Her faithful, and the poets, call her “La Sauvage”,
or the Queen of the Wild Beasts.
Her pleasure is to travel the woods
and the high crags battered by the winds.
She loves those animals which have not been subjugated by man.
The games of childhood
and the chaste thoughts of adolescents belong to her.
She is the Invincible Virgin,
fierce and beautiful.
She is pure and cold,
like the light of the moon
that guides the hunter through the forest.
Her arrow is cruel, sure and swift.
She is the Goddess of untouched Nature,
of intact bodies,
of hearts free from passion.
From Les Dieux de la Grèce
Andre Bonnard
What’s in a name? I’ve always thought there is something in it. I certainly love the way that the nighttime is when all the shy creatures venture out, rabbits, deer – the stags, does and fawns, the hedgehogs, badgers, mice and moles all semi-concealed in the darkness ……
Their predators come out too, of course.
And sometimes I feel something of the remoteness and clarity of the goddess in myself.