Mariah Matthews

Mariah Matthews

MYTHS OF HELICON MOUNTAIN


("Myth is not a distortion of fact, but the womb through which fact must come.", Jane Roberts, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE NATURE OF MASS EVENTS)

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I love Mythology, always have, can't remember when I didn't. My name is Mariah Matthews. I live in the USA, and this blog is about a novel that I'm currently writing, working title: : MYTHS OF HELICON MOUNTAIN.


31 December, 2007

MYTHS OF HELICON MOUNTAIN Excerpt # 2

From Part Three: ATALANTA AND THE GOLDEN APPLES, Chapter 20

Silver is still the measure of a man’s wealth in Poseidia, and horses, the mainstay of kings and princes; more precious to men than gods. How many lives have been snuffed out for silver; how many fortunes lost because of a stumbling steed? And what’s to be said of an ancient myth that never seems to die? Would Pierus have guided Diomedes and his party into Macedon’s mountains and discovered the little mare if not for the legend of Peleus and his flying horse? And if a young man named Hippomenes had not been willing to risk all for the love of a woman would a horse be considered more sacred than Poseidon on the sea girt islands of Ortygia?

The red scribe hesitates. Like Hippomenes, he is also a young man, untested. He has never sat astride a horse, nor owned anything made from silver; nor has he ever had a woman, and yet there are feelings in him that make it possible to imagine these things! He yearns for more than the smell of ink and musty scrolls. Even with the light streaming down upon the marble table and the elaborate carvings on the walls surrounding him , this room in the archive wing of the royal palace is not much better than the dreary workspace that he occupied in the temple. He sees no one except his queen and hears no other voice but hers . . . and his own, of course. His is a world of foibles and fables.


He presses his brush lightly against the weighted parchment and sighs. Perhaps when this mission ends, he thinks, resuming his task, she'll assign him to a chore that calls for him to go outside and describe the world as it really is.

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