Overview
- Female: 1
- Male: 1
Context
The Greek goddess Athena (the goddess of war) has summoned Poseidon (the god of the sea) down from Mount Olympus. They must face the bloody aftermath of the Trojan War. The city of Troy has been sacked and destroyed by the invading Greek armies and the death toll is high. Athena supported the Greeks, while Poseidon sided with the Trojans. However, Athena has now turned her back on the Greeks after one of their warriors, Ajax. raped a Trojan princess in her temple. Athena is outraged by this act
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ATHENA May I address the mighty god whom Heaven reveres and who to my own sire is very nigh in blood, laying aside our former enmity?
POSEIDON Thou mayst; for o'er the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble spell, great queen Athena.
ATHENA For thy forgiving mood my thanks! Somewhat have I to impart affecting both thyself and me, O king.
POSEIDON Bringst thou fresh tidings from some god, from Zeus, or from some lesser power?
ATHENA From none of these; but on behalf of Troy, whose soil we tread, am I come to seek thy mighty aid, to make it one with mine.
POSEIDON What! hast thou laid thy former hate aside to take compassion on the town now that it is burnt to ashes?
ATHENA First go back to the former point; wilt thou make common cause with me in the scheme I purpose?
POSEIDON Ay surely; but I would fain learn thy wishes, whether thou art come to help Achaens or Phrygians.
ATHENA I wish to give my former foes, the Trojans, joy, and on the Achaean host impose a return that they will rue.
POSEIDON Why leap'st thou thus from mood to mood? Thy love and hate both go too far, on whomsoever centred.
ATHENA Dost not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?
POSEIDON Surely, in the hour that Aias tore Cassandra thence.
ATHENA Yea, and the Achaeans did naught, said naught to him.
POSEIDON And yet 'twas by thy mighty aid they sacked Ilium.
ATHENA For which cause I would join with thee to work their bane.
POSEIDON My powers are ready at thy will. What is thy intent?
ATHENA A returning fraught with woe will I impose on them.
POSEIDON While yet they stay on shore, or as they cross the briny deep?
ATHENA When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the sky; yea, and he promises to grant me his levin-bolts to hurl on the Achaeans and fire their ships. And do thou, for thy part, make the Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Euboea's hollow bay with corpses, that Achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.
POSEIDON So shall it be, for the boon thou cravest needs but few words. I will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconus and the reefs round Delos, Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strown with many a corpse. Mount thou to Olympus, and taking from thy father's hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos' host lets slip its cables. A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man's hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself, and dies.
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