting once conquered. To lie with a man will not bring you power; it will only grant him power over you. The nymphs do not understand that their individual power is far greater than anything a man could offer them – mortal or god. So they neglect their gifts in favour of beauty. I pity them. For they shall spend their lives cowering in man’s shadow, cast aside when he tires of their wiles, when their birth rite should have him on his knees praising them.”

My eyes bored into her tall, broad back, but I did not speak.

“That is why I do not lie with men, Pandora. Of course they desire me, for nothing is more seductive to men than true, terrifying power. But I will share that with no one. Certainly not a man.”

I wanted to fall at her feet. I wanted to tell her that I would be always by her side, that I would reject all of Aphrodite’s teachings. I would be her follower, her warrior, her patron, her companion. This must have been why the gods created me, and I was so thankful I began to weep. I would give my life to the goddess Athena. For what other destiny could exist for a creature named Pandora?