Цитаты из книги 喀耳刻

Как боги страшатся боли – не передать. Нет ничего другого, столь чуждого им, и потому ничто другое они не жаждут видеть столь болезненно.

No, I thought. I was not careful. I was reckless, headlong. He was another knife, I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.

I would like to say that all the while I waited to break out, but the truth is, I'm afraid I might have floated on, believing those dull miseries were all there was, until the end of days.

How many of us would be granted pardon if our true hearts were known?

I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.

“You are wise,” he said. “If it is so,” I said, “it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes.”

So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.

“I think I would not have been a bad king.” “Telemachus the Just,” I said. He smiled. “That’s what they call you if you’re so boring they can’t think of something better.”

But there was a contained quality to Telemachus, a quiet assurance that made him companionable without being intrusive. The creature he most reminded me of, I realized, was my lion. They had the same upright dignity, the same steady gaze with deep-set humor. Even the same earthbound grace, which pursued their own ends while I pursued mine.

He thought and felt and acted, and all these things made a straight line. No wonder his father had been so baffled by him. He would have been always looking for the hidden meaning, the knife in the dark. But Telemachus carried his blade in the open.

“Gods pretend to be parents,” I said, “but they are children, clapping their hands and shouting for more.”

Odysseus, son of Laertes, the great traveler, prince of wiles and tricks and a thousand ways. He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.

And Odysseus, I thought. The spiral shell. Always another curve out of sight.

“Though the truth is, her favorite thing about weaving is that while she works, everyone around her thinks she can’t hear what they’re saying. She gathers all the best news that way. She can tell you who’s getting married, who’s pregnant, and who’s about to start a feud.” “Your wife sounds like a clever woman.” “She is. I cannot account for the fact that she married me, but since it is to my benefit, I try not to bring it to her attention.”

In a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

“I want the creature dead, and that is final!” “It cannot be killed,” I told Minos. “Not now. It has a destiny far in the future.” “A destiny!” My sister clapped delightedly. “Oh, tell us what it is! Does it escape and eat someone we know?”

I was allowed license because it amused him, but I never knew when that amusement might end. You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.

I did not lie dreaming of him during the days, I did not speak his name into my pillow. He was no husband, scarcely even a friend. He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves.

Watching Zeus and Helios negotiate is always good entertainment. Like two volcanoes trying to decide if they should blow.

I felt myself tremble, but I would not let him see it. Great gods smell fear like sharks smell blood, and they will devour you for it just the same.