Almost Athena

Picture this: You’re 12 and you just got hold of the famous Percy Jackson books that everyone is talking about. You’re ready to enter another fictional world, in order to fill the void that finishing the Harry Potter series has left you with. You now enter a world of Greek gods, demigods, mythical creatures and a certain Camp Half-Blood. You can’t stop yourself from talking to everyone about this new obsession, including your parents who really don’t care much about it. And then, during the course of a conversation with your mother, a shocking revelation is made: She tells you that you were almost named Athena. You don’t ever recover from such a shock.

I shan’t go through the trouble of introducing myself, because it’s definitely not as cool as Athena anyway (I’m sorry, mum and dad). Although my interest in mythology still persists, it has dwindled since the time I was 13, when I’d made it my whole identity. Let me tell you about my month-long pretence that I was in fact, worthy of my almost name.

Athena, whose Roman counterpart is Minerva, is known most famously as being the Goddess of war and wisdom and the patron Goddess of the city of Athens. One of the most interesting facets of Athena’s story is that of the manner of her birth. The story goes that one day, Zeus experienced an unbearable headache and Hephaestus, the God of fire and forgery, offered to cut open his head with one of the weapons he had created. Upon doing this, Zeus’ skull cracked upon and out came Athena, fully grown and in her armour. Other versions of the story say that Zeus had swallowed Metis, the Titan goddess of wisdom and deep thought, when she had been pregnant with Athena, which is why Athena had sprung out fully grown and dressed. Now I don’t know if I too had sprung out from my father’s head when I was born, but if so, no one has informed me of this yet. But I have, on multiple occasions, been a headache to both my parents and continue to do so. Close enough.

Athena via Pinterest (https://in.pinterest.com/pin/413979390719887421/)

The story of Athena and Arachne was one that I knew about before my Percy Jackson phase as it had appeared in one of my English textbooks. Athena, the Goddess of spinning and weaving was known as the greatest weaver amongst the people. However, Arachne, the daughter of a poor shepherd who had immense skill in weaving and spinning too, became boastful and vain and proclaimed that she was a better weaver than Athena, which angered her and caused her to challenge Arachne. Many came by to watch them weave, and Athena wove images of the battle between her and Poseidon and also that of the Gods displeased with mortals who challenged them. Arachne, on the other hand, wove images of the Gods tricking mortals and subjecting them to harm, Zeus seducing women through deception, but with so much detailing and expertise that the weaving seemed almost a step above Athena’s. Enraged by the insult to the Gods and herself, she touched Arachne’s head and turned her into a spider, whose entire lineage still weaves and spins to this day. I imagine that this is probably the reason why I have a fear of spiders to this day. I mean, this one spider that had chased me around the bathroom in Kerala when I was 7 really seemed like it had vengeance on its mind...

I did also attempt to learn knitting, the closest skill to spinning and weaving that I could imagine, but to no avail. I bought the needles, various coloured yarns of wool, but try as I might, I simply couldn’t master the skill of the knitting needles. However, I did try my hand at embroidery because of the SUPW (Socially Useful and Productive Work) subject at school, and I quite liked it too. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it enough to keep at it and thus went another skill down the drain.

Both Ares and Athena are known as the God and Goddess of war respectively, however the main difference between the two is that Ares was more brutal and on the offensive side, while Athena being the goddess of wisdom, strategy and protection, relied on cunning methods to win wars. For example, it is said that Athena gave Odysseus the idea of the Trojan horse, when the war wasn’t going too well for the Greeks. The Parthenon, in Athens, Greece is a temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena. Unfortunately, nobody has built a temple for me yet, but I am patient and willing to wait.

The Parthenon in 1978 via Wikipedia (Parthenon - Wikipedia)

I suppose my quest for wisdom, in this regard, began and ended with me Googling “random interesting facts,” “countries and their capitals” and “history of the world” for about a week, until I eventually gave up on this as I could no longer cram my brain with such random information. Since wisdom is not something one can attain in any singular manner or all at once, I have decided that it was a rather hopeless endeavour.

I am still pained by the fact that ‘Athena’ didn’t make the final cut, but find consolation in the fact that had I been named Athena, I’d be at the beginning of roll calls which is my worst nightmare.

A moment of silence for everyone whose names begin with an A.

-Benita (read: Athena).

If you too have an interest in mythology, I would suggest the podcast ‘Mythology’ by Parcast Network on Spotify and Apple Podcast, which is where I got a lot of my information from.

Parcast ‘Mythology’ Link: https://www.parcast.com/mythology