The Tale of Poseidon and Isadora the Fair
There was a time when the oceans swallowed anything that entered them. Poseidon, King of the Sea, claimed all that wandered into his realm. None would travel on the water for fear of Poseidon's wrath. Long before Poseidon's competition with Athena for the city of Athens, the king of the sea wandered the realm of the Earth, seeking to escape for a time from the confines of his underwater City. While travelling through the nation that was to become Greece, Poseidon's eyes were drawn to the daughter of the mayor of the town that was to become Athens.
Isadora of Athens was young and beautiful, and Poseidon was captivated by her. He watched her from afar, and longed to take her to his kingdom as his lover. But such was the beauty of Isadora the Fair that even the great King Poseidon would do no harm to her and would take her not to his city without her consent.
By and by, it came that the King must return to his Kingdom, and Poseidon left Athens to return to his true domain. He ruled in the sea as always, but thought of Isadora every moment and longed to return to her. Every year after that first fateful sighting, Poseidon the King would return to Athens, determined to cast Isadora the Temptress from his mind and be free of her, and every year after spending all hours of the day and night gazing at her beauty, Poseidon the lover would return to his ocean dreaming of the day Isadora the Fair would consent to be his bride. For in the years which the Sea King had spent thinking of the Athenian girl, he had come to know that Isadora would never leave her town to face the unknown, and he had come to understand that marriage to him would grant her a secure fate. Poseidon knew also that he was willing to tie himself to one woman to keep Isadora the Beautiful by his side.
Eventually, Poseidon revealed himself to the Athenian woman. He took the form of an old woman, and lead her to the seaside. They spoke long of the wonders of the sea, something about which it seemed Isadora wished to know everything of. Using his knowledge of the sea to his advantage, Poseidon entranced the eager young maid with stories of his underwater kingdom and the wonders it held. "But know well, young maid," warned Poseidon, "A mortal who enters the domain of the Sea King is swallowed by his oceans and is never released."
Isadora was horrified. "Is there not some way to see these wonders?" she begged. "Some way to enter that magnificent kingdom? You know of all these things, how could you know if you'd seen them not?"
Poseidon smiled to himself. "There is one way, child. A woman who consents to be the bride of Poseidon will see all these things and more. You must only consent, and he will take you to his underwater kingdom. However," Poseidon, as the old woman, warned, "once you have entered the City you will never be allowed to return to the surface."
Isadora smiled rapturously. "Oh, to see the wonders of Poseidon's underwater kingdom! I would consent, if he were but here to acknowledge me!"
As Isadora watched, terror changing slowly to delight, Poseidon transformed slowly from the shape of the old woman to the imposing figure that mortals believed him to have. He spoke. "My Lady Isadora, you have consented to become my bride and forfeit your connection to the realm of Earth. You have but one chance to change your mind, and this is it."
"I consent, my Lord." breathed Isadora. "Take me to your kingdom."
Poseidon brought at last Isadora the Fair to his kingdom beneath the Sea, and the denizens of the deep welcomed her. "Isadora the Beautiful" they called to her, and there was a year of feasting and song in her honour. Isadora spent many a long year in her Lord's Kingdom, and was content. But years passed, and Isadora came to long for the touch of the Sun upon her face, and to know again the raucous laughter of her soldier brothers, and the gentle touch of her father's kiss upon her forehead. She begged of Poseidon to let her return to the surface for a short while, but her Lord would hear nothing of her pleas.
"Were you not warned," he would say, "when you first came to the City, that you would never be able to return? Did I not tell you that your choice was final? And did you not consent?"
Their arguments were so terrible that the denizens of the City would hide in terror, and the earth would shake with the sound of Poseidon's roars. Soon, Isadora became so frustrated with her husband that she left the City.
She swam to the surface, and made her way to the town of Athens, under the Sun. However, things had changed in the years since Isadora had lived there, and Athens was well on its way to becoming a City-State of Greece. Her father had died many years previous, as had all but the youngest of her brothers. She came to him and called his name, but she had changed not in the years which had been so hard on the rest of her family, and her brother, now an old man, knew her not. Isadora realised, as he passed her in the street without even the barest of acknowledgements, that there was nothing left for her in the realm of the Earth, and longed to return to her husband's side.
Returning to the beach where she had first met him all those years ago, Isadora saw Poseidon rising from the water and called to him. Thinking only of her betrayal, Poseidon ignored her pleas and caused the Ocean to rise up and sweep her out to sea. She struggled to stay afloat, but the unforgiving sea dragged her down to the black oblivion of Hades.
Poseidon, realising too late what he had done, ventured into Hades to try to remedy his actions. Even a god, however, cannot persuade the god of the Underworld to give up one of his prizes if he does not want to be persuaded, and Poseidon returned to the Sea empty-handed. Filled with remorse for his actions, and determined that such a tragedy should not occur again, Poseidon commanded that any living thing, be it plant or animal, should have the chance to escape the inescapable clutches of the Sea, and that is why, to this day, all living things will float and rest upon the water if they so choose.