I sing the arms and the man—well, no.

Afraid, she sent me, my holy mother, from out of the sea to live among these women. Unbound my hair and loose my loins; it was a quiet time. Spinning, weaving, the quiet of an afternoon with only the sound of the distant sea for company, the muffled sounds of conversation drifting from the men’s quarter. Peaceful, as I had never known peace. Here in this sunless land, the blood winedark and cooling upon my lips, it seems to me an endless summer, the breezes soft upon the down of my face, the nights ripe as an unplucked berry.

Even now, my fingers long for wool and spindle.

You came, canny, wild, and old, while I was hard at work helping weave a peplos for my foster mother. Not trusted yet—and rightly not!—to handle the shuttle myself, I could nevertheless stand and attend against the day when I might turn my own hand to the loom. A not unfamiliar discipline. How strange you seemed in the afternoon, how alien, even as you scattered well-known toys before us. I reached for the sword when the alarm was raised, and thus you knew me—I scorned the pins and daggers closer to hand, more sure and deadly. I have cursed you for your wiles, cursed myself, cursed the gods for their vanity, but long years and silence have worn me smooth as a river stone.

What a weaver I might have been!