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The Stories Lie, I Never Loved A Bull

Pasiphaë tells all

By Danielle LoewenPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
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The Stories Lie, I Never Loved A Bull
Photo by Vivian Arcidiacono on Unsplash

The gods and men alike love nothing better than to invent lies about us. Although they call us gossips, it is they who have mouths filled with forked tongues, telling tales for which we women pay in blood. The blood of our bodies, the blood of our children. We women always pay the debts, although we rarely incur them. 

It was a night drenched in blood, the chamber floor running red, a night without a moon, the night I gave birth.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Now a shade in Hades realm, I no longer have to keep my council. I can tell the truth, the story behind the myths you've always known.

First, there was my husband's selfish folly.

Ever the pompous ass, Minos decided to play politics with the gods. The way he likes to tell it, he offered up a sacrifice of smoked fish and fragrant herbs at Poseidon's temple, thinking himself so shrewd, tempting the sea god to negotiate. 

I was there, though. Minos was too busy fondling the priestess in dark corners to pay much attention to the rites the nymphs performed on his behalf, or the terms they bargained, using the words I fed them. Unwilling to pay the woman's price for his hubris, I cautiously sowed plans of my own.

"Oh Poseidon, Father of the Deep, Keeper of the Seas, send Minos a sign of your special favour. Grant Knossos a gift that we may return with all humility. Everything you give is yours. Everything we have is yours, generously shared." Even the gods will fall for nonsense, like poison in the wine, if you mix them in with pretty words. 

Rising from the sea, Poseidon's gift - the sacrifice - came on cloven feet. He deigned to send a bull, snow-white and flawless. 

But I knew Minos would be far too greedy to send it back. It was a trojan horse that I'd invited in, meant to undo him, meant to shame him, even though all he saw was a testament to his merit as the rightful king. 

I heard him afterwards, bragging to his sycophants, of how he would deceive Poseidon.

II

If Minos wanted to play games with the gods, then I would find a virtuoso of my own. Myself a daughter of Helios, the embodied sun, yet I no longer held my father's favour and hated him in turn for trading me away to this buffoon. This, then, is how I met the one they call the Trickster.

Although I recalled many tales from my time among the Titans, I consulted the nymphs over what they truly knew about the gods and goddesses that live on high Olympus. 

Sifting through their anecdotes, I learned I might find an ally in Hermes, the winged messenger of almighty Zeus. Though we had no temple dedicated to the mischief-making god on Knossos, a few of the nymphs had stories about the times that he appeared, on his own or bearing signs from Zeus. I gathered the stories like flowers to ready myself for the risks I meant to take.

Then one night, Minos lay snoring with too much wine; I'd kept his cup full, pouring it unmixed myself. I crept from my chamber and out through the white marble halls of Knossos, lit only by the moon. As I went on swift and sandaled feet, I prayed to Artemis that she would guide my steps as sure as any huntress, though I have never held a weapon. She must have heard me, for none saw me leave the grounds and wander out into the nearby fields, a small lantern in hand, carefully shaded.

I knew where lay a pit of garter snakes, the symbol that Hermes claimed for himself. Moving cautiously across the rocky paddock thick with summer grass, I found my way there. I'd tucked a packet of costly insense inside my dress and I drew it out. Using the lantern, I lit a small fire; soon, the embers grew red, and the sweet and heady scent filled the air. 

I untied my dress and let it fall from my shoulders, though I kept my golden necklace and my many bangles to remind him of my worth. I may be the daughter of a Titan and a queen besides, but without my pretty things, I look too much like any other woman, white skin against the dark blanket of night.

Though the air was balmy, my skin prickled; as I began to dance, I quickly warmed, chanting the hymns that the nymphs had taught me. Rosy-fingered Dawn had just begun to grace the sky when I heard the sound of wings. 

He laughed and clapped his hands delightedly when he beheld me, my long dark hair, unbound, now sticking to skin slick with sweat. 

Landing lightly on the earth, he looked more radiant than I had ever imagined. He wore his golden hair like a living crown, and from his wide shoulders hung a long cape that shimmered and changed as though woven from the stuff of dreams. His lips were cherry red and puckered like a girl's, but no one could mistake him for anything but male.

His immortal voice rang through my weary body like a bell. "I haven't seen this rite in over a hundred years! How did you learn it, mortal?"

"Posideon's nymphs are easily bribed with sweets," I answered, giving him a shy smile. 

"You have a proposition, I take it?" he leaned on his staff, entwined with the snakes that were waking with the sun below us. 

"I do. Minos means to enrage Posideon, and I refuse to be the price he pays. I offer myself in exchange for your help." I spread my arms wide to display my generous charms. 

He looked me over with obvious interest and I suppressed my blush. I wanted him to see me as capable, rather than naïve. "And why would I bargain, when I could just take what you offer?" he countered.

"The thrill of the game. The chance to trick Minos. Better still, the chance to trick Poseidon. And I know you love few things better than to cuckold men and gods . . ." I trailed off, less certain of the latter, though there were many tales to prove its truth. 

He laughed again, the son of lightning, the god of play. "I'll take your offer, with one more catch - " the smoulder in his eyes, burnished like the sun, bespoke his holy lineage - as well as his desire. 

There are many untold reasons, I learned as the sun mounted the horizon, that we call them gods

III

Minos thought himself so clever to sacrifice instead an ordinary bull. Surprise, surprise, it's not a simple matter to swindle a god - not unless you have the god of tricks on your side, that is. After Minos played Poseidon for a fool, so the story goes, as punishment, the sea god sent Aphrodite to enchant me into wooing the bull; I'd disgrace myself and cuckold my husband.

The trident wielding god's message? If you keep from me what is my due, I will take from you what you think is yours.

What Poseidon didn't know was Minos lost me long before. Before, when he left me alone to go romp with this harem full of half-grown girls. Before, when he shamed me at parties, with his drunken rants and his tiresome lies. 

Before, when I made a pact with Hermes, the god of tricks, travellers, and thieves. When I took him as my lover.

The stories say that I had Daedalus make for me a wooden cow - well I'm sure I needn't explain what for. It's true I climbed inside, but it wasn't the animal that I seduced. For what woman would want to fuck a bull when the juices of a god still drip between her thighs?

Soon my belly swelled, proclaiming loudly mine and Minos' shame, though he loudly bragged the babe was his in the hopes that it was. Too drunk too often, he didn't know it had been months since last he visited my bed.

For my part, I played the harlot well, staying out of sight as often as I could. Keeping my gaze low, as though I couldn't meet the many prying eyes of Minos' court. But all the while, I was lost in visions, entangled with my lover, daydreaming of our next enticing tryst.

As my belly grew, so too did the looks of disgust, the nasty whispers of the court toadies. But what cared I for the empty words of mortal men when a deity moaned his pleasure each time we met? I knew Hermes' passion would never last but I was content to relish it while it was mine. 

IV

Disguised as a midwife, Hermes was there for the birth of his son. It was a bloody night, as birthing always is, but not as bloody as it might have been. I sent the others from my room with exaggerated shrieks of pain. Soon my son slipped into the world; but it wasn't the Son-of-Minos they later called Κρὴς ταῦρος, the Minotaur. No, we performed the oldest trick in the book - a sleight-of-hand, the very one that Minos failed.

Hermes took a newborn calf and, in his immortal, marvellous way, remade it like a child. Teary-eyed, I swapped it for my son, who already wore a crown of golden curls. With one last kiss, the god promised to take him somewhere safe: to cover up my crimes and to pay for my escape. It was the last time I saw him, this side of death. 

It was the last time I saw Hermes, in the waking world. 

I called him Asterion, the starry one. I wept his name when the women returned, and they thought I spoke of the monster I held instead. 

I refused to pay in blood, in humiliation, though I suppose I paid in other ways. When it comes to the gods, no mortal ever escapes unscathed.

religion
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About the Creator

Danielle Loewen

she/her | avid reader | gamer | feminist | reluctant idealist | recovering academic | body lover | meditator

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