the death of a misogynist
title: no love, no.
rating: pg-13. character death & misogyny, man.
prompt: glory in 50mins.
summary: the death of hippolytus, retold. this is the third prompt in a row to which i've responded using a myth.
disclaimer: i'm no euripydes.
Life’s a bitch, they say. My father may rail about life and labours and taxes and minotaurs but he has it completely wrong. Life’s peachy; it’s the women who are bitches.
I devoted my life to a woman; I was as pure as the virginal Olympian snow and now I’m coughing up scarlet and half my ribs are broken and all my goddess can do is flutter helplessly and look reproachfully at my father. To his credit, he looks a little sheepish.
It’s not as though I led an easy life. Celibacy is never easy in mythology. My father doesn’t even know who his real father is. It could be Aegeus or it could be Poseidon who lives by the credo that there are plenty more fish in the sea. My father is not exactly piety personified either. Between raping and pillaging and kidnapping, he may or may not have married my mother. He has always been rather hazy on the details; he went on a bender with Heracles, swiped my mother’s girdle as part of a dare and abducted her sister. Somewhere in the haze of bourbon and casinos, he found his way to sleeping with my mother.
My childhood was uneventful after such sordid beginnings. I was never marked out for greatness and my father never showed much interest in me. I must have reminded him too much of the one-breasted woman who gate-crashed his wedding to Phaedra. My mother was promptly and viciously ejected from the proceedings. I have heard the story many times. My step-brother delighted in crowing about it.
I never had much interest in women – or, indeed, in men – but Aphrodite must have thought I was a soft touch. By that time, I had already dedicated my life to Artemis, my ineffectual deity whose hands tremble uselessly on my white, cold cheeks. Unlike my father, things don’t slip my mind. I don’t forget what colour sails I travel under although I can’t help but wonder whether I shouldn’t have dedicated my life to Dionysus. Father would have loved that. Perhaps it would have sent him over the edge in my place.
No doubt I should feel sorry for Phaedra but I lie dying because of her lies; my sympathy extends only to myself. It was unkind of Aphrodite to misuse my stepmother so but the gods are like children, capricious and wilful (and goddesses doubly so).
It is hardly a glorious end, hurtling over the edge of a cliff, hot on the heels of my stepmother’s suicide. I could have been a hero but instead I die this death of a virgin prince, all bloodied and white, untouched but royally screwed over.
rating: pg-13. character death & misogyny, man.
prompt: glory in 50mins.
summary: the death of hippolytus, retold. this is the third prompt in a row to which i've responded using a myth.
disclaimer: i'm no euripydes.
Life’s a bitch, they say. My father may rail about life and labours and taxes and minotaurs but he has it completely wrong. Life’s peachy; it’s the women who are bitches.
I devoted my life to a woman; I was as pure as the virginal Olympian snow and now I’m coughing up scarlet and half my ribs are broken and all my goddess can do is flutter helplessly and look reproachfully at my father. To his credit, he looks a little sheepish.
It’s not as though I led an easy life. Celibacy is never easy in mythology. My father doesn’t even know who his real father is. It could be Aegeus or it could be Poseidon who lives by the credo that there are plenty more fish in the sea. My father is not exactly piety personified either. Between raping and pillaging and kidnapping, he may or may not have married my mother. He has always been rather hazy on the details; he went on a bender with Heracles, swiped my mother’s girdle as part of a dare and abducted her sister. Somewhere in the haze of bourbon and casinos, he found his way to sleeping with my mother.
My childhood was uneventful after such sordid beginnings. I was never marked out for greatness and my father never showed much interest in me. I must have reminded him too much of the one-breasted woman who gate-crashed his wedding to Phaedra. My mother was promptly and viciously ejected from the proceedings. I have heard the story many times. My step-brother delighted in crowing about it.
I never had much interest in women – or, indeed, in men – but Aphrodite must have thought I was a soft touch. By that time, I had already dedicated my life to Artemis, my ineffectual deity whose hands tremble uselessly on my white, cold cheeks. Unlike my father, things don’t slip my mind. I don’t forget what colour sails I travel under although I can’t help but wonder whether I shouldn’t have dedicated my life to Dionysus. Father would have loved that. Perhaps it would have sent him over the edge in my place.
No doubt I should feel sorry for Phaedra but I lie dying because of her lies; my sympathy extends only to myself. It was unkind of Aphrodite to misuse my stepmother so but the gods are like children, capricious and wilful (and goddesses doubly so).
It is hardly a glorious end, hurtling over the edge of a cliff, hot on the heels of my stepmother’s suicide. I could have been a hero but instead I die this death of a virgin prince, all bloodied and white, untouched but royally screwed over.
posted by Lindsey at 2:03 PM
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