ella bo bella

Jenny Beavan possibly designed this russet-colored gown for Anjelica Huston to wear as Rodmilla de Ghent in the 1998 film Ever After. However, because some of Huston’s costumes were worn in previous productions, such as her headdress, it’s possible that this gown dates to an earlier film.

The costume was seen later in 2002, worn by Jennifer Ehle as Christabel LaMotte in the adaptation of the A. S. Byatt novel Possession. Ehle is no stranger to recycled costumes, having appeared in them many times. 

Finally, the gown was seen on an extra as a courtier in the short-lived musical television show Galavant, where it appeared in the 2015 pilot episode.

"I kneel before you, not as a prince, but as a man in love. But I would feel like a king if you, Danielle de Barbarac, would be my wife."

that tragedy hangs over the entirety of the iliad to me. it's exemplified in how, when achilles is going mad with grief over patroclus, zeus empathizes with and wants to comfort achilles' immortal horses instead. countless human lives have been and will be lost or ruined from this god-driven war, but the perspective zeus understands and feels an emotional connection to is that of animals that can't die. sure the gods mourn their mortal offspring (like sarpedon) when they fall, but the grief comes across as very brief and possessive, like the loss of a favourite doll. (of course, they can just make more demigods later. they have all the time in the world after all)

(thetis is obviously the big outlier here, which might be part of why i've always been obsessed with her. i'd say thetis' preoccupation with her son's finite lifespan is downright extreme among the gods. there are other immortals who can sympathize with her grief, like hephaestus, but not empathize. she is an oddity among them.)

to me it's central to the odyssey too. especially, as elizabeth vandiver points out (as i carefully set my "days since fawning over vandiver" counter to zero) in book 13. odysseus, as gently as he can, tells athena that there were years of his long journey he felt completely abandoned by her and he was weighed down by doubts if he'd ever see his home again, and she pretty much brushes him aside letting him know she never worried because she knew he'd get home eventually. eventually. vandiver makes a point here that 10 extra years to athena can't possibly mean what 10 extra years mean to odysseus. he has missed out on seeing his son growing up, he's longed for his wife and parents and home for a significant chunk of his life. it's a very brief exchange but a tragic moment to me. he tries to explain and she's simply unable to understand the weight of it, and dismisses it with a single line.