Thursday, March 5, 2015

A Little Myth


The first Selene & Endymion story I read.




I wrote a freelance piece about myths associated with islands in the Aegean Sea, and one about the origin of Patmos island lodged itself in my head, possibly because it was one of the only Greek myths I've ever read that didn't involve murder, cheating, and/or revenge.  Here's the Wikipedia version:

According to a legend within the Greek mythology, the island's original name was "Letois," after the goddess Artemis, daughter of Leto. It was believed that Patmos came into existence thanks to her divine intervention. Mythology tells of how Patmos existed as an island at the bottom of the sea.

Deer-huntress Artemis frequently paid visits to Caria, the mainland across the shore from Patmos, where she had a shrine on Mount Latmos. There, she used to meet up with the moon goddess Selene, who cast her light on the ocean, revealing the sunken island of Patmos.

Selene was always trying to get Artemis to bring the sunken island to the surface and, hence, to life. Selene finally convinced Artemis, who, in turn, elicited her brother Apollo's help, in order to persuade Zeus to allow the island to arise from the sea.


It's all very [citation needed] and I wasn't able to find the same version of the story anywhere else, but Patmos wasn't very important until St. John of Patmos had a bad trip in a cave there and wrote the Book of Revelation. So maybe people made up a different version of its origin every time they told the   myth. Which, hey, is exactly what I'm about to do:

So Artemis, while hunting on Mount Latmos, often stopped for some goddess-talk with Selene, who kept time on Latmos with her immortal-in-sleep lover Endymion.

(When Selene first fell in love with Endymion, I imagine Artemis was like, "Aw, come on! Chicks before dicks. We moon virgins have to stick together." And Selene was like, "But he's cute!" which wasn't really going to sway a goddess whose usual thought about cute things was whether their heads would look good on her wall. But it meant Selene came around for chats on Latmos, so Artemis was won over eventually.)

"So he sleeps all the time?" Artemis asked one night.

"Yes," Selene replied, bending and poking a bit of moonlight into a luminous moth which flew off once it realized what it was.

"Does he talk?" Talking men were among Artemis's least favorite things.

"Mmm...mostly things like 'forget the cheese' and 'ladder rain apples.'"

"So he doesn't order you around or start wars or anything?"

"He's a shepherd, cousin. He wouldn't be doing any of those things anyway."

"Yes he would. He's a man. They all have delusions of grandeur." Artemis paused. "Does he sleepwalk?"

"Walk? No. Other things? Yes."

"Well, obviously. You're up to what, 36 daughters now?"

"Thirty-eight. I had twins last week."

"Oh! Congratulations. I should send them a gift, yes?"

"Your temple took care of it. You sent them lovely booties with their initials sewn on."

"Oh, Me bless them, they're so much better at gift-giving than I am." Another pause. "So. No talking. No fighting. You can come and go as you please, and your visits end in daughters?"

"That about sums it up, yes."

Artemis offered her fist, at which Selene stared for a moment before realizing she was expected to nudge it with her fist. (Artemis: Goddess of Fistbumps.)

"You know," Selene said after a moment, "If your temple is sick of sending baby clothes, there is something you could get me when daughter 39 arrives."

"Is it a birth control spell?"

Selene laughed and a thousand moon flowers sprang into bloom. "No, dearest. You see that shiny bit of land down at the bottom of the ocean there?"

"Ocean's not my domain. Ask Poseidon."

"I will not. He's a jackass. Besides, I want it raised out of the ocean. He'd never agree to that."

"I imagine Athena would do it just to spite him."

"Oh, she's on my list too. She turned my favorite weaver into a spider last week."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, Cos, but I can't raise land."

"But your brother raises the sun every day, yes? Maybe he could do it?"

"Has he sent baby gifts?"

"No, but he has inquired a few times as to whether my eldest has reached adolescence yet."

"Oh for Zeus's sake. Yeah, I'll ask him."

***

"What's in it for me?" Apollo asked as he harnessed his sun-chariot.

"I'll owe you?"

"No. I'm not falling for that again. You've owed me for three millennia for not telling Dad you were behind the Kalydonian Boar."

Artemis knew the quickest way to get her brother's attention and said, "It's for Selene."

"Reeeeeally?"

"You are. So. Gross."

Apollo took the reins in one hand and shot a finger gun at his twin with the other. "I'll see what I can do," he called, taking to the sky.

***

Apollo went straight to Zeus. "Hey, Dad, wanna do a favor for your favorite son?"

"Sure. What does Hercules want?"

"That's cold, Dad."

"My father swallowed my siblings. You can deal with sarcasm."

Apollo told his father about Selene and her favorite spit of land. Zeus replied, "Hmm. Does she love it as much as that virile shepherd she keeps in a cave?"

***

The next time Artemis met Selene on Latmos, Patmos was glowing in the moonlight and Selene had a radiant toddler balanced on her lap. The Goddess of the Hunt wrinkled her nose and said, "A baby? Really?"

Selene just sent Pandeia over to give her sister-aunt a sticky-fingered hug.

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