mythology at our doorstep

I will tell you the story of Deborah, in the days of the Titans.
Deborah was a daughter of Iapetus, half sister to the brothers Prometheus, Atlas, Menoeteus, and Epimetheus. She was born very beautiful, fair and frail, and did not seem well suited for life on earth in the harsh days of its formation.

Deborah's father, wishing to provide for her safety, sought some endowment for her and implored Zeus to grant her some special power or unique privilege which might serve as a protection in threatening hours. This wish was granted, but on the condition that she would, in time, give all her heavenly gift away to the creatures of the earth - a little here, a bit there, as she saw need - and that she would arrive at the end her life emptied, formed as she was in her beginning: a frail and beautiful child.

The gods gave Deborah the gift of shrewdness. And she soon found (as her brothers found) that a little wit may foil great strength. And she became reluctant to impart such a valuable thing to her rivals. She kept her gift to herself, and began to misuse it.

She found it easy to barter for that which she did not naturally posses. By means of blandishments and intimidations, promises and twisted trades she gained the natural physical strength she had not received at birth. She took strength from her brothers, from the newly formed animals, from the earth itself, and in the process traded away, bit by bit, her delicacies, her feminine beauty, and her childhood loves.

The gods would not suffer it. "Excessive strength shall become its own punishment," they said, and laid hold of her with shackles which shortly and unnaturally clinched a leg to an arm, such that any forceful move would cruelly pose member against member. But Deborah had the strength of the earth in her veins, and easily snapped her restraints.

Those whom the gods cannot contain they will destroy, and as they bent their heads together to plan the execution, lovely Athena appeared.

"Whom do you now destroy?" she asked, seeing their mood.
"Deborah the Titan. By her action wit has come to reside unjustly in one place. She has gathered strength unto herself unnaturally, and thus intoxicated she seeks yet more strength. Soon she will be most powerful of all on earth. Our disciplines have failed. No physical substance can bind her, nor do our rites and customs hold her."
"Is she not still a woman? Has she yet a woman's heart?"
"In form one would not know it. She is so strong that her appearance has been altered."
"And her heart?"
"Some part of what she was may yet remain."
"I will bind her," said Athena.
"How will you do this? Neither bronze nor iron have held her."
"I will make another kind of cord. It shall be woven of the smallest things; fine hair, soft sounds, aromas, touches, growth, and language...such things that she cannot break..."
"These are the most dangerous cords of all." said one. "Such ties might save, or they might drag one to his death."
"Indeed," said Athena. "Both, perhaps. I am giving her a son."