This creative piece is written in the style of Ovid’s Heroides. After reading a collection of these letters, I felt inspired to write a letter from Agave to her son, Pentheus, taking inspiration from the sparagmos of Pentheus from Euripides’ Bacchae. Though this piece differs from the content of the Heroides in its treatment of love, I am attempting to give a voice to my favourite woman from Greek literature, Agave, like Ovid did over two millennia ago. This letter is not a confession of love – it is, instead, the lament of a grieving mother for the son she unknowingly killed. I chose to adopt the epistolary style of the Heroides to show how Agave shows us a different kind of love: one that is not egotistical or altruistic, as the Ovidian letters are, but raw, and marked by the weight of grief. I hope my piece does Agave's character justice.
Agave writes this letter to you, Pentheus, as you lay in pieces
On the slopes of the mighty Cithaeron
The victim of the rites of the gentle, yet terrible, Dionysus,
A god who you scorned throughout your life.
Like the cub I boasted over killing, yours was a life that was wasted
In impious pride, and mortal hubris
A life with such potential, extinguished before your flame could shine
As brightly as the gleams of wine
That life giving gift from Bacchus, whose madness ended yours.
My son, I write you this letter,
A letter that cannot hurt you now you are with the shades.
I think about how I was out of my mind
The night you were hunted
The night your blood stained your mother’s hands.
I feel no remorse for the night it happened
No responsibility for the death of you, my son, and
I can only now confess that now you are gone.
Through the lens of my ecstasy, I believed your kill was the greatest kill of all time
I was blinded by the god, oblivious to the rational world
I had killed a lion cub, not yet a lion
A greater kill than any of my sisters, or any for the god before.
I believed I should be worshipped for what I did,
But I write this now as a nobody, a mother grieving and
Forced to be stained by the blood of her son
A fate worse even than yours is.
Like the Stranger you captured, I am in chains by my grief
A mother wishing to break free as the god could
But because of my crimes, my son,
I am forced to live an exile.
This is the fault of Dionysus!
That radiant youth with his blonde curls and effeminate beauty.
The mind-gripping ecstasy and the pull of knowledge
Cost a mother her son, slaving her to the shackles of grief.
You are like my sister’s beloved son, Actaeon
Torn apart by the cruelty of the gods
Like your cousin, you were tripped from a mother
Who could not see the true horrors of the actions
Of herself, of the gods, or of her son.
My vision may now be clear from Bacchus’ cruel joy
But what is it to see clearly?
What is it to perceive if I can no longer see you?
What is the point in witnessing anything, if a mother can no longer gaze upon
The face of her son.
I now too scorn the gods, as they are too petty.
They must play with the minds of mortals, unknowing that
Their desire for power and worship makes them appeal less to us
And the hubris of my dear son reflects on to each one of them,
Following their supposed glory
Imprisoning themselves from the worship and trust of us mortals.
Oh, I long to be born again, to have the second chance Bromios did!
My dear Pentheus, I would warn you of your impieties and to shake you from your prison of hubris
Rebirth is the only path I can take to be ridded from my crimes
But with you gone, I feel like even rebirth will not cleanse me of my grief.
So to you, Pentheus, the son of a mother exiled, lost, and grieving
I hope your fate is one mortals use for teaching.