For who could ever learn to love The One who doesn't know love?
By Asso
Chapter Two
"Hermes!"
The mighty chest of the King of the Gods gave booming voice to the call.
"HERMES!"
Even more thunderous.
One point appeared, away, in the sky. Up there.
It became bigger and bigger and bigger.
In an instant, in less than an instant, it was there, in front of Zeus, who was overlooking on the wide blue of the sky between two columns.
The land of men, blurred and indistinct, far away, over there, at the foot of Olympus, on the slopes of the home of the supernal gods, all around the godly mountain, down to the sea and beyond.
The sky, the earth, the world above.
Zeus' domain.
And, suspended in that infinity, the point was anything but a point, now.
It was a shining figure.
Hovering in the air, motionless in it, yet throbbing of energy in its immobility.
Facing Zeus.
Waiting for his orders.
"It was time! I had to call you twice!"
The figure did not move or speak. It seemed, only, that the wings of his leather sandals, as well as those of his hat, his petasus, started to vibrate more intensely.
Almost peevishly.
Zeus did not bother at all. Indeed he laughed. Uproariously.
His eyes twinkled.
"Go!" His voice echoed in the vast sky. "The time has come."
His voice rose even more powerful. "Go!"
The figure waved in the air. It seemed to curl up into the void, as if to gain momentum.
"Call everyone! Right now. It's time."
The figure stopped abruptly. It remained immovable in the air like a huge dragonfly with tiny vibrant wings in human form.
For the first time spoke. In an unsteady voice. A veil of uncertainty and even of fear clearly perceptible in it.
"Everyone?"
Zeus laughed loudly again.
Then a grin appeared on his face. "All those who have been informed."
The figure seemed to breathe in its entirety in the air. As by relief.
Then, suddenly, it snapped. It rose rapidly very high in the sky, as quick as a lightning forged by Hephaestus, stood still for a moment there. Again a point, up there. And then, abruptly, it darted away. Flew off, far away. Got lost into thin air.
The powerful voice of Zeus pursued it.
"BETWEEN HALF AN HOUR! EVERYONE HERE!"
Zeus stood still for a moment to watch the intense and glittering blue of the sky, now empty, filled only with the shining light of Helios and with strewn, fluffy puffs of clouds, that ran and unravelled under the waft of the lively and crisp wind.
Then slowly he turned around.
Hera was standing, inside the huge hall. She was looking at him.
Zeus took a few steps toward her.
He stopped.
He watched her with stern gaze, but also oddly tender, in some way.
"In half an hour Demeter will be here with Persephone. In half an hour the ceremony will start. In half an hour everyone will attend the consecration of the new Goddess."
His gaze hardened.
"Everyone."
His face hardened just as his eyes.
They became stone.
"Except one."
Hera nodded gravely. On her face an expression difficult to describe.
Relief? Fear? Hope? Uncertainty? Waiting? Trepidation? Anxiety?
Everything, actually.
All this together.
And even more.
She walked over to her husband. She took his hand.
"He will never know, right, my husband?"
Zeus shook Hera's hand. He nodded in turn.
"He's alone, wife. Totally, completely alone. Ever and forever. No one is by his side. No one wants to have to deal with him. Neither among the Gods, nor among Mortals, nor among the living, nor among the dead. Nor, even, among the ancient deities, those who were prior to us."
Zeus' cerulean eyes flashed with iron certainty. "No one ever will tell him anything."
"But…" Hera's voice trembled a little. There are times when the heart can fail even the Queen of the Gods. "…but something might escape, inadvertently, from the lips of someone. Maybe from a minor God or a minor Goddess. A Nymph, a Naiad, a..."
"It will not happen. Have you ever heard of anyone, Mortal or God, who has talked to him? Tell me, wife, have you ever heard of anyone who would want to do that?"
Hera did not answer. She knew that her husband was right, but the doubt didn't vanish yet from her face.
Zeus stared at her. "Do you think someone will ever be willing or, even more, desirous to do that?"
Hera shook her head. "No. No one. But..."
"And have you ever heard, have you ever gotten the slightest rumour that he has ever moved from there? That he has raised his gloomy eyes to the world above him?"
"No. You're right. But… he might do it!"
"He will not. He knows that everything he might find in this world and everywhere, even in the realm of Poseidon, is fear and contempt and hatred, even. Only his loneliness can keep him company, and only with his loneliness he can stay. Only into the dark and bleak light that comes just from him he can - and wants to - sink his spectral eye."
Hera grabbed with her other hand the other hand of her husband. Both hers squeezed tightly his.
"But... and... and if he wanted to do it? If one day it were possible it to happen? If, despite that since the moment of his crowning as King of the dark realm, he didn't longer let be seen his pale and tough visage into the world of the living and of the warmth of life... if, despite this, one ill-fated day, he were in the mood to look out, into the light, for him dazzling, of the Upperworld? What could happen then? What...?"
Zeus interrupted brusquely his wife's words. "All right. Let us assume that this could happen. And, indeed, as much as highly unlikely, it is really possible."
On Zeus' face there was now an expression that could only be interpreted as repressed fury.
"Let's assume such a fact. Okay. But…" On his proud face a fierce scowl made show of itself. "…not even in this case his darkness will threaten her light."
The frown on his face grew gelid stone.
"Persephone will be guarded at sight. She will not even be able to notice it, but it will be so."
Granite. This was now Zeus' face.
"She will live in the strictest surveillance, although fully free to do and to act, to come and go. She will not be a prisoner, but she will be always and constantly watched. And I personally will take care this to happen."
The granite expression became an ice mask.
"And he, locked away down there, into his lonely lightless realm, won't even be able to notice the new weather course that she will impose upon Earth and Nature. And, even assuming he could have the will to turn upwards his gaze and grasp some perception of this, well, even in this case ..."
Zeus' eyes became as hard and cold as diamonds.
"It will be arduous. Will be difficult. But…"
His hands squeezed strongly, almost painfully, those of Hera.
"…the frightening and malefic eyes of him won't alight on Persephone! "
Hera winced at the mighty and menacing tone of her husband's voice.
"Never!"
Zeus' voice went down. It resounded as a low, feral roar.
"Neither today nor ever."
Then it went down even more, in his gaze a threatening, sure twinkle.
"For all eternity."
"But what it's going on? What's the matter today with me? What's this longing within me? This thing that I have never felt?"
Hurry, hurry! Speedy, Hermes, my boy! Did you hear him? Did you hear the King of the Gods? In half an hour! Everyone there! There, in the abode of the supernal gods. In his dwelling! The abode of the King of the Gods! For the ceremony! The most sumptuous and significant ceremony that there had ever been and there never would have been! The consecration of his daughter as a goddess! And not an ordinary daughter! Not one of his many children! The daughter of him and of Demeter! The daughter of two of the children of Cronos! And of two of his most powerful sons! The Lady of Nature and the Lord of all the gods!
And a daughter… damn lovely and amiable per se, in addition!
Hurry, hurry! Half an hour is nothing! Half an hour is nothing to gather all together!
But you must do it, my boy! You must do it! And... and without the appalling thought of having to cross the threshold of the most infamous kingdom there may be! In grace to him, in grace to Zeus, you haven't to do that!
But... half an hour! Considering the time that everyone will have to have at his disposal to run to Olympus, half an hour is less than nothing!
Run! Fly! Dart! Faster than the fastest lightning!
Make move your damn wings how never you've made move them!
These thoughts! These unheard of thoughts!
Love?
Love love love love!
For me!
FOR ME!
Oh these absurd thoughts!
And…
And now...
Now this yearning!
This incomprehensible restlessness, this anxiety without peace.
This... this sensation. As if... as if something were happening.
Something...
But... but what?
What's happening?
What's happening to me?
Fly, fly, fly, Hermes, my boy!
So. Yes. So! In this way!
Here Artemis! "Hurry! Hurry, Artemis! Half an hour... no, less than half an hour!"
Here Aphrodite! "Quickly, my lady! Quickly! Not even half an hour to be there!"
And Apollo. "Hurry, my Lord! There is less than half an hour!"
And Athena.
And Dionysus.
And Hephaestus.
And Aeolus.
And Poseidon.
And Amphitrite.
And Ares
And...
All!
All! All!
Gods and demigods!
And centaurs!
And nymphs!
And naiads!
And satyrs!
And...
ALL! EVERYONE!
My wings swirl.
They rumble.
Almost it seems to me that their roar is such that it can be heard even...
Even under there!
What... what...?
And ...
What is this?
What is this noise?
This... this rumbling?
There is no noise, in my kingdom.
There is only silence, in my kingdom.
From where does this roar come?
From up there?
But how is it possible it can make itself heard even here?
Nothing penetrates down here from the world up there.
Nothing. Whether it is dead, or living creatures, or things.
Or noises.
Nothing. That I do not want to see.
Nothing. That I do not want to hear.
That... I... do... not... want... to... hear...
Is it something...?
Something that I want to hear?
Is there perhaps, up there, something... that my heart...?
But what heart? I have no heart!
I have darkness there where there should be my heart!
And yet...
These thoughts...
This restlessness never felt before...
This... this longing...
Is there anything in this heart of darkness... is there anything in it that knows something that I do not?
Something... that he wants me to hear?
Something...
That it wants me to see?
To… see…
And I do.
For the first time since I am down here, I do.
I raise my eyes upward.
Towards the world up there.
I watch.
I can see everywhere, if I want.
Every hidden corner of my kingdom.
And beyond.
Beyond.
Beyond the rocks.
Beyond the impenetrable ground mantle that surrounds my kingdom.
I can see anywhere
Earth.
Sky.
Sea.
Because my kingdom is the beginning and the end.
And nothing can be precluded me.
I can see the life before it becomes death. I can see death before it becomes life.
In me everything begins.
In me everything ends.
And of all things, if I want, I can have cognizance.
Observing the lives of mortals to issue the final judgment, the last word, if necessary, after the judgment of my three infernal judges.
Taking charge of the living! - their sufferings, their joys, their sorrows ... their sins ... their cruelties... this is something that only the darkness that exists in me can tolerate and absorb.
Only I can do it.
I. The lord of darkness and nothingness. The lord of silence. The lord of oblivion.
But what an immense weight!
What a terrible suffering!
I am the repository of all human suffering.
The repository of all good.
The repository of all evil.
And I always will be.
For all eternity the evil of the world will give even more shade to the shadow of my heart made of dark shadow.
I. Can. See. All. The. Good. And. All. The. Evil. In. The. World.
I CAN SEE EVERYTHING.
Zeus may order that the world view that he rules shows itself to his eyes in the enchanted mirror of the crystal clear waters of the basins of the fountains of his lofty and airy abode, but I can do a lot more.
This is one of the many greve prices that I must pay for being who I am. Something that neither Zeus nor any other of the Gods could endure and that they don't even suspect I have to pay. The gift, tragic and terrible, of knowing everything, of seeing it all - every thing, every life - because only in this way I can judge that life.
And every time I look at, every time I scrutinize a life, the burden of that entire life rips my intimate being.
Adds darkness to darkness.
This is why I never watch beyond what I have to watch.
This is the reason why I don't lift up my eyes to the world above if not for inspecting and analyzing the lives of people that I must judge, the track that they have left behind in that world of light and hope, doomed to be so many times the prelude to a world of perennial punishment and suffering.
But today...
Today...
I want to watch beyond.
I want to watch not lives, but the world above.
The world of life.
The source of this noise able to arrive even down here.
And its reason.
Maybe... maybe the same reason of this incomprehensible turmoil, this obscure yearning, inside me.
And nothing can be precluded to me, to the eye of the one who governs the beginning and the end.
And my gaze rises.
Pierces the rocks.
Pierces the earth.
Pierces the water.
And I see.
Oh finally. Incredible, but I have made it.
They're all here. All!
They flock to enter.
I would like to rest. But I still can not.
I have to put order in the ranks.
And so I fly again, without rest, from one row to another, from one group to another.
My little tired wings still roar mightily.
They must rest.
But later. Later.
For now, they must still rumble.
Hermes!
It is his wings!
And... all these people!
Gods. Demigods. And centaurs. And nymphs. And naiads. And satyrs. And...
All.
Everyone.
But what's happening?
What do they do, all these more or less so-called superior beings at the gates of the palace of my… venerable and august brother?
Okay. That's enough. More than that I can not do.
Now it's time to let people come in and, obviously, above all, her. HER!
Well, all right. Along with her mother, of course.
And when ever would Demeter want to detach herself from her?
"Hold on! Wait for my dispositions! Oh... ahem... I mean the dispositions of our King, the supreme Zeus."
Is my voice sounded powerful enough? Well, I think so. Everyone stopped, waiting.
Including Demeter and her daughter. Yeah. They too. Hand in hand, of course. Nice life, eh, girl? Oh yes. Nice life. See a bit , Demeter, not to overdo it. And if, one day, she - your daughter - would grow tired of being your docile child?
I shake my head. Useless words, empty words, if allowed to get out of my mind, free, in the wind.
Demeter... well yes, honestly... Demeter is mother of nature, but stepmother of her daughter. And she doesn't even realize.
Well. That's enough. The messenger of Zeus has thought enough. Let's see how the Lord of the Gods intends to proceed.
Inside, my boy. To receive his orders.
There he is. Ah, perfect! As it was to be expected.
He is sitting majestically on his throne. With his wife placed on her own throne, at his side.
How will she take all that? The consecration ceremony of the daughter of another of her husband's betrayals, and, in addition, a betrayal by no means a small thing, this time! Mh. But … what a strange expression on her face. Haughty, sure. As usual. But … nah … it can not be sweetness. It can not be … trepidation!
Stop it, boy! Just think to do your duty!
My voice rises loud and strong
"Everyone ready to perform our Lord's dispositions!"
Then I turn towards him.
My wings stop spinning. I land with one fluid motion. Standing in front of him and his wife, the Queen of the Gods.
"My lord?"
His hand rises, with the index raised. I do not know; by now I should have become accustomed, but this imperious and powerful gesture from him... it will never cease to inspire awe in me.
And - I think so - in all the others. Without exception. Except...
Mh, better not to think about the only God who would not find Zeus' gesture for anything intimidating!
Better not to think!
And, thanks to Zeus - exactly thanks to him! - he is not here now! Maybe, as usual, he would never come, but even the slightest risk of his arrival was avoided.
He does not know anything!
But what is happening?
This is a ceremony in style.
No one is missing.
No... one... is... missing...
Why haven't I been informed?
Why I do not know anything?
"Everyone inside! First the major gods, then minor ones, then all the others. The major gods must go sit on their thrones, while the others have to crowd at the sides of the hall, to make wing to the entrance."
The entrance? The entrance of whom?
My wings vibrate powerfully again.
I rise up in the air and gain the entry. I stop, hovering in high in front of the crowd.
My gaze sweeps over everyone.
"You have heard the words of our King."
There is no need of anything else.
The crowd flows smoothly into the great hall of the council.
Poseidon, Vesta, Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, Artemis, Dionysus...
All the great gods gradually reach their thrones, and even I, finally. For last. But I do it.
While all the others flock to the sides.
Now is silence.
Our eyes - the eyes of all - are pointed towards the two huge columns that delimit the entrance.
Zeus' voice rises mighty.
"Come in."
Who?
Who must come in?
Here we are. The show starts.
It promises to be a great show.
I'm almost tempted to lift me on my wings again to get an aerial and all-embracing view of everything from above.
Oh, here they are.
Mother and daughter.
Demeter?
But… but, sure. Her throne is empty, just like mine.
Per force.
I'm here, in my kingdom.
She is there, at the entrance.
And she is not alone.
There is someone with her.
A veiled figure, a bit smaller than her.
Who holds her hand.
And it is definitely a woman.
The shapeless, long white tunic that covers her fails at all to hide her soft curves.
Okay. Here we are. Zeus has stood up.
Damn, how mighty and proud he appears!
Well, he has every reason.
Oh enough, my boy! Make your wings remain still and stop thinking. And, rather, stay to listen to the words of the Lord of the Gods.
"Demeter, reach your throne and leave Persephone alone. Hers and hers alone must be the scene."
Persephone? That's her name?
Oh oh, so you have to leave her alone, dear Demeter? Oh what a pity! I can see your discontent. But, what can you do? Things are so. It's Zeus who spoke.
Okay, so, this way. Reach your throne, leaving your daughter alone, standing in front of everyone.
Oh I see - everyone sees - your reluctance, but you have to do it.
And, if I may say, I, and not only I, feel some sort of pleasurable contentment in seeing your annoyance.
Stay quiet, my wings, stay quiet. Do not vibrate so much, please, by content.
Persephone. How... how sweet.
"Persephone, look at me. Look at your father."
Your father? She is the daughter of my brother?
"Look at the God who planted the seed from which you were born in the loins of your mother Demeter."
What? She is the daughter of my brother and of our sister Demeter?
"Watch me."
A Goddess, so. And a major Goddess. Daughter of two of the greatest Gods. Demeter. Unbelievable! Unbelievable! She! The pure, the chaste, the misandrous Demeter! And... and Zeus! Nothing surprising, with him! But... Demeter! And who knows, Hera! How many contumelies! A new, important Goddess born, just for a change, from her husband and from another woman! And from Demeter, on top of that.
And it is clear why they are all gathered here. It is the day of her consecration as a Goddess. And she is an extremely important Goddess.
And I have not been informed.
I have always been informed by my brother.
This time I have not been informed.
Why haven't I been informed?
"Persephone, listen."
Never have I come. Much more than probably not even this time I would have come.
Why haven't I been informed?
I know I am not liked, just to talk euphemistically. I know nobody wants to have anything to do with me, that I am worse than the plague for everyone.
But everyone knows - Zeus, my brother, knows it very well - that I have no wish to hold up the afraid looks of my brothers and my sisters, as well as anyone else.
And so why?
Why, for the first time, still knowing with practically absolute certainty that I would have remained far away this time too... why haven't I been informed?
"This is your day, Persephone, my daughter. This is the day when you will be consecrated for what you are. A Goddess. A great Goddess."
So, it is so. It is just so.
Why haven't I been informed?
"Show your visage, Persephone. Show everyone the beauty of the Goddess that you are."
Not just me. Everyone does it. Everyone holds the breath as she raises her hands to push aside the veil covering her face and her whole head. Oh sure, I, Hermes, like everyone else, except ... except for one who has never seen her and who here is not, all of us know her beauty. But today - now - it will be different. And she knows it. Today her beauty will be blazing.
There! There!
She discovered her face! Oh Uranus! It... it is... it is not…
Uranus! It is not possible! It's impossible it can exist!
There can not be such a marvel!
For who could ever learn to love The One who doesn't know love?
End of Chapter Two
TBC