O handsome god, whose breath is cold as frost,
Your skin burns up my touch, and I am lost.
To you as god I offer sweet adorings,
But as a man I bring you fierce implorings.
Return, my god, up from the watery deep
And in your arms my quivering body keep,
Till love returned for love transforms me twice,
To freezing vapor and to scalding ice!
Could this Amazon be in love with the god? How ridiculous! His skin was fire and his breath freezing snow. How could he satisfy a woman, constituted so?
The scene was grotesque. It made me sullenly angry.
“Why the hell are all the gods giants?” I mused.
“All of them?” asked Hippolyta.
“Why does it have to be that; way?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hippolyta, in the sea Neptune presented himself to me. He was enormous. A giant. Now this Egyptian deity. .”
“Nonsense! It isn’t always so. They’re not always giants, Cleopatra. Today this god — the one Orthea loves — appeared this way because he wanted to destroy our cave. Sometimes he shows up the size of a hare. Orthea crouches down and sings to him in a very soft voice and chats to him.”
“That’s grotesque!”
“What’s grotesque about it? You must be over-tired! It’s not at all grotesque. Yes, he’s a god, and yes, his breath is ice, and yes, he can steal Vulcan’s fire when he wants to, but so what? What is really grotesque is men’s idea that you can make one being out of two bodies. Love, Cleopatra, is the consciousness of the exciting differences between two people. Or do you think that love is the union of two souls, a melding of two into one, the unity that obliterates the pain of being alive? Or worse — do you think the institution of marriage consolidates the dream of love?”
At that point, I wasn’t thinking at all. But her words calmed me. I was only aware of my exhaustion, if I may call it that. Hippolyta was quite right. I was worn out. I could hardly stand. I wanted to lie down and sleep.
“We’ll go to bed shortly,” said Hippolyta. “We’ll give you some wine to make sure you sleep well. But you’ll hear our stories first, so that your curiosity doesn’t wake you before sunrise.”
The Amazons had dispersed. I wondered if they had gone night-hunting, for I heard dogs barking. Just a small group remained huddled round a blazing fire. The queen signaled me to sit down. Not on a stately throne, but on the ground. I obeyed. But before my rear touched the ground, one of the Amazons slipped a comfy but firm cushion under me. Another did the same for Hippolyta.
Still, with total clarity, the song or lament of the lovesick Orthea could be heard. The blind musicians hadn’t come back with us. Doubtless, they would sleep with the poets.
The women gave me a flavorful wine to drink and spread in front of me an impressive array of desserts.
“I’m Melanippe,” said the Amazon to my left. She was white-skinned, as if the sun had never touched her. In her smooth movements was a gentleness that denied any acquaintance with galloping horses. She seemed created to snuggle down on soft cushions. Around her waist were three rolls of fat that gave a sort of kindly smile to her waist. She continued, “I’m not going to tell you the story about men declaring war on all the Amazons from Themiskira to Tripoli, from darkest Lybia to Thermidon, because they were convinced — probably by Athena — that if they made war on us, they would overcome the curse that afflicts the human race for its being born of women. None of that.”
Beside Melanippe, so gentle, soft and satiny, so domestic and bright, sat another Amazon, sun-burned, rough and muscular, as hard as a statue. She was munching noisily on fresh, green, fibrous peapods, extracting with her teeth some flavor or nourishment.
From the other side of the fire spoke another Amazon that I could not see clearly because of the brightness of the blaze. She was saying, “My name is Atalanta. I was born when my father sold in distant lands the cords my countrywomen produced, in exchange for jewels and coins that had no effigies stamped on them. My mother concealed my birth from him. Every time he asked for his son, she’d reply, ’You’ll see him when you get back. He’ll be here then. You’ll see your boy with your own eyes when you return.’ Throughout his long trip he would fondle the idea of his baby boy, probably sick of the numerous women in his town, without stopping to think that it was the work of the women on those cords that was making him a rich man. By the time he returned I was two years old. He came home with a sumptuous retinue of elephants, a load of gold, and dozens of new slaves. He exploded with rage when he saw I was female. Without recovering from his long trip, without changing his soiled clothes, he just grabbed another horse, picked me up, and took me into the dark forest, where he dropped me among brambles and said, ’I never saw you. I never saw you and I never knew your mother had you. I want a son, a boy.’ And there he left blonde little Atalanta, and her only companions were fear, hunger, and cold. A wild boar looked after me, the biggest one in the vicinity. One afternoon a cunning hunter tracked it right to its lair. The boar bellowed at seeing itself in a death trap, not concerned about its life — for animals have no fear of death — but grieved at the idea of leaving me, its child, to grow up alone.
“The hunter noticed me, understood what had happened and said to the boar: ‘I won’t kill you, boar, for you have protected this orphan child. But now I will rear her and I will come hunting you every afternoon.’
“And that’s the way it was, exactly as he said.
“As I grew up, I retained my virginity, being constantly armed to ward off men. Two centaurs once tried to rape me, but I killed them both. My appetite was stimulated by the taste for flesh. So I took part in all sorts of battles, and once I beat Peleus, the father of Achilles, in a fight.”
Next to the fire, I was sipping wine, eating candies, and feeling drowsy, when two handsome dogs appeared among us. A strange sensation of peace came over me. The other Amazons had now returned. We went on chatting in small groups, but we all paid attention when one Amazon raised her voice and launched into her story, sprinkling it with brief commentaries that I won’t bother you with here.
Sitting in front of the blazing fire which had never been used to roast meat or cook fruit and vegetables, to prepare iron for the forge, to harden clay into pots or tenderize hard grains into soft foods, the Amazons somehow read my thoughts. I was wondering how it was that so many different races could live together in a uniform style, in a harmonious community, without a trace of conflict. Some told their story in beautifully polished hexameters, which I could not memorize because of their length, while others made contributions in clumsier rhythms.
“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. .