The Beastly Bride by Ellen Datlow

Author:Ellen Datlow
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US

Author’s Note

We love Greek tales of gods and heroes; but the gods can be cruel, and the greatest tales can be fraught with great injustices.

When I was six, I had just learned to read when my dad took us all to live in France for a year. We had very few books in English, and I was desperate for more. So were my parents, I guess; my father went down to the American Library and bought some old volumes they were clearing off the shelves. I glommed onto a pale blue clothbound volume with a broken spine (published in London before I was born), a retelling of Greek myths mostly taken from the Roman poet Ovid’s collection, Metamorphoses. Checking the title page now, I see it was called Men and Gods, by Rex Warner—but I just thought of it as My Blue Greek Book, and I read it over and over. I loved the tragedies the best.

For The Beastly BrideI have turned back to one of my favorites, the terrible story of Actaeon. Several Ancient Greek writers wrote their own versions of Actaeon’s story, each offering a different rationale for his cruel punishment. In some of them, it’s because he was intentionally spying on the goddess Artemis to see her naked. In Ovid, he is just a poor luckless guy who wanders into the wrong place at the wrong time.

In all of them, the young prince Actaeon is an enthusiastic hunter.

None of them mentions any sister.

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