Artemis

Sometimes "No" means No and not Maybe.

Artemis was adamant that She could never be seen by a man, even by male
worshippers. The penalty for glimpsing Her was death.

The hunter Actaeon discovered the Goddess bathing naked in a stream. Accounts
differ as to whether he meant to ogle Her or simply came upon Her by accident.

With a single word and gesture, the enraged Goddess turned him into a stag. His
own hounds tore him to pieces while She watched.

Artemis loved to kill the very forest animals She also protected; like many
another Goddess, She not only protected life but took it away. With Her nymphs
and hounds She hunted in the deepest wilderness, slaughtering stags and lions.

"The summits of the high mountains tremble, and the shady forest holds the
frightened cries of the beasts of the woods; the earth trembles, as well as the
seas, filled with fish. The goddess of the valiant heart springs forth on all
sides, and sows death among the race of wild animals."
-- "To Artemis (II)," The Homeric Hymns, translation by Apostolos N.
Athannassakis

She was even associated with human sacrifice. Euripides wrote two versions of
the sacrifice of the maiden Iphigenia, placing it in comfortably distant times.
In one version, Iphigenia went gladly to her death; in the other, she did not.
As the sacrificial knife plunged toward her, she vanished, and a mountain deer
appeared on the altar and was stabbed in her place. Then she was transported to
a mystic island of women, who sacrificed all men who came upon its shores, and
lived out her life there.

Women in labor might pray to Her for death, and She often answered such
prayers. The deaths of adolescent girls in childbirth were attributed to Her.

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