A Song for the Underworld

1. The God and the Muse

Chapter 1

The God and the Muse

Every event in this world, on the mortal and immortal planes of the cosmos, in those hidden places between time and space, has a song. It starts with a single note, and that note resonates, spreading wide like the ripples of a great pond in the heavens, until it touches man and god alike.

Some songs will last, while others will be short-lived, though the memory of them lingers for those few who have been touched by their sacred notes.

Then there are songs that resonate for eternity, songs that grant those who listen a glimpse of the mysteries of the world, that make the heart shudder as if for the first time in an age.

On a bright, midsummer night, when Selene cast her silver light over the length and breadth of the land of Boeotia, just such a song began, so strong and beauty-filled, that its notes reached the halls of Olympus itself.

It was then that the Gods took notice and knew that something momentous was about to happen, and so they turned their timeless eyes to the eastern slopes of high Helicon, where the boar and bear roam, to peer into the lush, silver-green of a valley.

A song was about to begin…

“Come, Sister!” said Clio as she and Euterpe supported Calliope between them. “We are almost at the spring. There, you can endure your labour.”

Calliope cried out, the pain too great to bear, too much for her immortal legs to carry her. Sweat poured from her brow, matting her dark hair to her skin. She felt another tremor of pain beginning deep within and braced herself for its peak. When it came, her voice shattered the night, sending owls screeching from their nocturnal perches.

Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania walked in a circle about the three, their torches casting a protective light as they made their way along the rock and dirt path beneath the boughs of pine and cypress to the spring.

“There it is!” Erato called out, rushing ahead so that the others could follow her light. “The spring of Hippocrene!”

Clio and Euterpe went forward to a mossy bed about the base of a nearby oak tree and set their sister down upon it.

Calliope’s breaths were quick and measured, but the pain was becoming unbearable, and she cried out again.

“Where is your husband?” Melpomene asked. “Where is King Oeagrus?”

Calliope shook her head. “He is not near. He is fighting.”

“He is always fighting!” Clio said angrily as she pressed a cup to Calliope’s lips. “Here. Drink of the spring. It will soothe your labour.”

Calliope drank and felt reserves of strength within opened up. Then another pain racked her body and her sky-blue eyes shot wide. “Ahhh!”

The cries travelled up the mountainside such that they would have cracked the sapling bodies of green trees.

With tears for her sister’s pain running in rivulets from her star-searching eyes, Urania stepped into the moonlight where it painted the soft grass, and raised her hands.

“Oh, venerable Eileithyia, we call upon you, sister of the Fates. Come to us here that you may bring relief to our sister in labour’s dreadful hour…” Urania closed her eyes, her thoughts and words reaching up into the heavens, and when she felt the rustling of the wind in her hair, she opened them to see the goddess before her. “Thank you.”

Eileithyia smiled and nodded and her keen, dark eyes looked beyond Urania to where Calliope lay beneath the oak, braced against its sturdy trunk, her sweaty peplos hoisted about her knees.

“There, there now,” Eileithyia soothed, her voice calm like the surface of the sea on a summer morning. “I am here now, and just as I helped bring Bright-Eyed Athena into this world, so too shall I help your child.” The goddess closed her eyes and placed her hands upon Calliope’s swollen belly, and by her very touch, it was as if both mother and child relaxed, the pain subsiding like the waves of a crashing tide pulling back out to the deep.

The other muses looked on as the goddess went to work, placing her hands upon Calliope, her own breathing guiding her, setting the rhythm needed for birthing. “Prepare now,” she said, allowing Calliope to brace herself against her.

“Ahhh!” Calliope cried out, tears falling from her eyes. “My lord!” she called out desperately.

It was then that the wind picked up, cool against her sweaty skin, and from out of the dark, wooded slopes, Far-Shooting Apollo came running, his cloak billowing behind him as he dropped his bow and fell to his knees beside Calliope and Eileithyia.

The muses bowed at his coming, but he had eyes only for Calliope whose hand he grasped and kissed.

“I am here,” he said to her, ignoring the goddess beside him who had not deigned to aid his own mother in her painful labour. “Look at me,” he commanded, and Calliope gazed into his star-whirling eyes. “Your son is here. His song is about to begin. You have seen this moment.”

Calliope nodded, her breathing steadying.

“It is time,” Eileithyia said, her voice tender as she helped the muse to position herself. “You must push… Now!”

Calliope held Apollo’s gaze as she pushed, once…twice…three times…until, at last, the cries of the child pierced the night air.

With water from the sacred spring, Eileithyia rinsed the child and swaddled him in Apollo’s blue cloak. She turned to Calliope who lay exhausted against the body of the oak. “Your son, oh Mousa. He is beautiful and healthy.”

Calliope reached out to accept her child into her arms, and in doing so she felt her pain dwindle as though it were a fleeting memory. Her heart beat as her child rested upon her breast, his crying subsided. “Welcome, my son.” She looked up at Apollo.

The god knelt beside her and smiled. “He is beautiful,” Apollo said as he looked upon the child and stroked Calliope’s hair and cheek.

The other muses gathered around to gaze upon their sister’s son, and as they did so, their voices were raised in song, and that song spread from the sacred spring, through the trees, and up the mountain slopes to break free of the valley into the sky where Dawn was only just beginning to paint it with shades of rose, blue and fiery orange.

Eileithyia saw to it that the child suckled at his divine mother’s breast, and then stood to wash her hands in a broad wooden bowl of the sacred water.

“Thank you for coming to her, Goddess,” Urania said to Eileithyia. “She was in great pain.”

Eileithyia smiled, but in her eyes there was something of sadness. “I bring relief from pain.” She put her hand to Urania’s cheek. “It is the lot of my own sisters, the Morai, to bring pain.” She glanced at Calliope and her son. “But they were not here,” she added. “Not yet.” The goddess bowed politely to the muse, and then turned to leave, to disappear into the darkness of the wood beyond where the morning light had not yet presented itself.

Apollo stepped to Urania’s side to watch her leave, and with a final glance back at the Far-Shooter, Eileithyia was gone.

Apollo lingered with the Muses there, at Hippocrene, for some days. They were days of music and song and peace. They were days of hope, such that Apollo believed the child, by his very presence, cast a spell over the world, soothed all of their toils and worries. Even the child’s wailing did not strike the plaintive notes that so often burst from newborn’s mouths.

And the child’s eyes… He had his mother’s eyes, radiant like the bluest skies on a clear summer day. But there was more, for in them there was a sense of deepest feeling.

As Calliope suckled her child in the shade of the broad oak, she could not help but gaze into those eyes and smile, and so it was for all of her sisters who danced and sang and played upon the reed flute from dawn until dusk. As she looked upon her son, Calliope could see that with every note, every beautiful word her sisters uttered, he paused and took notice. “You shall be a wonder, my son,” she whispered to him, kissing the crown of his dark head.

Other creatures were drawn to that place too, but not to cool themselves at the spring created by Pegasus himself. No. Through the glade, birds and beasts passed in a constant procession - deer and wide-antlered stags, wolves and bears, glistening serpents and broad-winged eagles - they all passed through as though to glimpse the child, drawn by the song that had begun there.

The centaur, Cheiron, also came from the slopes of Pelion to gaze upon the child he had heard whispers of in the distant woods of Thessaly. “If ever you wish to send him to me for training, lady, I will welcome him and care for him,” the centaur said to Calliope.

“I thank you,” Calliope responded, though in her heart she knew that her son was destined for other things.

When the centaur departed the glade, and night began to descend upon them once more, a gentle glow crept in through the darkening trees. It became brighter and brighter, until the lithe form of the Huntress appeared, her golden bow slung over her shoulder.

Apollo stood and went to her. “Sister…you have come.”

“Yes,” Artemis smiled, her brilliant, grey eyes taking in the child in Calliope’s arms. She laid her hand upon her brother’s shoulder as she passed and went directly to Calliope. “How are you?” she asked the muse.

“I am well. Eileithyia came to ease my pains.”

“I know.” The goddess knelt upon her bare knees beneath the hem of her chiton, and reached out to touch the child’s brow. “Such beauty…and kindness. He is gentle and full of feeling.”

“He is,” Calliope said, smiling.

“This world will be harsh with him,” Artemis said, and her words silenced the other muses about the glade. The goddess looked up at her brother. “He must be armed in other ways.”

Calliope clasped her son to her breast and kissed his soft head.

“He will be, Sister,” Apollo answered, his eyes filled with the sight of the child and his mother. “I will make sure of it.”

“I do not see your husband,” Artemis said, looking around as the music and song began again as the fires were lit. “Why do you remain with Oeagrus? He is unworthy of you.”

Calliope sighed. “I care not for him, it is true. And I am glad he is not here.” She looked up at Apollo again, and Artemis noted this.

“And have you seen Oeagrus’ other son, the satyr Marsyas?” Artemis turned to her brother.

“I have not,” Apollo answered. “Why do you ask?”

“He has been roaming the Phrygian and Thracian plains, playing upon the aulos and lyre, telling all that he far surpasses you in skill and beauty of notes. He claims he will challenge you.”

Apollo’s eyes darkened as if the stars in them were eclipsed by far-reaching shadows, but when he looked upon the babe in Calliope’s arms, his anger faded. “Marsyas’ time will come, and his hubris will be stripped. For now…let us have music and beauty.”

“Will you play for us, Lord?” Erato asked, and the muses gathered around to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Huntress.

Apollo looked to Calliope and she smiled up at him. “Bless him with your song, Lord,” she said, smiling brightly.

The great cythara appeared then in Apollo’s muscled arms and he sat upon a nearby rock to play for them all as they sat in a circle before him. With the god-made instrument resting upon his lap, Apollo’s fingers plucked gently at the strings.

The night was then filled with such music that the stars grew brighter in the heavens, the winds grew still, and any mortal or beast who was nearby felt rested and calm.

Polymnia raised her voice in soft accompaniment, followed by Erato and the others until a chorus of life and love resonated in the middle of that sacred place.

And as Apollo played, his notes casting an intricate and invisible web over them, as the Muses sang, the child in Calliope’s arms opened his eyes wide, taking in every note and feeling of joy and sadness, love and loss.

All the feeling of the world filled the child and fed his psyche, his limbs, and informed his destiny such as it was and would be.

When Apollo’s song had finished, and the Muses’ voices subsided beneath a starry firmament, the child slept fitfully in the warm embrace of that eternal music.

“Have you decided upon a name for him, Sister?” Clio asked, wiping the joyous tears from her cheek.

Calliope smiled as she looked upon her sleeping son. “I have,” she said as she brushed his cheek with a lithe finger. “I will name him Orpheus.”