Hector and Athena

Not the usual story of Athena and Hector

Hector and Athena

Born three thousand years ago, the product of a forbidden relationship between a teenaged temple worker and an older priest, she was not even given a name by her young curly blond haired mother who panicked and left her on the temple steps the night she was born.

The child was found and rescued early the following morning by an old man whose job it was to clean the temple stables.   He lived with his ailing mother about two miles from the temple where he and the child’s parents all worked.  The old man and his mother fed the babe goats milk and cared for her, expecting the mother and father to be found the next day.  But the day became a week and then a month as the parents were never found…

When she was five and a half years old, ‘the child’, as she was still called by her adoptive parents decided to call herself Athena.  Athena was the beautiful goddess of the temple that the old man she lovingly called Poppa and the old man’s mother, Grandmamma, both so loved.  The old man’s mother had also served Athena at the temple as a teenager.  Ironically, ‘The Child’ had no idea that her birth mother loved the goddess Athena more than anything in the world as well.

 The old man suspected that an older priest was the child’s father and that one of the young temple workers was probably her mother.  As ‘The Child’ grew up and began to wonder about herself, he told her about who he thought her birth parents might be. 

The priest had scorned his young lover, never speaking to her again as she was sent away from the temple by the woman in charge of the female workers.   The young and foolish mother had thought that by abandoning her baby, she might preserve her relationship with the priest.

When Athena was seventeen, she met and fell in love with a visiting Phoenician seafarer in the marketplace.  They were married in a ceremony at the temple performed by her very own father who still did not even know who she was.

In her growing madness, Athena’s mother, now banned from the temple and living on the streets of the city, had conveniently ‘forgotten’ years ago that she had even given birth to a child.  Over the years, she had occasionally yet unknowingly passed Athena on the street.  One time they made eye contact but she quickly looked away from Athena and walked on.

Athena, now married, went to live with her husband in Beroth, a port city in Phoenicia, while her pitiful mother wandered the streets of her city dreaming of the stone statute of Athena the goddess whom she could never again even visit. Neither could she ever see the forgotten daughter she had given birth to and now, unbeknown to her, even shared Athena’s name.

When she was eighteen, Athena herself bore a child, a blond curly haired boy whom she named Hector after the Trojan warrior.  One day when he was about ten, Hector, went with his father back to visit Greece, the homeland of his mother Athena.  Athena had recently died from an illness and Hectors father who had been mourning for months had decided that it was time to show the boy the city where his mother had lived when he had met her.

While Hector was in Greece with his father they happened to pass Athena’s birth mother on the street, now just an old bent over beggar.  As she reached out her hand to accept a coin from Hector’s father, she noticed that the boy’s blonde curly hair was the same color and texture that hers had been when she was young.

“Athena thanks you kind sir.” The old woman said to Hector’s father putting the coin in her purse. “And so do I.”

She paused to study Hectors face one last time and Hector stared back into the old woman’s eyes for a moment. Then the boy reached for the old woman’s hand and said.  “Athena was my mother’s name kind woman; it is I who thanks you.”

As Hector and his father continued to walk down the path towards Athena’s childhood home, the old woman watched the curly haired boy as he walked away.  He had reminded her of Athena the goddess, but even more important than that, the boy had brought back the memory of her foolish youth when she had wrapped her own child in a blanket and placed her on the Temple steps, certain that her beloved goddess would protect her child.

As Hector and his father walked on, they heard something and turned to look back at the old woman still standing by the side of road.  She was tearfully repeating the words “Athena thanks you kind sir, Athena thanks you…”

 

Author's Note

A couple of characters from the 'Light of the Morning' story

Reviews

[Tasha]

Thank you so much, I did enjoy this. You are such an amazing storyteller. Thank you so much for sending this to me to read. I loved it a lot. Espically because it was bitter sweet. Thanks again.

[Gandré]

you are such a story teller! I wonder if you told stories to your daughter; she must be an eager book lover then. Relationships-stories, helps reader walk a path to true love that is more fulfilling than they ever imagined. I loved this.

[Tate Morgan]

yOUR SKILL AT NARATIVE STORY TELLING IS GREAT i LOVED IT .i DONT TAKE TO THE STORIES THAT HAVCE SUCH WORDS THAT MAKE ME DISECT THEIR MEEING .mAINLY BECAUSE THEY ARENT UYSED IN COMMON LANGUAGE i LIKED THIS STORY BRAVO

[Ellen Hammond]

Oh, I like this bitter sweet story. Sad in that Athena's mother was scorned by the very man who fathered her child, banned from the temple, destined to beg for a living. Fiction perhaps, yet speaks of a reality that many have lived. Very touching. Thanks for writing it and sharing it, my friend.