Carmen Boullosa - Cleopatra Dismounts

“Philo told me,” she went on, “that Acusilaus had sealed his ears with wax the instant the Sirens began to sing. Once deaf, he retained enough self-control to get away safely. Once he had the Sirens in view, he unplugged his ears and handed himself over to them. Philo said he was obsessed by their song, and that he’d lie awake nights, unable to sleep, tormented by memories of it. He’d asked the musicians to compose something resembling it. They tried but never managed to produce anything with the same impact. Philo said he’d thought out this stratagem weeks ago, that he’d talked about it without going into details.” The Amazon’s eyes were wet with tears. “I saw him in the distance and chased after him, but before I could reach him, the Sirens had grabbed him. They were flapping their heavy wings and stomping around on their terrible feet. They held him fast. While some of them sang, others began to devour him, the hands he wrote with, the feet that had brought him to them, then his legs and arms. He was still alive. Insensible to pain because of the spell of their song, he was shouting, “Eat me! Devour me! My mouth, my lips, my tongue — take them!” The monsters ripped off his clothing. His chest was covered in blood from his torn-off arms and legs. But he had a fearsome erection. In one bite they ate his lips, with another his eyes. With another his tongue, with another his erect penis. Then they stopped singing so that, with his pleasure at an end, he would feel the full pain of his destruction. So that our poet would experience what it is to turn into rotting flesh under the hot sun! It would have been kinder to throw him to the dogs, to let them finish him off with their slavering jaws. I drew my bow and fired to put him out of his misery. My arrow hit his heart. I killed him to set him free. May the gods forgive me for killing a poet! Acusilaus was weeping, I know. With no eyes to weep, he was weeping in his heart. He was weeping the way I’m weeping now. .”

“And the Sirens? Did you wound any of them?” one of the men asked Melanippe, horrified by her terrible story.

“I emptied my quiver against them,” she replied furiously. “When they heard the sound of my arrows, they fluttered up toward them and with their wings turned them aside. Only one arrow got through. It landed in the eye of one Siren. But it was too late. Acusilaus was already in pieces. Tough as I am, it broke my heart to see it!”

I turned my eyes away, unable to bear her grief. The centaurs had retired into the caves in the cliff, annoyed at the good work of the shepherds and the tears of the Amazons. Following my glance, Hippolyta recited,

Nothing incites a centaur more to rage

Than signs of harmony well displayed

Like circles and hexameters, all things

Composed with care. Instead, they seek

Violence and fire. Laughter they hate and fear

As enemies to peace and human good —

The verses were interrupted by the arrival of a group of armed warriors. These were genuine soldiers, totally different from the vanquished males, both in their mounts and the manner of their dress. They were manly and handsome, with well-developed muscles, a crack squadron from a nearby village. When the Sirens began to sing, the gates of their barracks had been barred by prepubescent boys and the windows had been plugged with rocks and mud. They now came with the king’s herald, dressed in clothes of gold and vermilion.

“The voice of Carnedes,” he announced, “king of Cyrene, sends this message: ’Hail, you protectors of foolish men! I send you General Lucius Severus, to escort the queens, Cleopatra VII, daughter of Ptolomy Philopator, Queen of Egypt, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, to a banquet in celebration of their victory.’”

So they knew I was with the Amazons, but how? I was astonished at the speed with which the news had traveled.

A man’s voice spoke behind me. “These women always reject such invitations. But with Cleopatra present among us, who knows what they will do?”

The herald proceeded with his message, reciting a catalog of praise, clumsy and inappropriate, in honor of the Amazons.

“The doctors of Cyrene have a fine reputation,” answered Hippolyta. “If the king will receive our wounded along with ourselves, so that his surgeons may attend them. .”

“Agreed,” said the herald without hesitation. “Your request anticipated an offer I was about to make.”

They gave me a splendid horse and passed the standard to a safe place. We undertook the journey to the nearby city in almost complete silence, visibly fatigued. After traveling five stades, we were covered in white dust from the road. Our exhaustion was extreme by the time we caught sight of the city perched on two hilltops. Beautifully sculpted tombs were set on the walls. Hippolyta’s quiver gave a scraping sound as she pulled an arrow from it. She drew the bow so far back that its points touched. The arrow hissed through the air. It soared and came racing down between the two eyes of a deer that had been watching its hissing trajectory as keenly as we had. The knives of the Amazons that they had declined to use in the battle now flashed in the sun. Brandishing them, they raced toward the fallen animal. Their dogs remained quietly behind on the road for their owners had not given them orders to follow.

With a gesture of her head, Hippolyta told me to follow her. We did not wait for the other Amazons and we did not summon the dogs. The defeated men we had now left far behind. But at our heels followed the warriors of Cyrene, with the splendid weapons and embossed helmets, each one bearing a banner. The easternmost mount served as a citadel. There stood high walls and the white, imposing tower of the royal palace. We halted to offer prayers to the gods. By the city gate, a wellfed nomadic tribe got down from their camels and began to set up their tents, perhaps drawn from a distant land by the enchanting song of the Sirens.

Once the prayers were over, Hippolyta asked me to go into Cyrene and represent the Amazons. “We feel suffocated inside walls and ceilings. You go in and give the king our good wishes. We will camp besides the nomads, here, at the foot of the walls.”

I wanted to protest, in light of my less than royal attire, but she went on. “Your dignity, Cleopatra, is all the dressing you need. Once inside the city you will reassume your courtly airs. They are bound to see you that way, coming from the ranks of the Amazons.”

She hugged me fondly and kissed my cheek. After she had fixed my curl of Aphrodite, she bade me goodbye. “Cleopatra, don’t forget our alliance. We will join your army, come what may. Your other allies will sneer and tell you that using us is like using a shield of fruit to ward off steel. But fruits with their fine skins defend soft flesh from the fiercest of encounters better than do the swords of torpid men. Grapes defy howling winds with their skins. Figs hoard exquisite pulp inside their velvety robes and laugh at thunder and lightning. The slender skin of an apple is enough to ward off the mold in the air. The peel of an orange guards the juice better than a silver jug. And remember this: “Fear cold death less than a husband’s bed.” If you forget it, sooner than you imagine, he or you and he will pay a deadly price. .” There followed another hug. Then words whispered in my ear. “All the same, don’t despise the scepter of Venus.” I laughed heartily at this coy reference to the penis and answered quietly, “I won’t let go of the unfailing amulet of seduction, I assure you. But tell me, Hippolyta, if I attract a husband, how do I keep him at a distance?”

Hippolyta loosed her arms and said loudly, “Cleopatra, it has happened to you once. You lost your throne because of a husband. But that was the least of it. If you allow yourself to be carried away by the desire to be the complementary half of a man, he will die, murdered by his son. And if you try it one more time after that, then he, whoever he may be, will die at his own hand. Then they will kill your children. They will make themselves masters of the people of Alexandria, of Thebes, of the two Memphises, and of the borders of the Nile. Egypt will be lost. Whatever happens, we shall remain faithful to you. When your children perish, victims of the anger of the gods for your not having fled a husband’s bed, here on my naked breasts these nipples will redden as a sign of grief, as if they themselves had fed your children.”