Hebe and Her Fire

 

Elizabeth (Warren), Viscountess Bulkeley (1757-1826) as Hebe

ROMNEY, George (1734 - 1802)

National Museum Wales, Cardiff 

Her eyes looked upwards in a vacant stare, pools of sadness, pressure, and longing lapped at their edges. Hand on her heart, placed delicately across her left breast, lust expanded through her abdomen, and love swirled in her chest. The fabric of her dress gathered neatly between her legs, where hunger simmered away.

Towering over her, her father stood, domesticating this wild, rampant woman. She had bloomed, not delicate, not dainty, not just beautiful. Exquisite. Powerful. Brave. Strong. Cunning. She was a work of art, a force to be reckoned, a thunder storm from which there was no shelter. He tore from her all the freedom and decadence he allowed himself; the raging hypocrite. Shrouded in gowns and shawls, bound in tight shows, he made it harder for her to run. The weight of him bore down on her, squeezing the light that glowed from her chest.

But, she could not be dimmed.

Bursting out of her like the eagle of Zeus to take flight, her power rose and leapt forward. She surged in all her glory. She was woman. She wrenched at the cords that bound her, hacking at his limbs she escaped his forceful grasp, and out of the ground she rose fit as fury, long limbed and armed with her own soul. She left destruction wherever she went, leaving behind her scolded footprints, the remnants of her blazing fire.