and the choice involves the role of Artemis either as the savior of
Iphigenia or as the cause of her death.
In the story of the Trojan War, the Greek ships assembled at the
Greek port of Aulis before setting sail for Troy. There the fleet was
becalmed; no winds arose to fill the sails. Convinced that the calm
was the doing of a god, Agamemnon (the commander of the Greek
forces) consulted the expedition’s seer. The seer declared that Artemis
had been offended and could be appeased only by the sacrifice of
Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia. At first, Agamemnon resisted,
but as time passed and the men became more angry and unruly, he
tricked his wife Clytemnestra into sending Iphigenia to him, on the
pretext that she was to be married to the Greek hero Achilles. Instead,
she was prepared for the sacrifice—her life in exchange for fair winds
that might carry the fleet to war.
What happened next is told in two versions. According to one,
the death of Iphigenia was carried out as demanded by Artemis.
According to the other, Artemis interceded just at the point of sacri-
fice, substituting a stag in her place, and carried her off to Tauris,
where Iphigenia became one of Artemis’s priestesses.
These two endings can represent the two possible effects of
Artemis. On the one hand, she rescues women and feminine values
from the patriarchy, which devalues or oppresses both. On the other,
with her intense focus on goals she can also require that a woman
sacrifice and devalue what has been traditionally considered “fem-
inine”—those receptive, nurturing, related-to-others, willing-to-
make-sacrifices-for-the-sake-of-others qualities. Every Artemis wo-
man is likely to have some part of her that is like Iphigenia—a young,
trusting, beautiful part that represents her vulnerability, her poten-
tiality for intimacy, and her dependency on others. Will she rescue
and protect this aspect of herself so that it can grow, even as she
moves through her life, aiming for what matters to her? Or will she
require that she kill this Iphigenia part of herself, in order to be as
focused, hard, and clear as possible?
WAYS TO GROW
To grow beyond Artemis, a woman must develop her less con-
scious, receptive, relationship-oriented potential. She
Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, Competitor and Sister