Kυννάνη Φιλίππου θυγάτηρ τὰ πολεμικὰ ἤσκησε καὶ στρατοπέδων ἡγεῖτο καὶ πολεμίοις παρετάσσετο

[sovay]

My short story "ζῆ καὶ βασιλεύει" is now online at Ideomancer. It has a lengthy author's note (it's an alternate history), so I will add only that the title means s/he lives and reigns; it is the answer traditionally given to the siren Thessalonike when she rises from the sea and asks ποῦ εἴναι ὁ Μεγαλέξανδρος—Where is Alexander the Great?

I didn't think of it at the time, but I wonder now if the story is an argument with Mary Renault's Funeral Games (1981). I have several arguments with that book. Anyway, it's queer alternate classical history. Blame yhlee for talking about the Siege of Tyre last September. The rest of the issue is pretty fantastic, too.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

*love* it.

Loved this:

Even half-deafened with desire, her mouth dry and her skin flicking like a fly-plagued mare’s, Eurydike felt her mouth tighten in her war-smile, the moment when calculation abandoned itself to the chase. (what a line! how knowing!)

And this:

From the scant night before the sea-battle and the breaching of the walls, she had woken with an intaglio of owl’s feathers printed everywhere hands or mouth or thighs could touch, the tastes of sea and salt on her lips.

I really enjoyed the history in your accompanying note, too. I had no idea.

[sovay]

*love* it.

Thank you!

I really enjoyed the history in your accompanying note, too. I had no idea.

So this is one of the reasons I think the story might be an argument with Renault: I first learned about Kynnane (whom she calls Kynna; both names are attested historically) and Adeia Eurydike from reading Funeral Games at Brandeis, where it made a sudden and rather jarring end to a series I had been enjoying although not imprinting on.* It's clear that Renault does not view them as real competition for Alexander's generals. To her, they are women playing at manliness—boyish, martial, not the real thing. Polyainos reports that Kynnane died in battle, meeting Alketas (brother and supporter of Perdikkas, another general and a major player among the Successors) openly and going down fighting when he insisted on carrying out his brother's orders to assassinate her. That might be heroic embellishment, but at least it gives her agency. Renault has Kynna killed in an ambush, without striking a blow, without anyone knowing who she is until it's too late. Impetuous and charismatic, her daughter Eurydike is adopted by Alketas' remorseful soldiers and repeatedly compared by the narrative to the young Alexander, like whom she appears to effect a glittering, meteoric rise, but the reader knows it is a doomed and contingent power. Her male competitors constantly remind her—remind the reader—that she is a naive girl, an ambitious curiosity, a young harridan rather than a second Alexander. Eventually she loses control of the army explicitly because she is physically female: at a critical moment, she cannot make a speech because she is menstruating. I have found no classical precedent for this detail; Renault seems to have invented it. It upset me very much at the time and must have stuck pearl-grit in my memory since, because Adeia Eurydike does not exist in this story, but being physically female has not stopped Kynnane from leading an army; neither has being fertile; neither has being married, a lot. Take that, unexpected more-than-historical misogyny.

* Classically, I imprinted on The King Must Die (1958) and The Mask of Apollo (1966). Of her contemporary novels, Return to Night (1947).

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I can understand that story sticking like grit in your memory; it outrages me that having your period should be thought by anyone to render you incapable of giving a speech. I suppose there's some tradition of women not doing anything when they're on their period? And yet I feel certain that any woman who decides to train for war would find a way to circumvent a requirement to isolate herself during her period. Hell, if you train hard enough and lose enough fat, you can stop your periods, which seems like something a young, warrior-training woman might do.

I like Polyainos's version much better than Renault's.

Also this--she appears to effect a glittering, meteoric rise, but the reader knows it is a doomed and contingent power --makes me think about history as spoiler in historical fiction.

[sovay]

I like Polyainos's version much better than Renault's.

A LOT.

Also this--she appears to effect a glittering, meteoric rise, but the reader knows it is a doomed and contingent power--makes me think about history as spoiler in historical fiction.

I remarked to derspatchel either last night or the night before that reading Five Came Back was much more like a novel than my usual experience of reading history, because I knew so little about the lives of some of the subjects; I knew some of the films they would go on to make, but I didn't know how their personal experiences factored into them. I was blindsided by some of the things that happened to George Stevens and William Wyler. It's a very effectively written book.