Carmen Boullosa - Cleopatra Dismounts

“Once I had flaxen curls, though born a Roman maid. .” began Melanippe.

Our men had slaughtered German soldiers in a raid.

They sacked the city, robbed the granaries of wheat,

And with a blaze that brought an early dawn

Burnt to gray ashes houses built of wood,

Poisoned the wells, and spattered earth with children’s blood.

They raped the women. .

Unsatisfied and drunk, at break of day,

They raped the sour-willed serving girl, so oft

Raped by her master, then two little girls,

While women screamed, and next a pretty widow

Digging her husband’s grave. A dozen men

Forced her body, and left her bleeding there,

Ripping away her clitoris, thrusting wide

Her blood-stained thighs. She tried to creep away,

Crippled by painful loins, but down she dropped

In vineyards trampled underfoot, and mute

She lay until a midwife came with sacred shears,

Used to cut the newborn’s cord, to clip away

Her final glory, long and flaxen locks. .

While soldiers burned the ripening crops

And stacked up treasure in their carts,

The ravished widow checked her tears

And to the midwife said, “My hair

Is of no count. You must preserve my tongue

To speak against the cruelty of Rome

To ages yet to come.”

The hair was bound in sacred cords

And carted off to conquering Rome.

But in the hands of Romans weaving it

The sacred cords to serpents turned,

Biting the victors with the conquered’s spleen

And bringing Death where Beauty should be seen

The dying widow lay there, torn and bruised,

A pool of blood between her ravished thighs,

Heart broken, like a creature sacrificed,

Barely alive and shorn of flaxen hair.

Again she said, “Preserve my tongue to speak

Of how the Roman penis makes a sword

That maims and kills . .”

The midwife was a witch and with her shears

Cut off the widow’s tongue and washed it clean

And placed it in a cart that went to Rome .

My hair was flaxen, though I came from Rome .

I wore a wig of German captives’ hair

And lived a life of thoughtless vanity ,

Until I heard that tongue. It spoke to me

Of Romans using women with contempt ,

Defenseless women, treated worse than beasts ,

Without an axe or spear to fend off foes .

I saw the rape of women, old and young ,

I smelled the smoke of noble houses burned

And knew the harshness of a winter’s night

Without an axe to chop the wood, a fire

To cook the food, a knife to cut the meat ,

For all had been transported back to Rome .

I saw the milkless breasts of German wives

And in my heart I breathed the ash-filled air ,

I smelled spilled German blood and Roman piss .

I fled with twenty horses and my gold

Toward the south . .

Toward the south

Where sunlight would reduce my hate, and joy

My soul with love for Aphrodite ,

Isis, Demeter, goddesses who bring

To Amazons the best of earthly things.”

Here Melanippe said to me, “Cleopatra, I must tell you what all the rest know. That I’m the only one of the Amazons who doesn’t enjoy warfare. I don’t take part in combat, but I do hunt by night and I spread my nets. .”

She sat down and behind me somebody was singing in a sweet voice: “The story of Camilla dresses the Amazon as an arrow.” The enigmatic words were repeated several times but their meaning became no clearer. The song was so beautiful in itself that I did not fret about understanding the significance of its lyrics.

Another Amazon who did not mention her name interrupted the song. She rose to her feet, saying in a musical voice, “Cleopatra, hail! Queen of queens and of kings! I’ve always refused to handle coins. The only ones I accept are those with your face stamped on them, for I admire you. Now listen to my reason for joining the Amazons.”

She began:

I am not here because I hate all men

Or fear the thoughtless violence of their ways .

I detest the spinning wheel and carded wool .

To be a wife appalls my sense of pride

As much as giving pleasures paid by coin .

I hate the housebound life as I hate jails ,

The chatter with the servants, and the waste

Of time in smearing oils and creams

And listening to the babble of small babes .

I love my carnal pleasures with a man

But have no wish to guard his worldly goods ,

Clashing with slaves and bankers all the day .

The pathlesss sky delights me, and the earth

Where manmade roads have never dared to go .

I map the source of rivers still unnamed

And give them mine. I ride a camel’s back

And train a cheetah for the hunt, and stay

Awake all night or sleep until I choose

To wake. I love this sweet disorder best .

With stars above I joy in love’s delights .

I squander gold and melt my trinkets down

To fashion arms. I dance unclothed. I choose

The man I most desire; and when he comes ,

We laugh away our lusty nights of love .

I speak with gods and goddesses as friends

And never once renounce my woman’s soul .

“She’s not speaking personally, Cleopatra,” someone said from the dark. “That’s our hymn.”

“It may well be the hymn of the Amazons. But it’s mine as well. That’s why I’m here. I agree with its outlook completely.”

The woman clapped her hands and flames flashed between them. She warbled out an eery song and danced. How beautiful she was! How extraordinarily beautiful, twirling her body in a way I’d never seen, like a wave of the sea, an unhoped-for joy. Then several got up to dance together, all graceful, while others sang, adapting to music the poem I had just heard recited:

I speak with gods and goddesses as friends

And never once renounce my woman’s soul .

A red-haired Amazon placed her hand on the reciter’s shoulder and said, “That hymn belongs to all of us. You can’t claim it as your own.”

“Of course I can. And so can you. And so you ought to do. So everybody ought to do. That’s why its ours.”

“I mean it. I’m not playing the game of’It isn’t true.’”

“It isn’t true!” sang out a handsome voice behind me.

“It isn’t true!” chorused the Amazons.

They began to play their game. They sang the phrase “It isn’t true,” and one of them would reply by trotting out some traditional wisdom, so that they could all chorus again, “It isn’t true!” At other times, they would chant, “But, this is true.” Then a voice had to make a comment they all considered true and they would round it off by chorusing again “Yes, that is true!” The whole procedure was accompanied by dances and bizarre melodies, charming but outlandish. Dogs barked, disturbed by the clapping, and jumped up panting against the dancers.

“It isn’t true.”