Alpheus and Arethusa

In Greek mythol­ogy, Arethusa was a beau­ti­ful nymph and com­pan­ion to the moon god­dess, Artemis. When Arethusa unknow­ingly bathed in a river of the river god, Alpheus, she had also inad­ver­tently seduced him as he was over­come by Arethusa’s beauty.

Arethusa, want­ing noth­ing of his advances, fled. Some accounts of the leg­end claim she was chased across all across the seas, while oth­ers say she was forced to reg­u­larly change her appear­ance to fool Alpheus, who was deter­mined to claim his prize.

Relentlessly pur­sued, her only option was to seek the aid of Artemis. Arethusa was trans­formed into a stream and fled into the earth, but even here, she could not escape the river god. Making her way to the sea, Arethusa found her­self con­sumed by Alpheus as his water min­gled with hers, envelop­ing her within his lust­ful grasp forever.

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Artemis Rising Excerpt—Chapter IV:

What fol­lows is an excerpt from the novel, which illus­trates the myth of Alpheus and Arethusa in a vision.

Arethusa fell to a strange dark­ness. It seemed only a moment. Then a bril­liant light mate­ri­al­ized into a riot of cerulean blues and moss greens. She stood, sur­rounded by for­est, at the brink of a shal­low river. It bur­bled and sang and beck­oned. The sun was set­ting but the day was still hot. Shafts of light fil­tered through the old grove of cedars.

She wore a strange tunic, cut very high on her legs. A bow and quiver of arrows lay beside her in the grasses that lined the banks. She strode for­ward, her step con­fi­dent despite her con­fu­sion. She dipped her toes in the water. The river was cool, invit­ing. She glanced around, but no one lin­gered in this for­got­ten forest.

Just a short swim, she thought, to wash the heat from my skin. Her lack of mod­esty sur­prised her, but she didn’t give it another thought. She shed her tunic and boots, unbound her hair, and dove head­long into a pool at the base of a waterfall.

The very instant she crested the sur­face she felt a move­ment beneath her and around her. Like a sep­a­rate cur­rent a pow­er­ful pres­ence encir­cled her and, like a whirlpool, it dragged her down under the sur­face, into the shal­lower depths where her feet touched the algae-​​covered stones.

She blinked, and when the sting of the water against her eyes cleared, she saw a face. The soft edges of jaw and nose and lip swelled and bil­lowed in the cur­rents like a translu­cent sketch, a col­or­less portrait.

He did not speak with a voice but his thoughts touched her mind, blend­ing seam­lessly with the bab­ble of the river. You dis­turb my waters, lit­tle nymph. But I am not dis­pleased. I am the God Alpheus. Come into the depths with me and I will show you all that I command.

When she felt the God’s desire sur­round­ing her, fill­ing the pool with a heavy force, she grew afraid. She remem­bered the warn­ing of the Moon Goddess: chastity above all. She did not hes­i­tate, but scram­bled naked from the water.

Before her eyes, Alpheus’s limbs and body hard­ened, and the River God became a liv­ing, breath­ing man.

“Stay,” he cajoled.

Arethusa did not answer but ran on, over moss and stone, grass and stick.

“Come back!” he shouted. “Come back.”

He chased her deep into the for­est, and she hid where she could behind trees and thick­ets. The day slipped into pale dusk, and the Moon Goddess rose in the east.

Alpheus chased her down to the sea. She ran down the aban­doned beach, her bruised feet aching and her lungs burn­ing with the fire of her breath. The moment she had given up thought of escape, the moment Alpheus touched the ends of her hair, Arethusa called out to the Goddess.

“Save me, Artemis. Have mercy.”

Artemis flashed bright, her rays reach­ing down to embrace her like a mother. A strange sen­sa­tion coursed through Arethusa’s veins. As she ran, her body became fluid and trans­par­ent. Unbidden tears streamed from her eyes. Her limbs turned to liq­uid pools and, on her tongue, she tasted strange, cool water. All at once, she col­lapsed into a deep river of her­self, bleed­ing into the beach sands into the inter­minable dark­ness beneath.

But Alpheus was cun­ning. He shifted into his river form and dove after her, slip­ping with insid­i­ous silence behind her.

She felt Artemis’s anger rum­bling through the earth. Her light grew strong, her heat burn­ing into the ground. Then Arethusa felt her­self fall.

Dive deep, my Arethusa. I will make a way for you, she felt rather than heard the Goddess say.

Grateful, Arethusa plunged down and slipped her way under the seas, com­ing back up through a spring near the Rio de Antigos. There, the Moon Goddess gath­ered up Arethusa’s scat­tered drops and trans­formed her into a bub­bling fountain.

Arethusa thought she was safe at last, but the earth trem­bled and quaked beneath her and a ter­ri­ble roar shud­dered through the ground. Alpheus cleaved up through the soil, burst­ing sky­ward with the sheer force of his anger. She saw again Alpheus’s translu­cent face, twisted in rage. Then he plunged down into her waters, impris­on­ing her with his own.

You’ll never escape me again.