Un paraíso de escombros

What is it about classical myths that makes names like Pasiphaë, Eurydice, Atalanta, and Helen still come to our lips when we feel the tremor of some truth? The author of this book, in telling us these stories, doesn't want to offer us a mirror in which to see ourselves, but rather a source that leads us to the inexhaustible world of the Other, a source from which trees and dawns, moons and beautiful bodies flow. It is the world of the sacred, a world where everything is possible, where a young woman is raised by a bear, sirens shipwreck vessels with their song, and a child is born with the head of a calf. A world where the most famous of warriors, in the lulls of war, dreams of dressing as a woman again, a sorceress betrays her people to give a foreigner the skin of a golden ram, and a singer descends into the realm of the dead to rescue the young woman he loves. The reader will not find in these stories the epic of warriors, but rather that of lovers. But what kind of epic is that if lovers, unlike warriors and rogues, have no feats of their own? They inhabit a world where there is no insignificance, where everything has meaning, leads to ends that are not utilitarian, everything deviates from utility, leads to wonder, and where bodies fall in love without the consent of their owners, giving rise to the greatest disasters and the greatest marvels. It is of that sacred part that still remains within us, and which only love can reveal, that these stories wish to speak. Now, be silent and come. You are entering the world of metamorphoses and enchantments. The only goal is love: the unfinished man and woman.