Despair

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  Joy can be known only through despair here. My father was by nature sensitive. He instinctively understood cloud language, the meanings of birds and their appearances, and water. What took precedence in his expression was his father’s violent hand. My father was sent from home at a young age to a military academy. He learned anger as a method to control sensitivity. When my father asked my mother to dance, she shyly but surely entered his arms. They had just met, yet it felt like they had known each other for as far as forever can reach. When my mother first saw this man who would be my father, she knew he was the one, despite his reputation for being a man who loved women. There were many women chasing after him, buying him drinks, pulling on him to dance. They wanted to touch him for his sensual good looks. I imagine that my mother struck a light inside the deepest room in his heart. His charisma was power that had come down from the ancestors. It is something given to us to use to assist others. I was close to my father through the end. He never spoke of my mother in a negative manner. My parents danced. What dancers they were, their feet jumping in swing, together in time. My mother-to-be was fire. Those of fire move about the earth with inspiration and purpose. They are creative, and can consume and be consumed by their desires. They are looking for purpose, a place in which to create. They can be so entranced with the excitement of creation that their dreams burn up, turn to ashes. My father-to-be was of the water, and could not find a hold on the banks of earthiness. Water people can easily get lost. And they may not comprehend that they are lost. They succumb easily to the spirits of alcohol and drugs. They will always search for a vision that cannot be found on earth. Their dance was an ancient dance, one that most of us who take on breath know. It is fate setting the story into place. Within the year, I was born to earth, of water and fire. Because I came through them in this life, I would be quick to despair, and understand how to enter and emerge from ancestor realms. I had no way to translate the journey and what I would find there until I found poetry. THIS IS MY HEART This is my heart. It is a good heart. Weaves a membrane of mist and fire. When we speak love in the flower world My heart is close enough to sing to you in a language too clumsy for human words. This is my head. It is a good head. Whirs inside with a swarm of worries. What is the source of this mystery? Why can’t I see it right here, right now, as real as these hands hammering the world together? This is my soul.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Rockets of pain, burning rockets of pain — their pain, her pain, all welded together into one great consuming agony. Rocket 506 THE WELL OF LONELINESS of pain that shot up and burst, dropping scorching tears of fire on the spirit — her pain, their pain . . . all the misery at Alec’s. And the press and the clamour of those countless others — they fought, they trampled, they were getting her under. In their mad- ness to become articulate through her, they were tearing her to pieces, getting her under. They were everywhere now, cutting off her retreat; neither bolts nor bars would avail to save her. The walls fell down and crumbled before them; at the cry of their suffering the walls fell and crumbled: ‘ We are coming, Stephen —we are still coming on, and our name is legion — you dare not disown us!’ She raised her arms, trying to ward them off, but they closed in and in: ‘ You dare not disown us! ? They possessed her. Her barren womb became fruitful — it ached with its fearful and sterile burden. It ached with the fierce yet helpless children who would clamour in vain for their right to salvation. They would turn first to God, and then to the world, and then to her. They would cry out accusing: ‘ We have asked for bread; will you give us a stone? Answer us: will you give us a stone? You, God, in Whom we, the outcast, believe; you, world, into which we are pitilessly born; you, Stephen, who have drained our cup to the dregs — we have asked for bread; will you give us a stone? ’ And now there was only one voice, one demand; her own voice into which those millions had entered. A voice like the aw- ful, deep rolling of thunder; a demand like the gathering together of great waters. A terrifying voice that made her ears throb, that made her brain throb, that shook her very entrails, until she must stagger and all but fall beneath this appalling burden of sound that strangled her in its will to be uttered. ‘ God,’ she gasped, ‘ we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Ac- knowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence! ’ THE END Ta a a Ee ARS See ee EY ed (OEE OL NOON ve ne ON Tits 7 He 7 H nt i ; Hat Hi 7 o if it he 7 ite Hf ey i i i ih i Fieber ilm pi aN iff iit i PH s) i arels eae PaS i i fel Fy ; HAANS Rhone be i +h j i $ i J ii if air iit Hi ae st ait Heit holy Tied (iret f jji fei H ast SE Satta SEHR HIFR SER see

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Get away with you!’ said Bruno. ‘How can that be, when I saw it there myself only yesterday? Are you trying to make me believe it’s flown away?’ ‘It’s gone, I tell you,’ said Calandrino. ‘Go on,’ said Bruno, ‘you’re joking.’ ‘I swear to you I’m telling the truth,’ said Calandrino. ‘What am I to do now? I can’t go back home without the pig. My wife will never believe me, but even if she does, she’ll make my life a misery for the next twelve months.’ ‘Upon my soul,’ said Bruno, ‘it’s a serious business, if you’re speaking the truth. But as you know, Calandrino, I was telling you only yesterday that you ought to say this. I wouldn’t like to think that you were fooling your wife and us too at the same time.’ Calandrino protested loudly, saying: ‘Ah! why are you so intent on driving me to despair and provoking me to curse God and all the Saints in Heaven? I tell you the pig was stolen from me during the night.’ ‘If that’s the case,’ said Buffalmacco, ‘we’ll have to see if we can find some way of getting it back.’ ‘How are we to do that?’ asked Calandrino. So Buffalmacco said: ‘Whoever took your pig, we can be quite sure that he didn’t come all the way from India to do it. It must have been one of your neighbours. So all you have to do is to bring them all together so that I can give them the bread and cheese test,1 and we’ll soon see who’s got it.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said Bruno, ‘your bread and cheese will work miracles, I’m sure, on some of the fine folk who live around here. It’s quite obvious that one of them has the pig. They’d guess what we were up to, and stay away.’ ‘What’s to be done, then?’ asked Buffalmacco. ‘What we ought to do,’ Bruno replied, ‘is to use the best ginger sweets we can get hold of, along with some fine Vernaccia wine, and invite them round for a drink. They wouldn’t suspect anything, and they’d all turn up. And it’s just as easy to bless ginger sweets as it is to bless bread and cheese.’ ‘You certainly have a point there,’ said Buffalmacco. ‘What do you say, Calandrino? Shall we give it a try?’ ‘Of course,’ said Calandrino. ‘Let’s do that, for the love of God. If only I could find out who took it, I shouldn’t feel half so miserable about it!’ ‘That’s settled then,’ said Bruno. ‘Now I’d be quite willing to go to Florence and get these things for you, if you’ll give me the money.’

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  Rabbit realized he’d made a clay man with no ears. I was not brave. I was pulled from my mother, whom I almost killed with the struggle. I was hooked up to a ventilator. I was dying even as I was being born. This continues to be a theme in my life, this struggle with transitions: between night and day, here and there, desert and water, earth and sky, and beginnings and endings. As I was being born, I had the same dying, gulping breaths as my father’s last breaths when he died several years later, in a small Texas town near the water. We are linked by water and fire. My father and I surfaced in an ancient memory once when I was in my thirties. We lived by the water near a volcano. We who lived there had a long relationship with the spirit of the volcano. Our behavior broke the trust. We littered the land with trash and discord. We forgot to acknowledge the gifts. The volcano mountain blew with a terrible pressure. The earth rocked and fell open. Lava the color of fiery blood streamed toward us. Fire and ash rained down. We panicked for air. The man who was now my father and I stumbled to the sea with our lungs on fire. I was his companion, friend, not the daughter I was to be in this life, this story. Many others rushed toward the sea to get away from the raining fire. We fell into a boat docked near shore, as did many others, more than the boat could carry. We attempted to move away from the falling ash, into the ocean, which was moving oddly in the disturbance. Hundreds were jumping into the water, clinging to the boat. I lost earth consciousness. One version of the Mvskoke creation story begins with a volcano. It marked our journey from a place in the west. Sam Proctor, the helis heya or medicine maker of my tribal town, told me that in that time seven Hawaiian canoes came to shore. Those people became part of us. We walked east to more stable lands. A compassionate fire appeared before us to guide us. We made it to what is now known as the southeastern part of the United States. Someone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts. My guardian remains, and reminds me of those older generations of Creek people who stayed close to the teachings, like my cousin John Jacobs of

• From Carmina (-50)

  Siqua recordanti benefacta priora uoluptas est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium, nec sanctam uiolasse fidem, nec foedere in ullo diuum ad fallendos numine abusum homines, multa parata manent in longa aetate, Catulle, 5 ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore tibi. nam quaecumque homines bene cuiquam aut dicere possunt aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt. omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti. quare iam te cur amplius excrucies? 10 quin tu animo offirmas atque istinc te ipse reducis, et dis inuitis desinis esse miser? difficile est longum subito deponere amorem. difficile est, uerum hoc qua lubet efficias: una salus haec est, hoc est tibi peruincendum, 15 hoc facias, siue id non pote siue pote. o di, si uestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquam extremam iam ipsa in morte tulistis opem, me miserum aspicite et, si uitam puriter egi, eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi, 20 sei mihi surrepens imos ut torpor in artus expulit ex omni pectore laetitias. non iam illud quaero, contra ut me diligat illa, aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica uelit: ipse ualere opto et taetram hunc deponere morbum. 25 o di, reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea. LXXVII Rufe mihi frustra ac nequiquam credite amice (frustra? immo magno cum pretio atque malo), sicine subrepsti mei, atque intestina perurens ei misero eripuisti omnia nostra bona? eripuisti, heu heu nostrae crudele uenenum 5 uitae, heu heu nostrae pestis amicitiae. sed nunc id doleo, quod purae pura puellae suauia comminxit spurca saliua tua. uerum id non impune feres: nam te omnia saecla noscent, et qui sis fama loquetur anus. 10 LXXVIII Gallus habet fratres, quorum est lepidissima coniunx alterius, lepidus filius alterius. Gallus homo est bellus: nam dulces iungit amores, cum puero ut bello bella puella cubet. Gallus homo est stultus, nec se uidet esse maritum, 5 qui patruus patrui monstret adulterium. LXXIX Lesbius est pulcer. quid ni? quem Lesbia malit quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua. sed tamen hic pulcer uendat cum gente Catullum, si tria natorum suauia reppererit. LXXX Quid dicam, Gelli, quare rosea ista labella hiberna fiant candidiora niue, mane domo cum exis et cum te octaua quiete e molli longo suscitat hora die? nescio quid certe est: an uere fama susurrat 5 grandia te medii tenta uorare uiri? sic certe est: clamant Victoris rupta miselli ilia, et emulso labra notata sero. LXXXI Nemone in tanto potuit populo esse, Iuuenti, bellus homo, quem tu diligere inciperes, praeterquam iste tuus moribunda ab sede Pisauri hospes inaurata pallidior statua, qui tibi nunc cordi est, quem tu praeponere nobis 5 audes, et nescis quod facinus facias? LXXXII Quinti, si tibi uis oculos debere Catullum aut aliud si quid carius est oculis, eripere ei noli, multo quod carius illi est oculis seu quid carius est oculis. LXXXIII

• From Carmina (-50)

  quis angusta malis cum moenia uexarentur, 80 ipse suum Theseus pro caris corpus Athenis proicere optauit potius quam talia Cretam funera Cecropiae nec funera portarentur. atque ita naue leui nitens ac lenibus auris magnanimum ad Minoa uenit sedesque superbas. 85 hunc simul ac cupido conspexit lumine uirgo regia, quam suauis exspirans castus odores lectulus in molli complexu matris alebat, quales Eurotae progignunt flumina myrtus, auraue distinctos educit uerna colores, 90 non prius ex illo flagrantia declinauit lumina, quam cuncto concepit corpore flammam funditus atque imis exarsit tota medullis. heu misere exagitans immiti corde furores sancte puer, curis hominum qui gaudia misces, 95 quaeque regis Golgos quaeque Idalium frondosum, qualibus incensam iactastis mente puellam fluctibus, in flauo saepe hospite suspirantem! quantos illa tulit languenti corde timores! quanto saepe magis fulgore expalluit auri! 100 cum saeuum cupiens contra contendere monstrum aut mortem appeteret Theseus aut praemia laudis. non ingrata tamen frustra munuscula diuis promittens tacito succendit uota labello. nam uelut in summo quatientem brachia Tauro 105 quercum, aut conigeram sudanti cortice pinum, indomitus turbo contorquens flamine robur, eruit (illa procul radicitus exturbata prona cadit, late quaeuiscumque obuia frangens), sic domito saeuum prostrauit corpore Theseus 110 nequiquam uanis iactantem cornua uentis. inde pedem sospes multa cum laude reflexit errabunda regens tenui uestigia filo, ne labyrintheis e flexibus egredientem tecti frustraretur inobseruabilis error. 115 sed quid ego a primo digressus carmine plura commemorem, ut linquens genitoris filia uultum, ut consanguineae complexum, ut denique matris, quae misera in nata deperdita lamentata est, omnibus his Thesei dulcem praeoptarit amorem: 120 aut ut uecta ratis spumosa ad litora Diae, aut ut eam deuincta .... lumina somno liquerit immemori discedens pectore coniunx? saepe illam perhibent ardenti corde furentem clarisonas imo fudisse e pectore uoces, 125 ac tum praeruptos tristem conscendere montes, unde aciem in pelagi uastos protenderet aestus, tum tremuli salis aduersas procurrere in undas mollia nudatae tollentem tegmina surae, atque haec extremis maestam dixisse querellis, 130 frigidulos udo singultus ore cientem. 'sicine me patriis auectam, perfide, ab aris, perfide, deserto liquisti in litore, Theseu? sicine discedens neglecto numine diuum, immemor a deuota domum periuria portas? 135 nullane res potuit crudelis flectere mentis consilium? tibi nulla fuit clementia praesto, immite ut nostri uellet miserescere pectus? at non haec quondam nobis promissa dedisti uoce: mihi non haec miserae sperare iubebas, 140 sed conubia laeta, sed optatos hymenaeos, quae cuncta aerei discerpunt irrita uenti. tum iam nulla uiro iuranti femina credat, nulla uiri speret sermones esse fideles; quis dum aliquid cupiens animus praegestit apisci, 145 nil metuunt iurare, nihil promittere parcunt: sed simul ac cupidae mentis satiata libido est, dicta nihil metuere, nihil periuria curant. certe ego te in medio uersantem turbine leti eripui, et potius germanum amittere creui, 150 quam tibi fallaci supremo in tempore dessem. pro quo dilaceranda feris dabor alitibusque praeda, neque iniacta tumulabor mortua terra. quaenam te genuit sola sub rupe leaena, quod mare conceptum spumantibus exspuit undis, 155 quae Syrtis, quae Scylla rapax, quae uasta Carybdis, talia qui reddis pro dulci praemia uita?

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Mary wept and cried out against her: ‘I won’t let you go—I won’t let you, I tell you! It’s your fault if I love you the way I do. I can’t do without you, you’ve taught me to need you, and now .. .’ In half-shamed, half-defiant words she must stand there and plead for what Stephen withheld, and Stephen must listen to such pleading from Mary. Then before the girl realized it she had said: ‘ But for you, I could have loved Martin Hallam! ’ Stephen heard her own voice a long way away: ‘ But for me, you could have loved Martin Hallam.’ Mary flung despairing arms round her neck: ‘ No, no! Not that, I don’t know what I’m saying.’ 3 Tue First faint breath of spring was in the air, bringing daffodils to the flower-stalls of Paris. Once again Mary’s young cherry tree in the garden was pushing out leaves and tiny pink buds along the whole length of its childish branches. Then Martin wrote: ‘ Stephen, where can I see you? It must be alone. Better not at your house, I think, if you don’t mind, because of Mary.’ She appointed the place, They would meet at the Auberge du Vieux Logis in the Rue Lepic. They two would meet there on the following evening. When she left the house without saying a word, Mary thought she was going to Valérie Seymour. Stephen sat down at a table in the corner to await Martin’s coming — she herself was early. The table was gay with a new check cloth-red and white. white and red, she counted the 500 THE WELL OF LONELINESS squares, tracing them carefully out with her finger. The woman behind the bar nudged her companion: ‘ En voila une originale — et quelle cicatrice, bon Dieu! ’ The scar across Stephen’s pale face stood out livid. Martin came and sat quietly down at her side, ordering some coffee for appearances’ sake. For appearances’ sake, until it was brought, they smiled at each other and made conversation. But when the waiter had turned away, Martin said: “It’s all over — you’ve beaten me, Stephen . . . The bond was too strong.’ Their unhappy eyes met as she answered: ‘I tried to strengthen that bond.’ He nodded: ‘I know « . « Well, my dear, you succeeded.’ Then he said: ‘ I’m leaving Paris next week; ’ and in spite of his effort to be calm his voice broke, “Stephen . . . do what you can to take care of Mary í She found that she was holding his hand. Or was it some one else who sat there beside him, who looked into his sensitive, troubled face, who spoke such queer words? “No, don’t go — not yet.’ ‘ButI don’t understand .. .’

• From Trash (1988)

  But a night finally came when I woke up sweaty and angry and afraid I’d never go back to sleep again. All those stories were rising up my throat. Voices were echoing in my neck, laughter behind my ears, and I was terribly terribly afraid that I was finally as crazy as my kind was supposed to be. But the desire to live was desperate in my belly, and the stories I had hidden all those years were the blood and bone of it. To get it down, to tell it again, to make something—by God just once—to be real in the world, without lies or evasions or sweet-talking nonsense. I got up and wrote a story all the way through. It was one of the stories from the yellow pages, one of the ones I had rewritten, but it was different again. It wasn’t truly me or my mama or my girlfriends, or really any of the people who’d been there, but it had the feel, the shit-kicking anger and grief of my life. It wasn’t that whiny voice, but it had the drawl, and it had, too, the joy and pride I sometimes felt in me and mine. It was not biography and yet not lies, and it resonated to the pulse of my sisters’ fear and my desperate shame, and it ended with all the questions and decisions still waiting—most of all the decision to live. It was a rough beginning—my own shout of life against death, of shape and substance against silence and confusion. It was most of all my deep abiding desire to live fleshed and strengthened on the page, a way to tell the truth as a kind of magic not cheapened or distorted by a need to please any damn body at all. Without it, I cannot imagine my own life. Without it, I have no way to know who I am. One time, twice, once in a while again, I get it right. Once in a while, I can make the world I know real on the page. I can make the women and men I love breathe out loud in an empty room, the dreams I dare not speak shape up in the smoky darkness of other people’s imaginations. Writing these stories is the only way I know to make sure of my ongoing decision to live, to set moment to moment a small piece of stubbornness against an ocean of ignorance and obliteration. I write stories. I write fiction. I put on the page a third look at what I’ve seen in life—the condensed and reinvented experience of a cross-eyed, working-class lesbian, addicted to violence, language, and hope, who has made the decision to live, is determined to live, on the page and on the street, for me and mine. River of Names

• From Trash (1988)

  Nobody really wanted answers. A full bottle of vodka will kill you when you’re nine and the bottle is a quart. It was a third cousin proved that. We learned what that and other things could do. Every year there was something new. You’re growing up. My big girl. There was codeine in the cabinet, paregoric for the baby’s teeth, whiskey, beer, and wine in the house. Jeanne brought home MDA, PCP, acid; Randall, grass, speed, and mescaline. It all worked to dull things down, to pass the time. Stealing was a way to pass the time. Things we needed, things we didn’t, for the nerve of it, the anger, the need. You’re growing up, we told each other. But sooner or later, we all got caught. Then it was When Are You Going to Learn? Caught, nightmares happened. “Razorback desperate” was the conclusion of the man down at the county farm where Mark and Luke were sent at fifteen. They both got their heads shaved, their earlobes sliced. What’s the matter, kid? Can’t you take it? Caught at sixteen, June was sent to Jessup County Girls’ Home, where the baby was adopted out and she slashed her wrists on the bedsprings. Lou got caught at seventeen and held in the station downtown, raped on the floor of the holding tank. Are you a boy or are you a girl? On your knees, kid, can you take it? Caught at eighteen and sent to prison, Jack came back seven years later blank-faced, understanding nothing. He married a quiet girl from out of town, had three babies in four years. Then Jack came home one night from the textile mill, carrying one of those big handles off the high-speed spindle machine. He used it to beat them all to death and went back to work in the morning. Cousin Melvina married at fourteen, had three kids in two and a half years, and welfare took them all away. She ran off with a carnival mechanic, had three more babies before he left her for a motorcycle acrobat. Welfare took those, too. But the next baby was hydrocephalic, a little waterhead they left with her, and the three that followed, even the one she used to hate so—the one she had after she fell off the porch and couldn’t remember whose child it was. “How many children do you have?” I asked her. “You mean the ones I have, or the ones I had? Four,” she told me, “or eleven.” My aunt, the one I was named for, tried to take off for Oklahoma. That was after she’d lost the youngest girl and they told her Bo would never be “right.” She packed up biscuits, cold chicken, and Coca-Cola; a lot of loose clothes; Cora and her new baby, Cy; and the four youngest girls.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Martuccio, indignant at seeing himself rejected on the grounds of his poverty, commissioned a small sailing-ship with certain friends and relatives of his, and vowed never to return to Lipari until he was a rich man. Having put to sea, he began to play the pirate along the Barbary coast, plundering every vessel that was weaker than his own. He had all the luck that was going for as long as he kept his ambition within reasonable bounds. But it was not enough that Martuccio and his companions should have quickly amassed a small fortune for themselves; their appetite for riches was enormous, and in trying to assuage it they encountered a flotilla of Saracen ships, by which, after lengthy resistance, they were captured and plundered. Most of Martuccio’s men were dumped into the sea, and their ship was sunk, but Martuccio himself was hauled off to Tunis, where he was left to languish in a prison-cell. Word was meanwhile brought to Lipari, not merely by one or two but by several different people, that Martuccio and all the men aboard his ship had drowned. When she heard that Martuccio and his companions were dead, the girl, who had been distressed beyond measure by his departure, wept incessantly and resolved to put an end to her life. Lacking the courage to do herself violently to death, she hit upon a novel but no less certain way of killing herself; and one night, she secretly left her father’s house and made her way to the harbour, where she chanced upon a tiny fishing-boat, lying some distance away from the other vessels. Its owners having gone ashore just a little while earlier, the boat was still equipped with its mast, its sail, and its oars. And since, like most of the women on the island, she had learnt the rudiments of seamanship, she stepped promptly aboard, rowed a little way out to sea, and hoisted the sail, after which she threw the oars and rudder overboard and placed herself entirely at the mercy of the wind. She calculated that one of two things would inevitably happen: either the boat, being without ballast or rudder, would capsize in the wind, or it would be driven aground somewhere and smashed to pieces. In either case she was certain to drown, for she would be unable to save herself even if she wanted to. So having wrapped a cloak round her head, she lay down, weeping, on the floor of the boat. But her calculations proved quite wrong, for the wind blew so gently from the north that the sea was barely disturbed, the boat maintained an even keel, and towards evening on the following day she drifted ashore near a town called Susa,2 a hundred miles or so beyond Tunis.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As she abode on this wise, without aught of hope or counsel,[392] expecting death more than otherwhat, it being now past half none, the scholar, arising from sleep and remembering him of his mistress, returned to the tower, to see what was come of her, and sent his servant, who was yet fasting, to eat. The lady, hearing him, came, all weak and anguishful as she was for the grievous annoy she had suffered, overagainst the trap-door and seating herself there, began, weeping, to say, 'Indeed, Rinieri, thou hast beyond measure avenged thyself, for, if I made thee freeze in my courtyard by night, thou hast made me roast, nay burn, on this tower by day and die of hunger and thirst to boot; wherefore I pray thee by the One only God that thou come up hither and since my heart suffereth me not give myself death with mine own hands, give it me thou, for that I desire it more than aught else, such and so great are the torments I endure. Or, an thou wilt not do me that favour, let bring me, at the least, a cup of water, so I may wet my mouth, whereunto my tears suffice not; so sore is the drouth and the burning that I have therein.' [Footnote 392: _i.e._ resource (_consiglio_). See ante, passim.]

• From Carmina (-50)

  Super alta uectus Attis celeri rate maria, Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit, adiitque opaca siluis redimita loca deae, stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, uagus animis, deuoluit ile acuto sibi pondere silicis. 5 itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine uiro, etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans, niueis citata cepit manibus leue typanum, typanum, tubam Cybelles, tua, mater, initia, quatiensque terga taurei teneris caua digitis, 10 canere haec suis adorta est tremebunda comitibus. agite ite ad alta, Gallae, Cybeles nemora simul, simul ite, Dindimenae dominae uaga pecora, aliena quae petentes uelut exules loca, sectam meam exsecutae duce me mihi comites, 15 rapidum salum tulistis truculentaque pelagi, et corpus euirastis Veneris nimio odio; hilarate aere citatis erroribus animum. mora tarda mente cedat: simul ite, sequimini Phrygiam ad domum Cybelles, Phrygia ad nemora deae, 20 ubi cymbalum sonat uox, ubi tympana reboant, tibicen ubi canit Phryx curuo graue calamo, ubi capita Maenades ui iaciunt hederigerae, ubi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant, ubi sueuit illa diuae uolitare uaga cohors, 25 quo nos decet citatis celerare tripudiis. simul haec comitibus Attis cecinit notha mulier, thiasus repente linguis trepidantibus ululat, leue tympanum remugit, caua cymbala recrepant, uiridem citus adit Idam properante pede chorus. 30 furibunda simul anhelans uaga uadit animam agens comitata tympano Attis per opaca nemora dux, ueluti iuuenca uitans onus indomita iugi: rapidae ducem secuntur Gallae properipedem. itaque, ut domum Cybelles tetigere lassulae, 35 nimio e labore somnum capiunt sine Cerere. piger his labante languore oculos sopor operit: abit in quiete molli rabidus furor animi. sed ubi oris aurei Sol radiantibus oculis lustrauit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum, 40 pepulitque noctis umbras uegetis sonipedibus, ibi Somnus excitum Attin fugiens citus abiit: trepidante eum recepit dea Pasithea sinu. ita de quiete molli rapida sine rabie simul ipse pectore Attis sua facta recoluit, 45 liquidaque mente uidit sine queis ubique foret, animo aestuante rusum reditum ad uada tetulit. ibi maria uasta uisens lacrimantibus oculis, patriam allocuta maestast ita uoce miseriter. 'patria o mei creatrix, patria o mea genetrix, 50 ego quam miser relinquens, dominos ut herifugae famuli solent, ad Idae tetuli nemora pedem, ut aput niuem et ferarum gelida stabula forem, et earum omnia adirem furibunda latibula, ubinam aut quibus locis te positam, patria, reor? 55 cupit ipsa pupula ad te sibi dirigere aciem, rabie fera carens dum breue tempus animus est. egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo? patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero? abero foro, palaestra, stadio et gymnasiis? 60 miser a miser, querendum est etiam atque etiam, anime. quod enim genus figuraest, ego non quod obierim? ego mulier, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer, ego gymnasei fui flos, ego eram decus olei: mihi ianuae frequentes, mihi limina tepida, 65 mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat, linquendum ubi esset orto mihi Sole cubiculum. ego nunc deum ministra et Cybeles famula ferar? ego Maenas, ego mei pars, ego uir sterilis ero? ego uiridis algida Idae niue amicta loca colam? 70 ego uitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus, ubi cerua siluicultrix, ubi aper nemoriuagus? iam iam dolet quod egi, iam iamque paenitet.' roseis ut huic labellis sonitus citus abiit, geminas deorum ad auris noua nuntia referens, 75 ibi iuncta iuga resoluens Cybele leonibus laeuumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur. 'agedum' inquit 'age ferox i, face ut hunc furor agitet, face uti furoris ictu reditum in nemora ferat, mea libere nimis qui fugere imperia cupit. 80 age caede terga cauda, tua uerbera patere, face cuncta mugienti fremitu loca retonent, rutilam ferox torosa ceruice quate iubam.' ait haec minax Cybelle religatque iuga manu. ferus ipse sese adhortans rapidum incitat animo, 85 uadit, fremit, refringit uirgulta pede uago. at ubi umida albicantis loca litoris adiit, tenerumque uidit Attin prope marmora pelagei, facit impetum: ille demens fugit in nemora fera: ibi semper omne uitae spatium famula fuit. 90 dea, magna dea, Cybelle, dea, domina Dindimei, procul a mea tuos sit furor omnis, hera, domo: alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos. LXIV

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Angela, for God’s sake, try to love me a little—don’t throw me away, because if you do I’m utterly finished. You know how I love you, with my soul and my body; if it’s wrong, grotesque, unholy—have pity. I’ll be humble. Oh, my darling, I am humble now; I’m just a poor, heart-broken freak of a creature who loves you and needs you much more than its life, because life’s worse than death, ten times worse without you. I’m some awful mistake—God’s mistake—I don’t know if there are any more like me, I pray not for their sakes, because it’s pure hell. But oh, my dear, whatever I am, I just love you and love you. I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t. It’s alive—so terribly alive to-night in my bedroom. . . .’ And so it went on for page after page. But never a word about Roger Antrim and what she had seen that morning in the garden. Some fine instinct of utterly selfless protection towards this woman had managed to survive all the anguish and all the madness of that day. The letter was a terrible indictment against Stephen, a complete vindication of Angela Crossby. 5 Angela went to her husband’s study, and she stood before him utterly shaken, utterly appalled at what she would do, yet utterly and ruthlessly determined to do it from a primitive instinct of self-preservation. In her ears she could still hear that terrible laughter—that uncanny, hysterical, agonized laughter. Stephen was mad, and God only knew what she might do or say in a moment of madness, and then—but she dared not look into the future. Cringing in spirit and trembling in body, she forgot the girl’s faithful and loyal devotion, her will to forgive, her desire to protect, so clearly set forth in that pitiful letter. She said: ‘Ralph, I want to ask your advice. I’m in an awful mess—it’s Stephen Gordon. You think I’ve been carrying on with Roger—good Lord, if you only knew what I’ve endured these last few months! I have seen a great deal of Roger, I admit—quite innocently of course—still, all the same, I’ve seen him—I thought it would show her that I’m not—that I’m not—’ For one moment her voice seemed about to fail her, then she went on quite firmly: ‘that I’m not a pervert; that I’m not that sort of degenerate creature.’ He sprang up: ‘What?’ he bellowed. ‘Yes, I know, it’s too awful. I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Pasimondas, who gloats over your undoing and fervently advocates your death, is making every effort to bring forward the celebration of his nuptials to your beloved Iphigenia, and thus enjoy the prize which Fortune had no sooner been content to bestow upon you than she angrily snatched away from you again. If he should succeed, and if you are as deeply in love as I suspect, I can readily imagine the pain you will suffer, for on that same day his brother, Ormisdas, is proposing to do the same to me by marrying Cassandra, whom I love more dearly than anything else in the world. If we are to prevent Fortune from dealing us so heavy and calamitous a blow, it seems to me that she has left us with no other recourse except the stoutness of our hearts and the strength of our right hands, with which we must seize our swords and fight our way to our ladies, you to carry off Iphigenia for the second time and I to carry off Cassandra for the first. If, therefore, you value the prospect of recovering your lady (not to mention your liberty, which must in any case mean little to you without Iphigenia), the gods have placed the means within your reach, provided you will join me in my enterprise.’ These words restored Cimon’s depleted spirits to the full, and his answer was quickly forthcoming. ‘Lysimachus,’ he said, ‘if this scheme of yours procures me the reward of which you have spoken, you could not have chosen a more resolute or loyal comrade. Therefore entrust me with whatever task you desire me to perform, and you will marvel at the energy I devote to your cause.’ ‘Two days hence,’ said Lysimachus, ‘the brides will cross their husbands’ threshold for the first time. As dusk is falling, we shall go to the house, you with your companions and I with some of mine whom I trust implicitly, and make our way inside by armed force. We shall then seize the ladies from the midst of the assembled guests, and carry them off to a ship which I have caused to be fitted out in secret, killing anyone who should have the temerity to stand in our way.’ Cimon agreed to the plan, and lay quietly in prison until the appointed time.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Look, we’re feeling sorry for you, and since we were on our way to do a little job, if you’d like to join us we can almost guarantee that your share of the proceeds will more than make up for what you’ve lost.’ And as he was feeling desperate, Andreuccio agreed to go with them. Now, just a few hours earlier, the burial had taken place of an archbishop whose name was Messer Filippo Minutolo.7 He was the Archbishop of Naples, and he had been buried with some very valuable regalia and wearing a ruby on his finger, worth more than five hundred gold florins, which these two fellows were on their way to plunder. They disclosed their intentions to Andreuccio, and being more covetous than well-advised, he set off in their company. As they were on their way to the cathedral, with Andreuccio still putting forth a powerful odour, one of them said: ‘Couldn’t we find some place or other where this fellow could be washed, so that he didn’t stink so appallingly?’ ‘Certainly,’ said the other. ‘Not far from here, there’s a well, which always used to have a pulley and a big bucket at the top. Let’s go there and give him a quick wash.’ On reaching the well, they found that the rope was still there, but the bucket had been removed. So they hit on the idea of tying him to the rope and lowering him into the well so that he could wash himself down below. When he had finished washing, he was to give the rope a tug, and they would haul him up again. Shortly after they had lowered him into the well, some officers of the watch, feeling thirsty on account of the heat and also because they had been chasing somebody, happened to come to the well for a drink. When the other two saw them coming, they immediately took to their heels, making good their escape without being spotted by the officers. Meanwhile Andreuccio, having completed his ablutions at the bottom of the well, gave a tug on the rope. The officers had taken off their surcoats and laid them on the ground beside their bucklers and pikestaffs, and they now began to haul away at the rope, thinking it had a bucket full of water attached to it.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Earlier, in deference to the governor’s orders, these Warsaw Dragoons had left Carthage, but they hadn’t gone far. They disguised themselves by rubbing gunpowder on their faces and at day’s end came storming back into town. Just seven members of the Carthage Greys were on guard when the Dragoons appeared outside the jail and charged the front entrance. The Greys fired their muskets directly into the mob, but as part of a prearranged plan the guards had loaded their weapons with blanks, so none of the Dragoons was harmed. After discharging their ersatz fusillade, the guards stepped aside, allowing the hate-crazed mob to burst through the front door, firing their guns indiscriminately as they entered; two of their balls came within inches of hitting the jailer’s wife. The militiamen swarmed upstairs and tried to force their way into the bedroom where the prisoners were quartered. Joseph and Hyrum brandished their smuggled weapons while Taylor and Richards each grabbed a walking stick, positioned themselves on either side of the doorway, and began whacking furiously at the mob’s muskets as the barrels were poked through the partially opened door. Two bullets ripped through the door panel; the second one smashed into Hyrum’s neck, severing his spinal cord, and he dropped to the floor, dead, where four more balls immediately struck his body. Joseph responded by reaching around the doorjamb and blindly firing all six rounds of his revolver, wounding at least one of the Warsaw Dragoons. The attackers had succeeded in forcing the door open, however, and a lethal rain of bullets now sprayed into the room. Taylor, in desperation, attempted to jump out of an open window but was shot first in the left thigh and then in the chest; although the latter bullet struck a watch in his vest pocket and therefore wasn’t lethal, the impact knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling onto the floor. Frantically trying to escape the flying bullets, he crawled under a bed, where another ball tore into his forearm and yet another hit his pelvis, “cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as a man’s hand.” Seeing no alternative, Joseph also tried to spring from the window, but as he crouched above the sill in silhouette, two shots from inside the room pierced his back and a third bullet, fired from a musket on the ground outside, exploded into his chest. Uttering a plaintive “Oh Lord, my God!” he pitched forward out of the window. The prophet dropped twenty feet, slammed into the earth with a dull thud, and lay motionless, twisted on his left side. A second lieutenant in the Carthage Greys who witnessed Joseph’s fall reported that as soon as he hit the ground, he was “shot several times and a bayonet run through him.” After a few moments, another militiaman cautiously approached the body, prodded it, and announced to the crowd that Joe Smith was dead.