Reworking Ares and Aphrodite
Note: The first group showing for the mentorship project was a really great learning experience ance, following feedback and discussion of what I showed, I’ve decided to try and rework Ares and Aphrodite to make it A) better suited for the stage and B) more understandable for the audience. This piece will be taking components from each of the three Ares and Aphrodite pieces I’ve written so far, as well as incorporating new material and attempting to do a better job explaining the mythos I’m creating. I’ve also put ‘chapter’ markings for where I’m thinking of splitting the piece for the final performance (where it will be woven in with personal narrative).
CHAPTER ONE
Long ago, in the time when gods and goddesses were known to come down from Olympus and walk among mortals, a husband a wife lived near a great sea. They were not so poor as to want for many things, and yet not so well-off as to forget that all mortals can be brought low by divine power. They lived in happiness with their love for each other, and yet they felt their lives were incomplete for they were childless. So they prayed to Demeter, goddess of fertility, and at last the wife felt life stirring within her.
It is said that when a child is conceived it is sexless until touched by Ares, god of war, or Aphrodite, goddess of love; that the formation of any mortal body is incomplete until it is infused with the strength of Ares or the grace of Aphrodite. And yet, what happens when Ares and Aphrodite both claim a mortal child?
Such it was to be with this couple’s unborn child. Aphrodite lay her hand on the unborn child’s brow, transforming he into a girl-child and setting her on the path to womanhood. But Ares – vengeful Ares, spurned by some slight from Aphrodite – saw this and decided to claim the child for his own. He picked up his bow, pulled an arrow, straight and true, and dipped it in his essence, poison to one already touched by Aphrodite. With deadly accuracy he let the arrow fly down from Olympus and it pierced the core of the unborn girl. Ares’ poison spread through the unborn child, transfiguring to male by brute force what was to be female. And, nine months later, the expectant mother gave birth to Apogonos: a healthy baby boy, who took one look at himself and began to wail thick tears of grief.
CHAPTER TWO
Apogonos grew up knowing some part of him was not right, was off somehow. In his heart of hearts he was sure he did not want to grow from boyhood to manhood, would much rather cast off maleness entirely and grow into a woman’s body. But he would have violently denied any such accusation, said they were wrong: He was a boy and would be a man.
For Apogonos had been struck by the poisoned shaft of Ares, and drawn into a whirlpool of male and female.
The poison had always whispered in Apogonos’s ear, telling him that something was amiss, and on his tenth birthday Apogonos dreamed. In his dream he saw clearly his creation. He saw Aphrodite in her glory reach out from Olympous and touch his unborn self. He saw Ares look down in anger an pick up a great war-bow, and notch an arrow as thick as a man’s thumb. Apogonos saw the arrow released, saw its flight from Olympus. Somehow, through the magic of the gods, by the time it reached the ground it had faded to a shadow that passed over Apogonos’s spirit, and yet the damage it did is as real as a cut from a blade. Apogonos’s body was transformed to male, but his spirit – her spirit – remains female, and the imbalance has plagued Apogonos like an unhealed and unhealable wound.
Apogonos woke from his dream with a start, the dream firmly etched on his mind’s eye.
He tried to put the dream out of his mind, but it haunted him and stalked him, day in and day out. He thought about it constantly. What would his life be like had be been born a girl? He thought about long hair and short, pierced ears and bare, he thought about bodies and curves and hair and muscle and fat, and he thought about himself, and who he wanted to be. And who she might have been. Apogonos thought about Ares, and about Aphrodite.
CHAPTER THREE
For the next ten years, those questions were never far from his mind. At the same time, he felt plagued by inaction – miserable as a prisoner in a body he did not want, and yet terrified of what giving voice to his soul’s true desire might do. He told friends, who accepted his statements at face value but could offer no real advice or guidance to counter the will of Ares. Who were they to question the great and powerful god? He told his parents, who took him to priests and soothsayers in an effort to discover the will of Ares, but to no avail. And he told the gods and goddesses on Olympus, whose only response was silence.
At last, at twenty, when he was supposed to be a man, he set off on a journey to find his own path. The dream, now ten years past, continued to haunt his mind and he was unable to find a moment of peace or relief from its bitter message. Apogonos knew from years of pain that there was no help to be found in the town of his birth so with a pack and a farewell, he walked away from all he knew.
Apogonos walked for many days, passing far outside the borders of familiarity and safety. He slept in a tent or – more often – under the stars, alone with his thoughts. But the time alone only solidified that which he already knew: He would find a way to recitfy Ares’ festering wound and deliver himself from manhood, or he would deliver himself to Hades and let the Lord of the Underworld deal with him as he would. Perhaps as a shade, as one of the dead, the true self he knew was there – the woman Aphrodite intended him to be – could be revealed.
Apogonos continued on his journey.
CHAPTER FOUR
Finally, after a month of walking without destination and sinking deeper and deeper into despair, Apogonos came upon a shrine at a split in the road, each path stretching out into the distance. The shrine was to Hermes, messenger of the gods and ruler of boundaries and those who wish to cross him. Who better to take a message to Ares demanding retribution or to Aphrodite requesting mercy? Apogonos sat near the shrine for days and prayed, but received only silence in return.
Beginning to lose hope, Apogonos continued on his journey.
After another month of walking without destination, despair consuming every moment of sleep and wakefulness, Apogonos came upon another shrine, this one at the base of a great waterfall, with great liquid foam bubbling all around. This shrine was to Aphrodite, goddess of of love and of beauty, responsible for the creation of all women everywhere. Surely, she would look down on Apogonos as a lost daughter, and take pity. Apogonos sat near the shrine for a full week, fasting and praying, but again received only silence in return.
Now fully hopeless, Apgonos continued on his journey.
For another month he walked without destination, often forgetting to eat, his only thoughts on the rift between his body and soul. At last, he came upon another shrine, this one surrounded by sulfurous hot-springs and shrouded in acrid smoke. This shrine was to Ares, god of ware, of bloodlust, of the slaughter, responsible for the creation of men everywhere. Apogonos had no hope Ares would hear him after all this time, and yet, what did he have to lose? Apogonos gathered his thoughts, and began to speak.
“This isn’t anything I asked for. This isn’t anything I wanted.” Apogonos spoke softly, his eyes cast at the ground in front of him. “I came looking for a way to fix this, to undo what you did. I neve wanted your gifts, you blessings.” Apogonos spat at the ground, and his words began to gain momentum. “This is your fault! You did this!” Apogonos begins to yell at the shrine set in the stone before him. “It’s your fault I’m a freak, an outcast, an abomination! Can’t be a man, because of Aphrodite, and can’t be a woman, because of you! So what now, Ares? Ares, great and powerful? What now?”
And that is all of the myh of Ares and Aphrodite that has made it through the ages, passed down to us. Or, more likely, I don’t know how this story ends, because I haven’t finished living it yet.
But I hope it has a happy ending.
-R
Themocracy
[...] about interesting metaphors for transitioning. I previously worked with the constructed myth of Ares and Aphrodite, about a child who was assigned the wrong gender by the gods. Likewise, in my most recent piece, [...]