Atalanta is now not only beautiful and famous; but she is also an heiress to a kingdom. This makes her very marriageable. After many suitors turn up, her father demands that she must marry one of them for the sake of the kingdom.
Atalanta doesn't want to marry anyone. When her father insists, she finally agrees, but only under one condition. The man she marries must be able to beat her in a footrace. And if he loses the race, he must forfeit his life.
Many men, thinking they can beat her, accept this challenge. But Atalanta is swift and wins race after race. Men come from afar, lose to her, and forfeit their lives.
Finally, only one man remains to race her—Hippomenes, a most unlikely suitor. All of the other men who accepted the challenge thought that by beating Atalanta they would acquire a kingdom and a famous and beautiful wife. Hippomenes, on the other hand, knows he can not win the race. He is not a heroic figure; he is not particularly strong or swift as a runner. Nonetheless, he intends to enter the race. He has followed Atalanta from Calydon. He knows of her love for and loss of Meleager and has compassion for what happened. In short, he loves her.
On the evening before the race, Hippomenes prays to Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty. He prays that Atalanta may love him and for there to be a way for him to win her. All the others who had lost the race (and their lives) had prayed to other gods to be able to overcome and possess her. Some prayed to Hermes for speed, others to Zeus to overpower her, others to Ares for strength to beat her.
Aphrodite hears Hippomenes' prayers and appears to him with three golden apples and some advice. On awakening, he thinks it was all a dream—until he sees the three apples.
The next morning, Atalanta stands at the starting line waiting for Hippomenes to arrive. She has noticed him before, and wished that he would not race her, since the outcome is inevitable. He is no match for her as a runner.
Hippomenes arrives clutching his arms around his waistband, holding the three golden apples out of sight. This strikes Atalanta as peculiar, and then it reminds her of how Meleager clutched his abdomen just before he died in her arms. She goes into a reverie, taking her mind off the race. So when the signal to start is given, Hippomenes runs as fast as he can, but Atalanta is not prepared. Startled by the realization that the race has begun, she runs to catch up. As she draws even with Hippomenes, he drops a golden apple. The rolling motion of the apple catches her eye and reminds her of how the heads had rolled when Meleager came to her defense.
The apple is irresistible. Its golden glow and beauty draw her and she has to stop to pick it up. She gazes at it and sees a reflection of her own face, distorted by the curves of the apple.
Meanwhile, Hippomenes races ahead. Atalanta is so swift, however, that she soon overtakes him once again. Then he drops the second apple, which rolls across her path and to the side. Again she stops to pick it up.
Now Hippomenes is in the lead, with the finish line in view. Atalanta puts on a spurt of speed and catches up with him. At this moment, Hippomenes drops the third apple. If she ignores it, she will win the race. If she picks it up, she will lose the race. Atalanta reaches for the apple as Hippomenes crosses the finish line. He wins the race and Atalanta in marriage. But did she let him win?
The Meaning of the Myth
The end of the footrace is not the end of the personal story for women who resemble Atalanta. It is, more likely, the beginning of the second half of their lives. This is also not the end of Atalanta's mythic story. There are versions of the myth that do not end with the race, but go on to tell how Atalanta and Hippomenes are punished and transformed into a pair of lions and yoked together to pull a divine chariot. The story deepens when these events are seen as metaphors and interpreted as symbolic.
While Atalanta is a mortal in the image of Artemis, her life is influenced and changed by more than one goddess. Through Hippomenes, Atalanta feels the spell of Aphrodite's golden apples. This is the case with contemporary women as well. All of the goddesses are potential archetypal patterns in every woman and, while Artemis may be dominant in the first third of a woman's life and can remain a strong influence, often one or more other archetypes may emerge in the second and third phases of life.
Atalanta's story has the power of a big dream with many layers of meaning. At first, it is intriguing to take in the whole story with the images that come to mind as you read it. Even at first glance, a particular image or detail may catch your imagination. Enduring myths are similar to important dreams that people remember because there is “something” to them. They touch the psyche of the dreamer, reader, or listener, even without interpretation. Atalanta is a mortal and is like a real woman who appears in a dream or in life, bringing the archetype of Artemis or a quality of Artemis to life. When this happens, a woman who is like Atalanta can become a combination of goddess and mortal to others.
The story of Atalanta becomes very personal to girls and women who find similarities between her qualities and their own—between her story and theirs. It can also give some insight into often difficult and painful experiences for men and women who love or have loved them. Being in a relationship with a woman like Atalanta whose dominant archetype is Artemis can be more difficult or challenging to others than being her. A prime example: Nobel Laureate poet William Butler Yeats, whose yearning love for beautiful, fiery, feminist Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne was immortalized in his verse across five decades. She married someone else, and much later, he did also.
Delving into a myth is very much like working with a dream. To understand the meaning or interpretation, a Jungian analyst works with the person whose dream it is, amplifying elements in it, which is what I will be doing with the myth of Atalanta in this book. Myths have the power of collective dreams and fascinate us because the themes in them are ours to inhabit or to observe.
Chapter Two
Atalanta, Artemis, Mother Bear
Mother bears are ferociously protective and extraordinarily nurturing. Good advice to people headed into the wilderness is never to get between a mother bear and her cubs! Mother bears have qualities that make them really good mothers. They are notably fierce in defense of their young; they are also good caretakers. Bear cubs are born in the winter months—usually in January and February, while the mother bear is in hibernation. Newborn bears are smaller than newborn human babies, weighing around ten ounces at birth. They can't open their eyes and are kept warm in their mother's fur and by her breath. They suckle instinctively and grow rapidly on the fat-rich milk, emerging only in early spring when they are big enough and strong enough to walk, run, and explore.
A mother bear sleeps only when her babies sleep. Initially, the cubs nurse every ten minutes. They are noisy, make humming noises when awake and suckling, and cry when they need something. The mother bear washes them often with her tongue, and puts them on a teat when they can't find one. Once the cubs leave the den, the mother will continue to suckle them until they are weaned. She then teaches them what berries they can eat, how to catch fish, and how to hunt. The cubs learn to climb trees for safety when there may be danger on the ground. They have little to fear when they are in their mother's sight—the biggest exception being the dangers posed by bad actors of their own species. Predatory male bears eat cubs.
When the cubs are able to take care of themselves, the mother bear makes them independent of her. She sends them up a tree, just as when she was teaching them to climb to safety, only this last time, she doesn't come back for them. They are old enough to be self-sufficient; now they must climb down and fend for themselves.
I am reminded here of a woman who described how she took animal mothers as role models for herself. On becoming pregnant, fearful that her own mother's unmaternal example may have rubbed off on her, she did the opposite and turned to the example of animal mothers—and particularly mother bears. I might add here that her own mother's behavior may have been caused