What does this mean for you? Atalanta is one of the very few heroines we have in Greek and Roman mythology, and sadly, her story is very rarely known! Let’s change that, shall we? As Atalanta, you yourself are independent to the core, striving ceaselessly towards your goals, and may leave others in the dust with your natural and/or learned talents. That said, you are also not stagnant and are ultimately willing to change to better yourself and those around you.
Her and your story goes something like this: Atalanta was said to be the fastest runner alive, male or female. No one in the world could beat her. Though born generations before swift-footed Achilles, it’s doubtful even he would have the quickness of feet to surpass the dust at her heels. A princess of a kingdom, she was well off enough to maintain her independence and declared to everyone that the only way she would marry is if someone actually managed to defeat her in a foot race. If they tried and lost, however, the defeated suitor would be put to death.
Why such grave endings for the losers, you may ask? An oracle years prior had sealed off her heart and frightened her into championing this declaration. When asking advice about marriage one day, an oracle told her, “‘You don’t need a husband…Avoid that habit! Still, I know you will not: you will keep your life, and lose yourself.’” Since then, the fear of losing herself made Atalanta swear off marriage.
That was, until the day a young lad named Hippomenes, great-grandson of Poseidon, god of the sea, decided to race Atalanta for her hand in marriage. Upon seeing him for the very first time, Atalanta hesitated. She did not want such a youthful, beautiful man to die such a grizzly death for fighting for something as precious as love. It was there, at that first sighting of him that something fundamental changed in her. Never before had she wavered in her conviction to defeat her suitors at all costs, but something powerful and deathless bewitched her, a power that we are all subject to and know, some perhaps far too well: the power of love. It should be noted that it is Aphrodite herself telling this story, the embodiment of love and sexuality itself, and she is the cause for Atalanta’s ultimate defeat.
Before the start of the race, Hippomenes prayed in supplication to laughter-loving Aphrodite, begging her to help him have Atalanta as his bride, and Aphrodite did as she was asked. To help him in the race and gain Atalanta’s hand, she gave him three golden apples, magicked aphrodisiacs picked from the faraway lands of the hyperborean Hesperides. And how might these golden apples have worked to his advantage, you may ask? Imbued with the sensual and captivating energies of immortal love, these apples would lead her astray from the course.
With these apples in hand, Hippomenes stood beside Atalanta at the starting line. A crowd had gathered around them, pulled from the citizens of her father’s kingdom, then they set off, Atalanta running with the wind, positively elemental. With her gaining the advantage, Hippomenes hurled an apple in the opposite direction of the track, and this caught her attention. The thrall of the golden apple stopped her dead in her tracks and she found herself unwittingly racing towards it, snatching the apple from the ground before running back towards the track. Hippomenes continued this two more times, tossing the apples left and right, diverting Atalanta from the race. And for the first time, Atalanta would lose and she would marry.
It is only later, when Hippomenese forgot to thank the goddess Aphrodite that the wrath of archetypal love would strike them both, transforming them forever more. Understand, dear reader and established Atalanta, that when you do not honor and remember your internal lover, that lover can transform into something feral, like Hippomenes and Atalanta. Enraged at their thoughtlessness to her, Aphrodite, love personified, transformed them into majestic lions, the fastest creatures the Greeks knew of.
Ultimately, while the Greeks and Romans understood this story as an aetiological myth of how lions were created and conceived, this is also a story about how love can overcome us all. There is also the question of if Atalanta raced after these apples as an excuse to let Hippomenes win or not. After all, the moment she saw him, she fell in love. Had the apples merely amplified that feeling? Or are they merely a symbol of the feelings that were already building inside of her, letting Hippomenes win of her own volition? It is hard to tell, but perhaps you yourself can find a piece of truth in yourself as you read their myth.
Atalanta changed twice in this story from dramatic events seemingly out of her control, first the power of love and the second finding and becoming her inner lion. Lionhearted would perhaps be an apt description of Atalanta, fierce and brave, heroic and strong, but willing to bend towards something as soft and precious as love. That is not to say that your love has to be found in another person, but even a hobby, a friend, an experience, a dream. These symbols are not always meant to be taken literally, after all, but experienced internally deep within until they find your truest self. For Atalanta, Hippomenes is merely a catalyst in the grand scheme of becoming the majestic lion. From the race track to the waving fur of a lion, her trajectory in life changed, but that is not to say that change was a bad thing.
In coming to terms with the oracle, Atalanta did have to ‘lose’ herself in order to transform, but even despite the pressing fear that she experienced for so long, love allowed her to break away from this fear, accept the outcome, and come out of it a woman reborn. You, too, may have to change or have changed in order to become your truest self.
In the end, after Atalanta and Hippomenes’ metamorphosis, it is said that the two lions lived out their days and ultimately populated the earth with the lions we have today. While some may see Aphrodite’s wrath as a curse, perhaps it could also be said that the pair became their true selves, lionhearted and willing to change.
