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Overview
In Greek myth, Alcestis is known as the ideal wife; she loved her husband so much that she died and went to the Underworld in his place. But who was Alcestis before she was married? Other than her love for Admetus, what circumstances led her to make this ultimate sacrifice? And what happened to her in the three days she spent in the Underworld?
Katharine Beutner’s lush, emotionally devastating debut explores the magical reality of Ancient Greece, where gods attend weddings and the afterlife is just a river away, as Alcestis goes on a heroine’s journey from sheltered princess to self-actualized savior—redefining love and discovering her own power. Giving an achingly beautiful voice to the most misunderstood wives of Greek mythology, Alcestis is the Underworld as you’ve never seen it before.
This deluxe edition features discussion questions, a craft essay, and a bonus short story.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781569478431 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Soho Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 411,140 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
WHEN I WAS eight years old, I lived with my sisters in the stuffy upper quarters of the palace at Iolcus. We had a small room to ourselves, a chamber that adjoined the female servants' quarters, big enough to hold the bed, a bench, and a small table. It was the room we'd all been born in, the room our mother had died in, though only Pisidice was old enough to remember the disaster of my birth. The room no longer held any traces of our mother. It was a girls' room now, temporary and unembellished, a place for princesses to sleep and grow until we were old enough to be married and carried away.
I slept with Hippothoe and Pisidice, jammed in the middle because I was the smallest. Pisidice came to bed smelling of crushed flowers and wet linen and kicked in her sleep. Hippothoe smelled of garlic and sweat, but it was a warm smell, not unpleasant, and on this night I'd fallen asleep curled up against her bony shoulder with my nose pushed into her skin. The bedchamber was dark and quiet when her writhing woke me. I felt the hot point of her elbow in my chest, quickly withdrawn, and then a light hesitant touch on my arm. I sat up half alert in the darkness and scrubbed at my face with my palms. Hippothoe looked up at me, eyes panic-bright, hands fluttering between us in time with her wheezing breath. She shook her head once and I understood. She was always sorry for waking me, always spent her regained breath on apologies I didn't need. She had these panting fits often, sometimes only nights apart, and I knew we would both be limp and lazy in the morning — but it was my duty to get help, like Hippothoe's own little goddess of health, and I'd grown so used to the role that I almost enjoyed it. I squeezed her hot hand, climbed down from the bed, and stumbled off to wake the servants in the outer room.
The head maid sighed when I touched her, a low, miserable sound, as if she could not bear being dragged from sleep. But she hauled herself out of bed and followed me into the bedchamber to fetch Hippothoe. My sister sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched and heaving, the ends of her hair brushing her hands as they twisted in her lap. She leaned on me to stand, her body shaking as we walked, and I felt strong as a tower beneath her arm.
The head maid led us bleary eyed to the hearth, stepping over slaves sleeping in the halls. We stumbled down the stairs and past our father's empty throne. In the kitchens the head maid boiled water so Hippothoe could breathe the steam and rubbed cut garlic under her nose as she gasped and coughed. The air grew thick and my shift clung to my body, clammy with steam and fear. The head maid and I prayed to Apollo, running through the chant we said so often that I worried the god would tire of our entreaties. I believed then that he listened to me when I prayed. I imagined him stealing silently among us, reaching out to touch Hippothoe's chest with one golden-glowing hand, calming her, fixing her. I held my breath when Hippothoe choked and let it out only when her wheezing smoothed and slowed.
In the bedchamber, Pisidice still slept heavily, only muttering a little when Hippothoe and I collapsed onto the bed and tucked our damp bodies together. I put my cheek against my sister's shuddery chest and my arm along her neck. We looked like one gray-limbed creature, one divine monster, one flesh. I thought we would never be separated.
"Sorry," Hippothoe whispered to me as faintly as if she spoke across a great distance, while I stroked her forehead. "Alcestis, sorry."
* * *
IN THE MORNING Hippothoe's breath smelled faintly sweet, like a baby's, from the honey the head maid had given her for her roughened throat. I lay beside her, my back to Pisidice and my cheek hot on the linens. I had to pee. I'd been thinking of getting up to use the privy by the kitchens before the heat made the smell too terrible. I liked to walk through the quiet palace, to watch the servants and slaves twitch in their dreams like puppies, to watch my sisters snort and toss in the bed. But I waited, for I wanted Hippothoe to wake enough to pet my hair. On some mornings she'd drift into sleep again with a hand curved around my skull while I listened to her heart thud beneath her ribs. Now she stirred, restless and exhausted, and I felt Pisidice bolt into alertness with an allover twitch of her limbs. My eldest sister yawned, rolling, and kneed me in the back. Then she slipped out of bed and went to sit by the narrow window, settling in to watch the shepherds in the distant fields and gaze hungrily at the road as if she expected a visitor. Pisidice did this every morning. She was twelve years old and desperate for marriage.
"No one's coming, you know," Hippothoe said, and coughed hard, jarring me. She rested her thin hand on top of my unruly head.
"No suitors today, Lady Pisidice," I echoed, emboldened by Hippothoe's words. Pisidice did not look away from the window; I wasn't worth her attention. She'd left her comb and jar of oil on the sill and now she rubbed the oil between her palms and smoothed it over her hair, combing it through while she looked out over the royal road. The oil made her braid heavy and sticky; it made her smell like every other woman in the palace. I did not like it.
I began to tell her so, but Hippothoe hushed me and eased me up to sit, levering herself out of bed. "Let her be, Alcestis," she said, only half mocking. "She has to prepare herself."
Hippothoe didn't bother with her hair. It stood out around her head like a cloud, wavy fine and softer than wool. On some mornings she let me braid it and I wove the light brown strands about my fingers like rope. My own hair grew in bristling waves just past my chin. I'd had a bad fever the year before, bad enough that I had prayed to Apollo for my own health, and the head maid had chopped it off. Now I tugged a comb through it a few times before giving up. Pisidice turned her sharp eyes toward me.
"Really, put on a headband," she said. "You look like a boy. No man'll ever want to marry you."
Hippothoe, standing over the basin of water by the door, barked a laugh. "Perhaps she'll have better luck finding a husband if she does look like a boy."
Pisidice pitched the comb at her. Neither of them would tell me what they'd meant, though Hippothoe began snickering again as she yanked her shift over her head.
Our mother's body servant helped us dress. Pisidice was old enough to wear a maid's bodice, though she hardly filled it out. She was lucky she still had time to grow some breasts before she'd have to wear a matron's open bodice. I plucked at the lacings until she whirled around and smacked my fingers. The body servant waited, hands hovering in the air, until we'd settled down, then fixed each lace so they lay in a neat ladder across Pisidice's narrow back. Pisidice turned, cupping the servant's hands in her own, and nodded at her as graciously as a queen. Practicing. I rolled my eyes and chewed on the skin next to my thumbnail while Hippothoe tied back my mess of hair. I had to look presentable for the ritual.
It was the tenth day of the new year, the day of the dead vessel, and Hippothoe and I could not work or eat until we'd done the ritual in honor of our grandparents, Poseidon and the lady Tyro. My stomach already felt hollow. I hung near Hippothoe as we went downstairs, shoving my hand into the crook of her elbow. The skin below her eyes looked purplish gray, stained with weariness, but still she smiled and let me press close.
Pisidice was too busy to help. At twelve she ran the kitchens and supervised the slaves and decided our chores for the day, whether we ought to weave or spin, direct the washing or work in the kitchens. When we married, we would be mistresses of our own palaces, and Pisidice wanted nothing more. I watched her confer with the head maid, Pisidice's dark head tilted up toward the older woman's, her face serious. The slaves had prepared a place for the dead vessel; the omens of the skies had been propitious. It was the right hour for honoring the god of the sea, our grandfather, our household lord — and our absent grandmother. Tyro still lived, but elsewhere; Pelias was not a man who thrived on the care of his mother, and when his father, Cretheus, had died he'd installed her in a smaller villa in the mountains, given her thirty slaves, and sent my young brothers to see her on days when she would need help to perform the family rituals. I had seen her only once, several years before, and even then she'd been a stooped, gray woman, few signs left of the beauty that had drawn Poseidon to her. She had shouted at Pelias; I remembered that because I had enjoyed it so much. But despite their rancor we celebrated her often in ritual, reminding Poseidon of his love for her and his duty to Iolcus.
"It's ready," Pisidice said to us, distracted. "Go on."
I peered through the kitchen doors to the hall. I had not heard Pelias that morning; he never spoke more quietly than a bellow, and my sisters and I tracked him by sound. If we could, we kept away from him in the mornings, when he shouted at the servants who woke him. We'd retreat to our quarters before he returned to the palace for his midday meal, sit on the bed together, and pick at our haul of cakes and cheese until a slave came to fetch us again. But today was a ritual day, and it would not be easy for us to avoid our father.
Hippothoe waited, silent. Finally Pisidice sighed.
"He's in the stables," she said, and Hippothoe glanced at me and nodded. She took my hand and led me through the hallways to the great hall. A few villagers stood by the doors, awaiting our father; in the afternoons, Pelias sat court here and settled the quarrels of his subjects. He did not yell much. Men would leave with chastened looks, like misbehaving boys called to task, and walk down the broad porch steps speaking of Pelias's fairness, his calm, kingly demeanor. I wanted to roll my eyes whenever I heard them talk of his virtues, but I was convinced that Pelias would appear to catch me before my eyes had made one revolution in my head. Even though I hadn't heard Pelias's voice, even though Pisidice had said he was elsewhere, I looked for him nervously as we entered the great hall. I saw Hippothoe look too.
The two-handled vessel sat by the round hearth, where Hippothoe had placed it on the first day of the new year after the slaves brought it up from the shore; we girls were forbidden to walk into the water, even for ritual purposes. The seaweed circling the vessel's base had stained the clay white. Hippothoe knelt before the jar, picking the seaweed away and passing it to me as she whispered thanks to the local gods of the shore for giving us their harvest. I wound the crackling black-green strands into a loose coronet and placed it ceremoniously on her bent head. She made a little ugh face. We both preferred the laurel garlands of Apollo to our grandfather's brackish crowns.
Most of the seawater in the jar had disappeared into the air, but some still sloshed in the bottom. It smelled like Iolcus concentrated: salt and fish and stagnation. We hefted the vessel between us, but it wobbled as I flexed my pinched fingers, spattering water onto the stone floor. Hippothoe shot me a dark look. The seawater was a gift, and if Pelias saw it slop — but he hadn't. He wasn't there. We hobbled out through the entrance hall and the open doors to the porch and slaves bustled around us as we put down the vessel. One of the kitchen boys brought out a mallet and set it beside Hippothoe, bowing as its head clunked on the floor. She smiled up at him. The rest of the porch was empty, which was only right, for it was our territory in this warm season. Here we sat in warm weather, spinning wool, letting the wind gods stroke our faces. The work of spinning heated the calluses on my fingers and cramped my hands, but on the porch we could whisper to each other without distracting the men inside the hall, without being shouted at for our noisiness or dragged back to our bedchamber by our furious father.
Hippothoe knelt again, facing the sea and the jar. She motioned to me to fix my hair and held out her hand for mine. The creases of her palm sparkled with sweat. I swept hair out of my eyes, knelt, and gripped her hand, my head bent for prayer.
"Earth-shaker, sea-controller, grandfather," she said, her voice still scratchy. "We ask your protection this year, for the house of Tyro's children. For years you have given it, in recognition of your love, and for years we have repaid your protection with honor, for you are mighty and just, Grandfather, and we know it well."
While she spoke I studied the black painting on the sides of the jar, the warriors crouching there, their wedge-shaped beards. They had frightened me when I was younger, but the god my grandfather frightened me more. I imagined him grappling with my faded grandmother on the sands and was struck with a giddy terror that made me sink my teeth into my lip. If I laughed and Pelias heard me — or if Poseidon did —
Hippothoe continued: "We ask your care for the house of Iolcus, for Pelias and Pelias's children. Poseidon, Grandfather, accept this vessel we have made for you, to show how we honor your love. We offer you fealty, lord. For the house of Iolcus, I, Hippothoe, granddaughter of Tyro, second youngest, blessed by your hand, do consecrate this vessel to you."
She let go of my hand, pulled the crown of seaweed from her head, and pushed it through the mouth of the jar, then looked up, almost instinctively, toward the walls and the shore beyond. We drew breath at the same moment and held it, waiting, our chests full of uncertainty. Would he come? Would he be kind to us if he did? Would Pelias be pleased to see his father? Would I be pleased?
I'd seen my grandfather only once that I remembered, though Pisidice said he'd come to the palace after my birth. He had come too for Acastus's growth-day ritual. He had been great and fearsome, more fearsome than my father, and he'd left his trident humming in the corner of the great hall all day. Ever since, the stones in that corner had been swollen and crusted with salt; the kitchen slaves would scrape it off sometimes, those who dared to touch it, but it still crept back, glittery white. Mostly I remembered Poseidon's thick sea-clogged smell, and the way his black hair lay dull and damp against his skull, and the pattern of drips he'd left on the floors, like stories marked out in the stars. I didn't expect him to appear now — there was a reason the words of the prayer contained no specific invitation — but he might. He always might come, always might be submerged offshore, circled with Nereids, waiting to burst from the surf or to drag down some girl careless enough to edge her toes into the water.
We'd waited long enough. Hippothoe stood and ushered me behind her, then bent for the mallet. She swung it over her head and down: the jar shattered, seawater sprayed our ankles, pieces of clay clattered wetly on stone. Hippothoe's skirts were soaked. The silence of the courtyard seemed to swell for a moment, as if we'd been swallowed by some invisible wave, and then the noise of slaves and stable boys broke in upon us. The ritual was done.
Our brothers were watching us from the edge of the courtyard, tall Acastus staring, Pelopia darting sideways glances as if embarrassed. I nudged Hippothoe, who was shaking out her wet clothes. "They're here," I hissed at her, and she nodded — quick, angry jerks of her head.
"I see them," she said. "Behave yourself, Alcestis." It was a fair warning. I was already drifting away from her toward the boys. Acastus was eight years older than I and Pelopia six — my mother, Anaxibia, had produced a child every two years until my birth, first two boys, then two girls, then me, taking a boy's place.
I saw my brothers at meals and sometimes glimpsed them in the mornings if we got out to the courtyard quickly enough, but I had hardly spoken to them for over three years. Before I turned five I'd been allowed to roam the palace without a sister to escort me; a quiet girl child could move about as freely as a shade. Acastus had been constantly surrounded by a group of young men, boys from the countryside whose fathers had sent them to the palace to earn our father's favor. They lay about in the courtyard, drinking wine and eating the food the servants brought them and talking of shooting contests or women or animals they'd killed, and rarely noticed me fingering the pommels of their swords and tracing the grommets on their leather armor. When Acastus caught me, he used to swing me into his arms and let me pat at his cheek like a baby, feeling the prick of his golden stubble beneath my hands. Acastus looked like none of Anaxibia's other children. He was burnished as a god, blond-brown hair falling to his shoulders, and everyone said then that he was the only child of Pelias in whom Poseidon's blood ran true.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Alcestis"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Katharine Beutner.
Excerpted by permission of Soho Press, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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