Deidameia Character Analysis

She slapped me. Her hand was small but carried surprising force. It turned my head to the side roughly. The skin stung, and my lip throbbed sharply where she had caught it with a ring. I had not been struck like this since I was a child. Boys were not usually slapped, but a father might do it co show contempt. Mine had. […]

She bared her teeth at me, as if daring me to strike her in return. When she saw I would not, her face twisted with triumph. "Coward. As craven as you are ugly. And half-moron besides, I hear. I do not understand it! It makes no sense chat he should- " She stopped abruptly, and the corner of her mouth tugged down, as if caught by a fisherman's hook. […] I could hear the sound of her breaths, drawn slowly, so I would not guess she was crying. knew the trick. I had done it myself.

“That if you do not come to Troy, your godhead will wither in you, unused. Your strength will diminish. At best, you will be like Lycomedes here, moldering on a forgotten island with only daughters to succeed him. Scyros will be conquered soon by a nearby state; you know this as well as I. They will not kill him; why should they? He can live out his years in some corner eating the bread they soften for him, senile and alone. When he dies, people will say, who?”

The words filled the room, thinning the air until we could not breathe. Such a life was a horror.

But Odysseus' voice was relentless. “He is known now only because of how his story touches yours. If you go to Troy, your fame will be so great that a man will be written into eternal legend just for having passed a cup to you. You will be—”

I listened to every word, imagining it was a story only. As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men […] I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.

She slapped me. Her hand was small but carried surprising force. It turned my head to the side roughly. The skin stung, and my lip throbbed sharply where she had caught it with a ring. I had not been struck like this since I was a child. Boys were not usually slapped, but a father might do it co show contempt. Mine had. […]

She bared her teeth at me, as if daring me to strike her in return. When she saw I would not, her face twisted with triumph. "Coward. As craven as you are ugly. And half-moron besides, I hear. I do not understand it! It makes no sense chat he should- " She stopped abruptly, and the corner of her mouth tugged down, as if caught by a fisherman's hook. […] I could hear the sound of her breaths, drawn slowly, so I would not guess she was crying. knew the trick. I had done it myself.

“That if you do not come to Troy, your godhead will wither in you, unused. Your strength will diminish. At best, you will be like Lycomedes here, moldering on a forgotten island with only daughters to succeed him. Scyros will be conquered soon by a nearby state; you know this as well as I. They will not kill him; why should they? He can live out his years in some corner eating the bread they soften for him, senile and alone. When he dies, people will say, who?”

The words filled the room, thinning the air until we could not breathe. Such a life was a horror.

But Odysseus' voice was relentless. “He is known now only because of how his story touches yours. If you go to Troy, your fame will be so great that a man will be written into eternal legend just for having passed a cup to you. You will be—”

I listened to every word, imagining it was a story only. As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men […] I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.