Читать книгу Artemis - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 14

At about the same time that Atalanta is born, in the neighboring kingdom of Calydon, another king eagerly awaits the birth of his first-born. It is a boy! The son is named Meleager and his birth is greeted with festivities and celebration.

Shortly after Meleager is born, an unusual visitor—Atropos, one of the three Fates—calls upon Meleager's mother. A blazing fire heats the room in which the queen receives her guest. Atropos goes to the fireplace, stands on the hearth, and points to a log that is burning on one end. She says: “Do you see this? As long as it remains unconsumed, your son will live!” The queen leaps up, grasps the log, and smothers the flames. She then wraps it up, locks it in a brass chest, and hides the chest and the secret away. Meleager's life (or death) has been put into his mother's hands.

Meleager grows to manhood, raised to someday become king. Tutors teach him what he is expected to know to fill this role. His mother concentrates on finding him a suitable wife. Meleager spends as little time as he can in the castle. He prefers to be in the forests and wilderness of Calydon. Every so often, his mother insists that he meet an eligible young woman from a suitable family. Time and time again, the matchmaking fails. Meleager isn't interested in soft, frilly, feminine, simpering girls with whom he has nothing in common. “Find me a girl,” he says, “who can join me in the outdoors, who can be my companion.”