Authors: Monique Wittig
In speaking of their genitals the women do not employ hyperboles metaphors, they do not proceed sequentially or by gradation. They do not recite long litanies, whose refrain is an unending imprecation. They do not strive to multiply the intervals so that in sum they signify a deliberate lapse. They say that all these forms denote an outworn language. They say everything must begin over again. They say that a great wind is sweeping the earth. They say that the sun is about to rise.
DIONE INEZ HESIONE ELIZA
VICTORIA OTHYS DAMHURAGI
ASHMOUNI GAL NEPHTYS CIRCE
DORA DENISE CAMILLA BELLA
CHRISTINA GERMANICA LAN-ZI
SIMONA HEGET ZONA DRAGA
They look at the coloured picture on the screen. The façade of pink bricks glitters in the frost. Some rays of the rising sun strike it glancingly, setting the window-panes ablaze. On a pile of branches with dried-up leaves there are thrown the drooping faded flower-heads of roses marguerites anemones. The next picture shows the sky where not a bird passes, the fountain in front of the house where the water does not flow. Later they look at the four great trimmed plane-trees and the regular area they bound, almost a square, made of a well-shorn meadow. The house can be glimpsed again between the four trees. The pediment is a narrow triangle. The shutters are entirely of wood. The main door can be seen to be slightly ajar. The red tiles of the entrance hall are visible.
The women stand by the lake shore. Their words and their songs blend into a sonorous whole that is reflected by the flat surface from the other side. The opaque bell-jars of the water-spiders make holes here and there in the water. When daylight fades the reflections of the trees are enormous. The ephemerides dart forward at water-level. Thousands of flat-bellied soldier-flies lie still on the irises the water-lilies the great lilies. The women study their reflections. They are like an army of giantesses. The outlines of their garments are interrupted. The green and red colours that compose them make unquiet splashes that are not motionless, that coalesce and re-disintegrate. When one looks around it is apparent that the reflections are reproduced in the series of eighteen lakes, all identical, all distorted.
Their peregrinations are cyclical and circular. Whatever the itinerary, whatever point of departure they choose, they end up at the same place. The paths are parallel, equidistant, narrower and narrower as they approach the centre of the figure. If they follow the path from the interior to the exterior they must traverse the widest of the circles before finding the cross-passage that leads them to the centre. The system is closed. No radius starting from the centre allows of any expansion or of breaking through. At the same time it is without limit, the juxtaposition of the increasingly widening circles configures every possible revolution. It is virtually that infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere, circumference nowhere.
One of the women relates the death of Adèle Donge and how the embalming of her body was carried out. The story tells how she is placed on a trestle table. The intestines are withdrawn through the open belly. The abdomen emptied of its organs is washed with water to which sulphuric acid has been added. Then it is dried. Various substances are introduced, ground mint benzoin sage styrax mixed with formalin phenol permanganate hydrogen peroxide. The separated layers and membranes have to be reunited, they must be sewn together. The head is emptied of the brain after the cranium has been drilled using a trephine. Balsamatic desiccative antiseptic substances are introduced into the cranial cavity. The viscera are preserved like precious materials in large glass jars that bear inscriptions. They ignore the brain. They abandon it carelessly on some piece of furniture. A domestic animal might seize and devour it. The women yawn at this account or else they applaud without much enthusiasm.
Now they are marching through a field of tall flowers. The orange-yellow tufts bend over above their heads. When the women stumble against the stalks pollen falls from the shaken pistils in great quantity. The giant flower is a stem whose extremity is rolled up on itself, it is whorled, it copies the shape of a bishop's crozier. The hermaphrodis is a flower that gives off an overpowering perfume. Among the marchers some can no longer keep up. They fall on their knees, they let themselves sink to the ground, head dropping, body like a gun-dog's. Or else they writhe with their arms, they cry out, they throw themselves face down as if seized with madness. They advance into the forest, between the stiff woody stems, faces caught by the sun, covered by the pollen that escapes continually from the invisible stamens.
JILL STEPHANIE CYDIPPA
OLEA ALBERTINE DELMIRA
ANDREA SOPHONISBE ALBA
CLELIA TAI-REN BUTHAYNA
JEPHTHA HOLAA BLANDINA
ATIKA NAUNAME CHRYSEIS
The story told by Emily Norton takes place at a time when every detail of a birth is ceremoniously regulated. When the child is born the midwife begins to utter cries like women who fight in battle. This means that the mother has conquered as a warrior and that she has captured a child. The women look over Emily Norton's shoulder at the effigies of women with mouths wide open, screaming, squatting, the child's head between their thighs.
They say that at the point they have reached they must examine the principle that has guided them. They say it is not for them to exhaust their strength in symbols. They say henceforward what they are is not subject to compromise. They say they must now stop exalting the vulva. They say that they must break the last bond that binds them to a dead culture. They say that any symbol that exalts the fragmented body is transient, must disappear. Thus it was formerly. They, the women, the integrity of the body their first principle, advance marching together into another world.
Things being in this state, they summon the trades. Distaffs looms rollers shuttles combs point-paper presses cams cloth toiles cashmere twill calico crepe chintz satin spools of thread sewing-machines typewriters reams of paper stenographers' pads ink-bottles knitting-needles ironing-boards machine-tools spinners bobbin-winders staplers assembly-lines tweezers blow-lamps soldering-irons bonders yarn for braiding for twisting knitting-machines cauldrons great wooden tubs stew-pans sauce pans plates stoves brooms of every bristle vacuum-cleaners washing-machines brushes et cetera. They heap them on to an immense pyre to which they set fire, blowing up everything that will not burn. Then, starting to dance round it, they clap their hands, they shout obscene phrases, they cut their hair or let it down. When the fire has burnt down, when they are sated with setting off explosions, they collect the débris, the objects that are not consumed, those that have not melted down, those that have not disintegrated. They cover them with blue green red paint to reassemble them in grotesque grandiose abracadabrant compositions to which they give names.
The shape of my shield/is the white belly of a snake/day and night I watch over your safety. Françoise Barthes reads out aloud from the great register the story of Trung Nhi and Trung Trac. Françoise Barthes says that it is about two young peasant women who always fought side by side. They died together after three years of war. They were to be seen shoulder to shoulder in the thick of the battle, conspicuous, embodiments of the sinews of the revolt against the powerful feudal armies. Both shields raised, black and white, those of Trung Nhi and Trung Trac stand out in the mêlées, ever close to one another, their lances directed towards the enemy. Françoise Barthes says that, whatever great battles the women may have waged or may wage, it is unthinkable ever to forget the two Trung sisters.
A shining black snake with carmine red rings lies coiled in the grass in the sun. Its body seems to be mineral, a sort of jet. If it is touched with the tip of a finger it barely stirs. It barely stirs even when it is picked up to be used as an ornament, when it is coiled lengthwise round the neck the chest the waist. Replaced on the ground it seems to go to sleep. In this connection someone recalls the existence of an ancient sect, the Ophidians, who used to worship snakes. She demonstrates one of their ritual gestures, one phase of which consists of kissing the snake. Then she puts her lips to the black scales. News has arrived from the assembly that is compiling the dictionary. The example proposed to illustrate the word hate has been rejected. It concerns a phrase of Anne-Louise Germaine, The women have transformed hate into energy and energy into hate. It has been adduced as a reason that the phrase contains an antithesis and therefore lacks precision. The bearer of these tidings, who is called Jeanne Sbire, is hissed. The women surround her jostle her insult her. Jeanne Sbire weeps hot tears, saying she cannot help it. Then the women get angry saying that an antithesis is indeed involved and why has it not been suppressed, retaining the first part of the phrase which alone has any meaning. Then they chant at the top of their voices the famous song which begins, Let a hundred flowers blossom, a hundred schools compete.
ALIDA LUDWIGE OLINDA
WILHELMINA GASPARDE
REGINA MALVIDA DIOTIMA
MADELEINE PHENARETE IVY
RICARDA COSIMA NU-JIAO
LAURENTIA LABAN AMABLE
Great gatherings assemble at dawn when a blue light is still visible over the roofs of the houses. The voices are sonorous and clear. There is a great migration. In the caravanserais steaming cauldrons are placed on the tables, bowls are filled from ladles, are handed round. There is a strong smell of coffee. It is noticeable in the street. It passes through the open windows. Some of the women move forward slowly in little groups along the avenues, they drag their feet, their faces are heavy with sleep. Others wait, standing in the square, they can be seen yawning. The columns begin to march before day has yet broken. They are in uniform order. Their identical costume is tinged by the blue light of before dawn. The tramping is that of a troop that moves off, they fall into proper rank, they find their rhythm. Later the sun appears.
The women tell how the horses returned from Souame, grey, dirty, lame, riderless, walking slowly, pressed flank to flank. From time to time one of them lifts its head and shakes its mane. Not a neigh is heard. An unshod hoof scrapes the ground, turning over the pebbles. Some of the horses are wounded, the blood flows over their bellies. Or else they advance on three legs, the fourth is broken galled slashed. Those that still bear saddles have the stirrups banging against their flanks, ill-fastened. Most have lost them.
Someone speaks of the women who have gone as delegates to the opposing armies. These are young women who sit down decisively to parley. They wear the white costume of those who stand for peace. They make their way without a moment's rest to the places assigned to them. The saliva on their tongues is thick with the dust of travel. The armies are invisible. Once a route is decided on no heed is paid to the days the enterprise takes. They are on the march. If the sun appears they keep their eyes fixed on it. Or else they look at the moon and the stars. They do not know when they will be able to rest their limbs and sleep shielded from the light, eyes closed.
It is learned that in the world of the Four Powers the women have sustained casualties. Several hundred of them have had their legs broken. For the time being they must lie in small invalid carriages. Those seconded to their care push them along the streets of the town. It is they who wash them and keep them alive. A debate is held to decide what is best to be done. It is a matter of despatching small clandestine groups to sustain the morale of the dissidents. Thus the Front as a whole will be in permanent liaison with the world of the Four Powers. As well as information and orders, advice encouragement and exhortation will not be spared.
The women say that they have been given as equivalents the earth the sea tears that which is humid that which is black that which does not burn that which is negative those who surrender without a struggle. They say this is a concept which is the product of mechanistic reasoning. It deploys a series of terms which are systematically related to opposite terms. Its theses are so crass that the thought of them makes the women start laughing violently. They say they might just as well be compared with the sky the heavenly bodies in their general movement and disposition the galaxies the planets the stars the suns that which burns those who struggle bravely those who do not surrender. They joke on this subject, they say it is to fall between Scylla and Charybdis, to avoid one religious ideology only to adopt another, they say that both one and the other have this in common, that they are no longer valid.
OURIKA AKAZOME CYPRIS
LEONTINE ANGELICA LIA
RODOGUNE JASMINE KALI
SIVAN-KI ZULMA CYANA
GALERIA HELLAN AIMATA
SAMARE JOSUE SAKANYA
They persuade Shu Ji to tell them the story of Nü Wa. Shu Ji relates how the mountain in Nü Wa's country crumbled, how the sky began to tilt to one side, how the earth began to sink. It is then that Nü Wa undertook to remedy this state of affairs. She is seen hewing rocks of every colour to repair the sky, cutting off the feet of a giant tortoise to set the world aright on the four cardinal points. Everything that lives in that country is in mortal danger because of the black dragon. Then Nü Wa wages a great battle against the dragon and eventually kills it. Shu Ji says that Nü Wa however has not yet reached the end of her difficulties. The waters that were released at the time of the cataclysm cover the earth. Thus it is that Nü Wa sets fire to all the reeds of her kingdom until, completely consumed, they absorb the water with their ashes.
In recalling that Lei Zu is she who discovered silk the manner in which she arrived at this outcome is not mentioned. It may have resulted from a series of observations she made herself. Or else some one of her followers may have bequeathed her the monopoly of this industry. Or perhaps the first success was obtained by a young peasant girl and Lei Zu learned of it. It may also be imagined that Lei Zu is an empress without followers and without pomp, that she has acquired by observation experimental knowledge of the bombyx. Indeed it is written that after having discovered the silkworm Lei Zu brought their cultivation and the manufacture of their silk to a fine art. As a first step Lei Zu discovers the material that can be extracted from the threadlike substance secreted by the bombyxes when they surround themselves with a cocoon. As a second step she realizes the need to produce artificially great concentrations of bombyxes. As a third step she determines the several operations essential for the production of silk thread: sorting the cocoons, asphyxiating the chrysalises, emptying the cocoons to obtain the raw silk, drawing the raw silk out into threads or else spinning it mechanically using a jenny furnished with spindles.