When I was pretty young, Dad would take me to his work place, a little Brooklyn studio for photography of children, Baby Craft. For something like 25 cents I sat and stamped envelopes or helped with cardboard box assembly in the back room or watched the colorists apply oil to the cheeks and lips of the photo subjects. I'd get a glass bottle coke from the red machine and wait for us to get in Dad's ungainly brown station wagon for the drive back to the Bronx. On those trips to and from Baby Craft, Dad often regaled me with Greek and Roman mythology. There was Hercules, of course, the strong demi-god who cleaned out the Augean stables, and Theseus, who did not become a meal of the ravenous Minotaur in a maze for the trick of a very long thread, and Perseus who defeated the Medusa whose face would turn men to stone, because he had a shiny, mirrored shield. By the time I was in high school reading Edith Hamilton, I had heard many of the stories over and over.
Dad's writings frequently made reference to mythology. This is one done in the course of his writing class with Bea Mitz, a mentor and friend.
This is a story by Lafcadio Hearn. It is a variation of the ancient tale of Pygmalion and Galatea. Pygmalion's statue of Galatea so impressed the gods that they gave it life. I shall relate Hearn's version using excerpts of his text, then alter the ending to conform to the instructions for this assignment, that is, to change the ending.
It was a world of wonders and marvels of riches and rarities created by the vengeance of the King. There was but one life amid all the enchantment of Greek marble, of petrified loveliness and beauty made motionless in bronze. One man was alone in this prison of gold and porphyry on royal edict. It was said that he was served by invisible hands--that tables covered with luxurious viands rose up as if by magic--and the richest wines, sweetened with honey were chosen for his repasts. He was given all that art could inspire--save only the sound of a human voice and the sight of a human face.
A figure of Aphrodite displayed the infinite harmony of her naked loveliness upon a pedestal of black marble--a dream of love frozen into that marble by a genius greater than the famed sculptor Praxiteles. No modern restorer had given this bright divinity the appearance of shame--arms extended as if to welcome a lover, one foot slightly extended in the act of bending to bestow a kiss.
A bronze tablet bore the following inscription: "I madden all who gaze upon me. Mortal condemned to live in solitude with me, prepare to die of love at my feet."
Now the King's secret messengers were eunuchs, for disabled manhood only could look with impunity on the marble effigy. Spies whispered into the ear of the silver-bearded King about the suffering of the solitary victim.
"He has poured again and again the blood of doves, and he kisses the marble body until his lips bleed, and the goddess still smiles a smile that is pitiless."
And the King made answer, "It is even as I would wish." Then he mused, "Aphrodite is no longer to be appeased with the blood of doves. He is youthful, strong, and an artist. Let the weapons of death be placed, mercifully, at the feet of the goddess. Greater offering is her due."
And so it came to pass. Author Hearn was not as merciful as George Bernard Shaw. The prisoner shed his own blood at the feet of the statue. But that's Hearn's story. Here is mine.
There was consternation on Olympus. It is not that the gods resented such cruelty. They resorted to worse visitations on humanity and for the most specious reasons. Zeus was apt to hurl thunderbolts, without provocation.
In one thing the gods were unanimous. The actions of the human king were a usurpation of their prerogatives. They agreed that the king had displayed the highest form of hubris, of overweening pride. Still, they decided to forego punishment, since the king was of an historic origin that traced itself to one of Zeus' earlier adventures into the human boudoir. Thus, the consensus tended toward a policy of benign tolerance.
Aphrodite looked down upon her marble image from the Olympian heights. She was not pleased with the blood offerings and the protestations of the hapless lover. He was young and handsome and his attention to her flattered her.
Still, there was talk in the Olympian cloud covered environs that the statue was more beautiful than she. Eros informed her that he had seen Ares, the god of war, surreptitiously visiting the prison-garden gazing enraptured, for hours, at her stone image. She determined to restrain her jealousy. There were other matters.
The statue and the King's punishment seemed an affront to her reputation--something that portrayed her in an attitude of extreme cruelty. She felt it brought undue celestial attention to her adultery against her squat and ugly god-husband, Haphaistos, the heavenly armorer. Three of the children of their marriage were the progeny of her long-term affair with Ares. Worse, they had been discovered entwined together by her injured spouse. Haphaistos had anticipated the rendezvous and trapped the in flagrante delicto by means of an invisible but impregnable gossamer mesh. He then invited the rest of the gods to view the assignation at its height, and render judgment on the injury and ignominy to a fellow divinity. How she solved the dilemma does not appear in Ovid or Homer, or some obscure monument of inscription. I beheld in the spectacle of a dream where Aphrodite appeared to me in her full glory, pressing her forefinger against her lips in warning, admonishing me to eternal secrecy. "Not even the gods know what I am about to ordain in my magnanimity and glorious compassion. Transfixed by the hypnotic majesty, I watched her descent to the opulent garden prison. The Prisoner was kneeling at the feet of the callous statue, his tears bathing the feet. He stood for a last look into the darkness of her eyes, lifted the golden sword which had been provided to him for his final offering and placed the point against his breast.
Suddenly, the extended foot moved and the statue fell towards him. He caught it, and he knew ecstasy. It was no longer marble, but flesh. He found paradise, and supped therein. He heard the murmured words of love that were born when first Eros burst forth out of chaos from the celestial egg. She would come, again and again, she said, for he was indeed godlike, and she forswore him to silence and ordained him there into her priesthood. When it was morn, she disappeared. The marble, back in place, exuded her scent of the night before, and it was no longer a cold stone image thqt looked down upon hi with scorn. It was more kindly; there was a slight upward turn in the corner of the marble lips.
The King marveled that his prisoner did not die. He repented of his ire and ordered the statue destroyed. But the men sent to obliterate it could not. Her beauty turned their muscles limp. The seers forbade the destruction on the grounds that it would bring famine to the land. The king relented and asked that the Prisoner be released.
But the Prisoner would not go, and when the King sent his minions to persuade him, he drew the golden sword and set the scurrying back to a wondering king.
"It is perhaps an ome," said the King. "It is even as I would wish. Let it be so.
And so it was with the Prisoner, who is said to have lived a very long and happy life, a priest of the miraculous sculpture. The opulent prison became a temple of Aphrodite. And it is said that he lived forever and a day, as it is written in the protocols of the land.
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