For a paper, of course. It’s been like... a decade? But I’m in a Ph.D. program for Classical Archaeology now. That shouldn’t be surprising I suppose. Anyways, looking for Patrochilles art for a reception paper
hadrian will be coming afterwards (after i write my actual scholarly paper lmao)
enjoy
There was a boy I fancied for a time; one of those ones they call kalos – lovely, good, dignified. He was a dear friend of my father’s for a time, and he would frequently come visit in the evening; Alexias was his name. He was dark like the varnished bronze, with eyes brighter than silver inlays, his hair was richer than soil after rain. His lips were plush and red, and every way he turned, you could see his confident little smirk, having the posture of a god. I spied him when I could through the window, scurrying by in the peristyle. I always became heavy at the sight of him, hungry almost, wanting to bite at his flesh like a feral beast. My mother teased me, called me mad with love. Maybe, she said, he would be a fine husband for you. His family was well off enough; I saw many statues of their accomplished ancestors about the city. It was not marriage that I desired, though, it was something much more natural and carnal than ceremony and ritual. Then, he and my father had a falling out, a lover’s spat, I suppose. He stormed out of our house, his fine mantle in a bunch, his eyes flashing and face turned scarlet. He might have looked at me, while I was weaving, on his way out. And then I did not see him ever again.
After that, I became quite melancholic. My maid observed to me that I glided around like some spirit, not present and hiding in the dark. I couldn’t disagree with her. The unpleasantness was not new to me – I had been a rather sad child, never wanting to play dress up or house – but it had grown since Alexias had left. I would frequently feel it when I saw myself in the mirror, a distorted image of a young woman, with locks past her shoulders and a delicate jaw. When my maid dressed me, my skin began to burn and I wanted to tear at my breast as if I were mourning. It was soon that I had no desire to do anything at all and would fall into shrieking fits if I saw my reflection or when I had to undress for a bath. I began to scratch at my arms, as if my sadness had covered me like a swarm of flies, and I tried over and over to pull it off. At night, I sweated in my sleep, haunted by the image of Alexias, his sun-warmed arms, a boy worthy of the title kalos.
One evening I had a particularly noticeable and even shameful fit. An esteemed friend of my father’s attended with his wife and a few of their mutual friends. My father was anxious to impress, and hired the most expensive entertainers we could afford, and my mother spent all day berating the kitchen slaves over the treatment of the meat. My duty was to don my finest gown and hairstyle, put in my flashy gold earrings, and to stand enticingly on the outskirts, saying “yes, sir” to my father’s friend but especially to his son, who was of marriable age. It was something I was known to be especially terrible at – clever remarks, witty but biting quips, harsh critiques of poetry were my usual contributions, however unwelcome, to any kind of gathering. Too smart, my mother always scolded me, a woman should never be too smart. It causes trouble. Of course, she was very smart, too. She handled the finances of her father’s inherited estate, could recite even the most complicated Greek verse from memory, but this she never showed off too much, even though I could tell by the way she bit her lip over wine that she desperately wanted to. I was to model her graceful and dignified behavior, and to wear my gown without complaint. All was splendid for the first portion of the meal. The conversation bubbled from goblets of honeyed wine, and I had managed to smile tautly throughout and even occasionally bat my eyelashes at the young son, whom I quickly found to be quite simple and hideously corpulent. The subject stumbled upon love, a favorite of those intoxicated and philosophic, who feel more strongly than they ought. The son carelessly looked at me, and in feigned modesty I drew my shawl over my mouth. I despised his lusty expression, his fat hands reaching out at me to get a touch of me.
“And you, Elpida?” he blurted. I shuddered at the sound of my name on his spoiled lips. “What do you think of love?”
“Oh, I think many things,” I replied coolly, “but I’ve been told that I ought not to say them, as women’s opinions spoil dinner.”
“Come now, what man broke your heart? Your father tells me you fancied a certain Alexias.”
My grip on my shawl tensed. “Hardly.”
He sloppily grasped my arm, his palm was unpleasantly sweaty and grease from the food stained my sleeve. “Come now, Elpida, no need to be shy.”
“I am not shy, only decent.” I yanked my arm away.
He pulled back his lips in a revolting smile, some herbs stuck between his teeth. “Decent? Oh, you’re decent enough now, but you’ll be a different woman, when I have my hands on those hips.”
Abruptly, I shouted, my spirit set ablaze by rage which consumed any semblance of composure and rational thought I had left. In fury, I threw curses at him that I would be ashamed to repeat here. How dare he look at me like that, like some woman on the street? How dare he address me by name, which had always, since my birth, been so hateful to me? I shrieked and thrashed about, then became overwhelmed with my own tears. I began to rip at the sleeves of my gown, which my mother had forced me to wear, which he had tainted with his violent touch. My mother, appalled, told some slaves to take me back into my room. They dragged me back there, and even I, in a fit of mania, could hear my mother’s voice breaking as she apologized profusely, saying over and over again how ill I was. Once in private, I shredded the gown with my bare hands. It must have required great force, but in the throes of my woe I did it easily, lamenting, but what for I did not know. My hips had begun to become fleshy and plump, like Venus who was so broadly admired, but the sensation of them beneath my hands enraged me even further. The slaves told me the next day that I screeched and tossed about violently until I tired out and fell asleep. My father refused to look at me, and my mother gave me a long lecture and threatened to sell me off to the highest bidder. I was weighed down by shame, certainly, but even more so by the fact that after all that, nothing had changed, and I still felt as if I had been run through with a javelin every time I got dressed.
Eventually, my mother took me to the sanctuary of Asclepius outside the city, for an ailment she called lovesickness, a madness so severe it required the attention of a god. She brought with her a good amount of silverware, which I had watched her supervise my whole life, seeing to it that the slaves did not steal it or mess it up, so that it always remained polished come time for an important dinner. Offering it as a dedication for the god, she prayed that he make her only daughter well, cured of this illness so that she may be ready to marry. The priest told me to sleep and await the god in a dream, where soon enough he would offer a solution, given the fine offering of precious tableware.
For two nights I slept there, the image of the god looming over me. Some people came in with terrible afflictions – their skin and eyes turning a frightful yellow, a man’s arm swollen up twice its size. I was eager to leave, but I had yet to see the god, which so many had leapt up from their beds shouting about, miraculously cured. I still wanted to tear at my skin, the melancholy adhering to me tightly. On the third night I did dream, but it was again only Alexias whom I saw, holding up a mirror, dressed in a woman’s long chiton, his face painted like a bride’s. When I asked him what he was doing, he only smiled at me coyly, and then I woke up. A priest, upon seeing my bleary eyes, approached me and asked me what I had seen. After I told him shamefully, he suggested that this again was the madness which must have been inflicted upon me by Eros or Aphrodite – the desire to see this boy as mine, thus in my dream he wore my clothing. I nodded along and verbally agreed, but my insides began to knot themselves, like hair drawn up too tightly, so your scalp feels as if it will be pulled off. Sleep again, the god will visit soon, he promised, and so I obeyed, eyeing an attendant carrying my mother’s precious silverware back, back into the recesses of the temple, where the god stored his belongings.
On the fourth night, I did indeed see the god, but I did not recognize him at first. He wore the guise of the incessant image that had driven me to such madness. I was in my bedroom, a mirror face down on the couch next to me. I looked down at myself, and I was wearing Alexias’ beautiful mantle, the one I hear my dad call his favorite, white with a blue trim, which lead the gaze down to his smooth thighs. When I raised my head again, the god was there, Alexias, dressed fancifully for a banquet, a golden fillet gleaming in between thick locks of his hair. I did not recognize him as the god until he spoke. It was his many-layered voice that showed me his divine nature.
“Do you recognize me, Elpida?”
I cowered at the sound of my name. “Yes, sir, I do. You are the god, whom I have come to for healing.”
He smiled warmly. “You are wise to see me even in this guise.”
“My mother tells me I am too clever for my own good.”
“Hardly. I’m sure it makes for good dinner conversation.” He approached me slowly. “And you are all dressed for dinner.”
I blushed. “I do not know why I am wearing this.”
“It is a brilliant mantle. I don’t see why not. It suits a fine young man.”
I lowered my head – I felt the illness coming on, the sight of his face so close began to plague me, and I rubbed my left arm anxiously, feeling the hairs prickle under my fingertips.
“Now, Elpida, tell me what it is you want.”
“I want to be cured, of this madness, sir,” I mumbled. My name sounded heavy.
“What sort of madness is it?”
“Love, sir. I fancied a boy and now he has left.”
To my surprise, he laughed. “Love? No, this does not seem like it to me. And you know better, being so smart.”
I shook my head incredulously. “No, sir, I do not.”
He fingered my mantle, right where it met my shoulder. I became embarrassed not at the idea of a man touching my skin, no, modesty was not something I cared much about. I felt embarrassed in the way that one feels embarrassed when they are underdressed, and their appearance is not suitable for the occasion. There was fire under my skin, and I wanted to put it out. “It is a matter of the flesh that plagues you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Elpida?”
The name sounded like shackles being clasping to my wrist. I ground my teeth at its mention.
“It’s a funny name for a young man, isn’t it?” he mused. “Perhaps that is the curse that binds you.”
“I don’t know, sir. I am just a girl, sir.”
He took a step back. “A girl? I have never seen a girl that shrieks at herself in the mirror.”
“I am ill, sir.”
“Then pick up that mirror beside you, show me how sick you are.”
Cautiously, I reached for the handle. It was cool to the touch, and I shakily lifted it, fearing the image that awaited me, the girl with the long locks. I turned it slowly to face me, and for once I did not cry out – for no girl was waiting for me. My hair had been shorn to mannish curls that drew up to my jaw which itself had widened and sharpened, like freshly chiseled stone. I was startled at the sight of a young man, staring back at me with my own eyes, but there was no doubt that I was indeed looking at myself, reflected in a mirror with no distortions. With the clarity of the image came clarity of the soul – it was envy that had been plaguing me, not love, envy of the face of Alexias, the body of Alexias, his very flesh, one that I could never possess, the title of kalos which would never honor me. The breasts I had so longed to rip off my chest during fits of madness had vanished, replaced with flat musculature, and the wide curved hips that indecent men would reach their grubby hands for had narrowed.
“Antinous,” called the god, and I knew that it was the name he had given me.
I raised my head, seeing him now in the costume I was familiar with – an older man with a white beard, with an open and paternal posture.
“Now tell me again, what do you want?”
With clarity, I responded, reveling in the husky depth of my voice, “I want my selfhood restored to me. I want the curse of my name and my flesh vanquished.”
He nodded firmly, and I thought then our meeting was over, that I had been cured, but he stood there still. “And what will you give me in return?”
“My mother has offered three years pay worth of silver!” I replied, astonished.
“Is that what you are worth? Like some well-bred horse?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what is it you will give me? How much are you worth?”
“I am only worth how much I am worth.”
He grinned shrewdly. “You are on it.”
“My life,” I said, then corrected myself. “The prime of my life, my flowering youth, that is what you want.”
“A worthy exchange.”
“When?” I asked, my throat growing dry.
“When I wish. I won’t punish you with the suffering of counting your days. And I will allow you blessings and joy, for what life you will have. But know that this is the price of the cure.”
“Yes, sir.”
He rested a hand on my shoulder, like a father advising his son who had just come of age. “Your mantle suits you well. Wear it proudly.”
I sat up in the sanctuary, and my mother came running, tears at her eyes. She threw her arms around me.
“My son! My son has been cured!” she sobbed.
The eyes of the god watched us in marble from above, and for once in my life, I feared the divine, who could enact such miracles as this, and was grateful that they enacted them benevolently.
“Oh, Antinous, Antinous!”
It was a name that fell lightly upon my shoulders. The offering I gave the god now seemed a small, lenient price for what he had given me. A lump formed in my throat, but I knew well that young men should never cry in front of their mothers. And I was a good young man indeed.
Tbh being genderqueer is so hard. I thought it would be fine, since I at first didn’t really care if people called me she/read me as female. But now it annoys me to no end. I wish I was born a beautiful, soft boy and grew to be a modern Antinous, delicate but in an undoubtedly masculine way. But everyone now reads my delicacy as feminine, my body as female as it was assigned. I wish I could pray to some god for metamorphosis, to be turned and transformed at their divine touch. I want men and women to look at me and say “ah, what a lovely young man” and not some cute little girl.
dededos
2087
annaxmalina
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
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