Eumelia and Kallais- A story in the style of Ancient Greek Mythology

Hera, goddess of women, I beg you to help me!

But Hera had other issues to contend with. The desperate pleading of one little, abused mortal did not register with her as she raged at her faithless husband yet again. Eumelia was on her own, the man holding her down was simply too powerful. She was merely a woman, and as such, she was powerless to do anything but plead silently to the goddess for a reprieve.

Artemis, please save me! 

Daphne had escaped the amorous advances of Apollo. She had run, cried and begged, and eventually her father had heard her. Now she lived as a Laurel tree, but she was safe. Eumelia begged for that kind of safety, to be changed entirely, to be released from her body.

Athena, if you have ever loved me, please hear me. 

Echo had faded away leaving just her voice behind. If only someone would hear the pleading of Eumelia’s heart, if only she too could fade away. If she had no body, then men would not be able to force their attentions upon her. 

Please Aphrodite, I beg you. Save me, free me from the curse that is my body.

Upon her sixteenth year, Eumelia had blossomed into a beauty and young men would fight each other just for the chance to kiss her hand. As she grew, and youthful beauty gave way to womanly perfection, not one man between the ages of sixteen and sixty was immune to the lure of her body. They fought one another with increasing intensity, becoming vicious and deadly. To prevent bloodshed, Eumelia was banished from her village.  

She had wandered from place to place, never staying near one town or village long enough to provoke any amorous attention, hiding behind a bulky chiton and drawing the fabric of her himation about her head as a veil and cloak. But today, the huge horse farmer Pylyp, who was said to supply the warhorses for Apollo and Artemis, had stumbled across her as she removed her protective outer wear to bathe her face in the cool water. He had been immediately struck by her beauty and her rejection of his advances only further fuelled his desire.

Once Pylyp had sated himself upon her body, he left her by the water to weep. She lay, bruised and exposed, her tears seeping into the earth beside the river bank. 

This was how the goddess Persephone glowing with spring, causing flowers to blossom beneath her dainty feet, came upon her.

“Eumelia, why do you weep?” The goddess stood by the bank, her face creased with confusion and sorrow, that did nothing to mar the perfection of her beauty.

“Oh sweet, gentle Persephone!” Eumelia cried, recognising the beautiful goddess at once. “You of all the goddesses must understand the curse of beauty! I have been hunted by men and rejected by my village, such is the burden of my face and form! I beg of you, allow me to die, I can no longer bear to be shunned, hiding my face in fear, because men cannot control their primal lust!”

Persephone studied the beautiful, dark haired girl intently. She did indeed understand the curse that was beauty, for Hades himself had hunted her, had spirited her away from her mother, just because he had been enamoured of her. She, however, had been fortunate. The king of the underworld had made her his queen and she ruled with him as his equal. Say what you will, Hades was an attentive, loving husband who understood the value of compromise. Unlike his selfish brothers, Hades knew there was truth to the saying “Happy wife, happy life.” Although confident in her husband’s love, she was also not a fool. To place the beauteous Eumelia into Hades’ path at this moment, the beginning of spring, when his spirits were low and his emotions high, would likely prove a temptation too great for any man, be he mortal or god.

“Nay sweet Eumelia, do not wish yourself dead. The underworld is full of men who will prey upon you still, and I do speak from experience. You may not be lucky enough to escape their attentions once you are there.”

“I only wish to avoid the attentions of men, to be invisible to the world!” Eumelia cried, and the luminous orbs of her eyes pleaded with Persephone.

The goddess studied the broken and bruised girl before her, and her heart was moved with compassion. In a patriarchal world, where men would ever rule, it was difficult for a woman to carve out her power. Some like Athena took it by challenging men, beating them at their own games, some like Aphrodite used their womanly charms, others like Hera were born to power and some, such as herself, married into it. A woman’s value was in either her form or her family. 

“I am moved by your plight,” she told Eumelia kindly, “I may have something to alleviate your distress. Be here three days hence.”

For three days Eumelia huddled beneath the branches of the tree afraid to step out, afraid to draw attention to herself. She saw the farmers herding their animals toward the little stream, then back up the hill to their pastures. She watched as children came and splashed in the crisp, cold water, laughing and shivering, their bodies blue with cold but their smiles bright with mischief. She watched as women took their linens to the flat rocks to wash and as soldiers walked their horses to the stream to drink. All the while she stayed still and quiet, her fear kept her frozen beneath the protective arms of the tree.

Upon the third day, Persephone returned, a heavy sack upon her shoulder, and Eumelia nearly collapsed as the weight and worry lifted from her shoulders.

“I have returned as promised with a gift, but like all gifts, there is a price.”

Concern lined Eumelia’s face. Bartering with a god or goddess was historically disastrous. “What is the gift you offer, and what is the price I must pay?”

Persephone opened the sack to reveal a helmet, shiny with gold and silver workings. “This helmet is called ‘The Cap of Hades’. It has helped win wars, fight gorgons and slay giants. It will grant the wearer invisibility as long as he or she wears it.”

Eumelia, reached for the helmet, before snatching her hand back. “What is the price?” 

“The price is that you never enter the underworld.”

“I do not understand? Never enter, as in never die?” Eumelia wondered. “Invisibility and immortality? I do not understand this price you ask.”

“My price is that you never enter my kingdom, never present your face before my husband.”

“If I agree to this, how long may I keep the helmet for?”

“Hades is unaware that I have taken it. Should you do nothing with it to draw the attention of the gods to you, then you may have it indefinitely.”

“And what will draw their attention?”

“Do not use the cap to allow you to see things you were never meant to see, do not use it to let you go to places that you were never meant to go to. Simply put, never use it to start or end a war, to fight a gorgon or a kill a giant.”

Without further hesitation, Eumelia agreed to the conditions. Once she donned the helmet, it formed to her head and she vanished from sight, even Persephone could not see her, but Eumelia could now see things that no mortal should. Easily the most terrifying sight was the visage of Thanatos, the harbinger of death. 

As the years past, she frequently witnessed the cold hand and impassive features of Thanatos as he reached out, carrying people to the underworld at the end of their days. However, he did not see her. He would walk right past, look right through her, as if she were not there, but everywhere she traveled, she encountered him.

***

After journeying for many years and travelling many miles, Eumelia nearly tripped over the most beautiful man she had ever seen as he stretched languidly in a field under the summer sun. His hair was spun gold in the sunlight and his eyes when they flew open, were blue like the sky above. His entire form was so enjoyable for her to look upon, that she forgot to fear him. For the first time in her long, lonely life, she was entranced by the beauty of another.

Kallias was his name and he set female hearts a flutter wherever he went. He smiled and flattered all women, young and old alike, but he never set his heart at any fair maiden’s feet. Eumelia found herself drawn to him, safe in her invisibility, and she boldly came closer and closer each day. 

“I feel you near me,” Kallias startled her one day as she dared to creep closer to him than ever before. 

She gasped, a small sound that could be the whisper of the wind against the leaves.

“I can smell your scent, like violets all around me. And when you are very still, as you are now, I can hear your heart as it flutters in your breast. It tells me that you are no spirit, that you live. Are you a nymph or driad?”

She froze, her heart almost halting in fear, barely a breath seeped from between her lips.

“How is it that I feel your presence, but can not see you? Do you speak?” he asked the empty air about him.

She pressed her lips firmly together. It had been years since she had uttered a single sound, and she was not sure if she remembered how to form words, but the temptation was great. 

He lifted his hand, palm out. “Can I touch you?”

No one had ever asked. No one had ever given her that choice. Slowly she reached out her own hand and gently, like the hesitant brush of a butterfly’s wing, she touched her fingers to his, a fleeting touch like a kiss that sent a chill of awareness up her arm, before she snatched it away.

“You are real!” His eyes searched in vain for her.

“I am,” she whispered, her voice husky with disuse. 

She followed him where he went, and each day she felt more confident to speak to him. He spoke of his life and asked her about hers. One night she could resist no longer and quietly she crept into his home to watch him sleep, his golden hair spread over his pillow like a river. It tempted her, and she tentatively caressed his shining locks, running them through her fingers like water. 

He leaned his head into her hand. “My mother would play with my hair as a child,” he said and smiled opening those blue eyes to search for her.

She whipped her hand away.

“Please do not stop! I enjoy your touch.”

Each night she became bolder until one night she crept closer and lay beside him waking him with a tentative kiss, a hesitant exploration. Under the cover of darkness she opened her heart to him and, deprived of sight, he used his other senses to learn her shape. In his gentleness, she forgot her fear.

Before the dawn broke, she took off her cap, and hid it beneath the bed. As the first morning fingers of light entered the chamber, Kallias smiled upon her face at last, awed by her beauty and humbled by the trust she placed in him to be the one to see her.

They were married in secret and lived together in harmonious isolation from the world. Whenever a visitor would come along the paths to their door, Eumelia would race inside and uncover the helmet and place it upon her head until she was assured of her safety and privacy once more.

Then came the day when their idyll ended. Kallias staggered back to their home, his side had been shredded by the filthy tusks of the boar he hunted. Eumelia cried in distress as he collapsed into her arms, blood and gore flowing from his side. With her limited knowledge of healing, she cleaned and bandaged his wounds and her tears added their salt to the cleansing. But on the third day, as Kallias thrashed in the grip of fever, Eumelia felt the familiar cold hand of Thanatos nearby. In a desperate attempt to save her love, she dragged the helmet from beneath the bed and placed it upon her husband’s head. Immediately he was lost to her sight. 

The chill in the room intensified and she knew from long experience that Thanatos was near, heard his voice, like old leaves rustling. Her blood ran like shards of ice as he spoke. “I have searched long and hard for you sweet Eumelia.”

***

She walked with other souls to meet the ferryman, Charon, on the river Styx. As if in a trance she followed past Cerberus the three headed hound who sniffed them with disinterest. On she wandered until she came upon the throne of the King of the Underworld, Hades himself.

“And what do we have here? The beautiful Eumelia,” cried Hades, pleased with the collection of new souls gathered before him.

A cry of rage interrupted him, and Persephone rose from her throne in fury. “Eumelia, you were never to enter these halls!”

“Now my sweet, all souls come to me, it is my right as King of the Underworld.”

“No, not this soul. We made a bargain, and she promised to never enter this kingdom!”

“I am sorry, my love, but souls have little say in that. They are all destined to end here.” Hades grasped Persephone’s hand in his own as he raised it to his lips, his shrewd eyes intent upon her every expression. “And what kind of bargain did you strike with the pretty mortal?”

“I gave her the power to hide from all men, even death himself!” She glared at Eumelia. “Where is the Cap?”

“My own true love,” Hades growled, his voice low and angry that the whole Underworld shook with contained fear, the rumbles of which were felt above ground for miles. “Did you give her my helmet?”

“How else was I to protect her from the unwanted advances of men?” Persephone raised her eyebrows in haughty disdain. “And you were not using it,”

“Persephone. Where. Is. My. Helmet?” Each word was punctuated with an earth shattering rumble, but Persephone stood firm.

“I refuse to have her under our roof! You will banish her immediately!” 

Eumelia followed their exchange with little interest, the dramatic earth quakes and the cool replies left her unmoved. Her love and life were gone. It seemed that her beauty had caused her to be banished in life and also in death, but she was beyond caring.

“Now my queen…” Suddenly Hades was conciliatory. 

“I will not be placated. You will banish her to my mother, or you will banish me! Make your decision!”

For Hades there was no question, no choice. Immediately Eumelia found herself ejected from the Underworld and she stumbled to the ground under an autumn sky amid rustling and rotting leaves. Her body had no form as she struggled to stand, scattering the brittle, golden foliage as she went.

Her one mission was to search for her love, over the lands and seas. She knew he wore the Cap of Hades still, so she could not see him, and as she had no body, he could not see her. Wherever she went, she knew that Thanatos was not far behind, sent by Hades to retrieve his helmet.

Eumelia searched the world for Kallias, looking not with her eyes, but with her heart. Her long and lonely search took her to places far east and west, to the north and south, and sometimes she would find him. Although each was blind to the other, their hearts were connected and when they met, they celebrated, spinning the leaves about them in joyful revelry. But their reunion could only be short lived and she would slip away again, before Thanatos could find them. As she lead the harbinger of death on a merry chase along false directions, her sorrowful laugh echoed on the wind, a haunting whisper of love lost and found for all eternity.