My Aristotelian Tragic Hero - Kevin Kissane

Amethyst- protected from intoxication 

          Amethyst was born the daughter of a nobleman. There were few in all of Athens who did not know the man. Thus it became Amethysts duty to entertain the gentlemen who did business with her father. She was well versed in poetry. The Muses blessed her voice with song, but the gift that entertained the men the most, was Amethyst’s godlike ability to drink.

Around the hearth the men would gather. Wine poured like a river. Goblets overflowed, and laughter thundered. Amethyst hosted scores of men, drinking the lot of them into a stupor. She never tired, never giving in to the lulling effects of wine’s gentle charm. Jokingly, one man said Amethyst could out drink Dionysus himself. She boasted that she would take that challenge.

Dionysus overheard the conversation, and being a playful god, appeared before them. A challenge was struck between them. Dionysus enjoyed the girl so much, that he wanted always to have her by his side. No mortal before her could withstand the lull of wine so much as she. Dionysus bet that he could drink more than she before giving in to sleep. If she could drink more than him, she could go freely. If she should fail, Amethyst would be put into his service, joining his maenad, and pour his wine for eternity.

Dionysus gave the girl two weeks to prepare herself. In that time, Amethyst pleaded to the other gods for help. Hera, still scornful of the unfaithfulness of Zeus, gave to Amethyst a poison that could affect even a god. When drunk, the elixir would put Dionysus into a sleep from which he could never wake. Hera warned her, not to let the god smell his drink, or he would detect the poison. Amethyst swore to do so, and awaited the day when their challenge would commence.

When the day arrived, Amethyst poured wine for the two of them, slipping Hera’s poison in. She handed the goblet over. Taking it in his hand Dionysus asked where she acquired the brew. It was of her own making, the grapes taken from her father’s vineyard and fermented in the garden. Dionysus swished the drink around, admiring the deep redness. Amethyst feared he would smell it next, but the god did not. Instead he opened his mouth to speak. “You drink from my cup. I will drink from yours. As a demonstration of good will for one another.” Amethyst could not refuse a god.

She took up the cup in her hands, plugged her nose with her fingers, and drank the wine down. In a moment her eyelids began to flutter. Her chin grew slack. Dionysus wept, for he had not known what he was doing. Amethyst fell into a slump on the table. The mournful god took her sleeping body to the gardens of Olympus and lay her among the grapes. There she would rest until the fall of the world.