Authors: Naomi Mitchison Marina Warner
How lost, paths I once knew were right!
Black bulls, small bulls, quivering with life and anger
Against the smell of death certain, death only minutes ahead,
Here is a pasture for you, here: here, see
Green grass not lost for ever:
Green grass to lie on.
The smell of cider apples,
Music in the ears, flowers,
Books and a great wood fire, rest and dignity,
Pattern and reason through all.
Rest, my bulls, rest.
And while the bulls rest, you, dear friend, dear comrade,
(Calling you comrade in my thoughts, I shall not wake
Frowns and distress) you, who have been here
Before the time of the bulls, you, who thought of me then kindly,
Think of me kindly still. For I am in need of kindness
Because of the bulls. As the bulls also are
In need of kindness.
Rest in the pastures, bulls, and perhaps, next time
You will get the picador and the matador.
In spite of the cleverness and the flapping cloaks and the paper-bright barbs,
You will get them down.
But the bulls say, supposing we never want to leave these pastures?
They will be green and quiet for ever.
There will be water in summer,
There will be sleek cows for us,
The gad-flies are gone for ever,
We will be quiet for ever.
The pear tree has been growing for a hundred years.
The walnut tree has been growing through ten generations of mankind.
On the south side of the house there are green grapes.
Will that suffice us?
The Normandy girls in the kitchen never bother their heads.
It is a pity the white horse has colic, but let us remember
He was getting old.
The lovers have gone for a short walk.
The brother is playing Schubert.
The father is reading a grave book.
Will that suffice us?
The stones of the house are strong.
The thatch holds firm on the cottages.
Afforestation is regular.
At the inn the peasants are drinking cider.
Will that suffice us?
I slept ten hours last night.
If I sleep late I often have bad dreams.
This morning, then,
Dozing, I saw a hideous and malignant faceâ
Knew I was in for a nightmareâ
Tried to boltâknew it could catch meâbegan to put
In gear all mechanisms of fear and horrorâ
And thenâ
Almost at the moment of contact, I turned and said:
Are you for the revolution too, comrade?
And, as it caught me,
As, in a nightmare, the supreme moment of horror ought to have come,
The face, although still ugly,
Had ceased being malignant, had become
The face of a friend.
And, as he kissed me kindly,
I awoke and it was a warm morning and I could smell
Coffee and fruit.
Was that a dream, a delusion,
Was it, was it?
Can there be a change of heart?
Or must for ever
The hundred year old pear tree blossom and bear and ripen fruit,
And the grapes ripen on the manor house,
And the old ideas blossom and ripen in men's minds,
Ripen and rot? And rot.
And the bulls rot in the beautiful pastures.
Black bulls, black bulls, the corrida is still on.
We have got to go back,
Go back and die.
BRÃNNHILDE'S JOURNEY DOWN THE RHINE
Flames now of soft darkness were at wave lap round me, tongued and overwhelming darkness; the movement of this darkness woke me from aloof dreams into following it, into a long statement of shapes. Through the edges of shapes appeared stars, far and familiar. Between stars, crescent moon, quiet, rideable. But why think thus? Grane, I said, my horse, my horse, you and I will be careful of one another and there will be no need of other wings. Yet came no nuzzling Grane to my hand outreached for contact. What then? My spread of fingers encountered neither rock nor thin mountain blossom. This smoothness was planed pinewood, and what behind, what knockings, what chick to break this plank-egg? Ah, I thought, no chick, flimsy and single, but a moving of all unbroken onward together, ripple-beating of mountain-flow. I am, thought I, in a boat and this, yes, at my back, hard narrowness of boat strakes between me and river. Shifting my eyes sideways from stars, on either side almost fire-shaped, yet thick, yet static, peaks jagged: my dark flames hardened to rock by cold Rhine-stream. Shapes changed with downward drifting slowly; capes blocked out oblongs or coarse triangles of stars; valleys were sharp cups; ranges gently unfolded; night held.
At dawn I raised myself, remembering, and looked. In front of me was the man Gunther, unshaven, with tongue flickering over lips and eyelids over eyes. Could it then have been he who broke
the flame-ring, he the fearless and wise? Fearless, I thought, fearless, what does that mean? And nowâoh now what was this in myself, this shrinking and shivering, this softness of muscle fibres avoiding bruising, this loathly acceptance by eagerly pretending flesh and spirit of something hideous and hated? Let me consider, I cried to myself, give me at least a moment to consider, what is this new thing that has befallen me? It must be, myself whispered back, that this is fear, this is what makes nidderings shriek and vomit and caper laughably in the moment before the seen spear enters. It is as All-Father said, I should know the mortal things, of which this is one. I am sorry now that I and my sisters laughed so often at the death of nidderings. And this sorriness is again mortal, it is pity, it is the thing that comes to mortal women between battles in hall and bower, and they are got with child and trouble by men whom they should better have laughed at. Thus has All-Father dealt with me. And I regarded Gunther and the other men, with a dry mouth and hands too cramped to hit.
What did I fear? Not surely their swords which I saw all the time were ill-made and easily blunted. Not their spears, unbalanced and with bad grips. Not their foolish banner scribbled with ravens. But what? Was it their possessing hands, eyes, breathing and hotly wriggling bodies, ready to melt over me and smother me like wax suddenly dripping on a brittle fly? The man called Gunther moved his hands about on his thighs, on the coarse woollen cloth itchy above the skin. “So,” he said, digging at me with his eyes; and the envious digging eyes of his men slid and flickered between him and me.
“So”â? I thoughtâbut no! How is this? The man Gunther is not brave or his men would not be envious, would not be thinking
against him and over him instead of for him and through him. Nor is he wise, for were he wise he would be speaking to me, not digging at me with his eyes as a greedy man digs pudding with a horn spoon. Yes, he would be speaking to me and then my mind would awake outwardly and I would not still suffer dark flames wavering through me bursting into light fringes at brain level. But he is not speaking to me because he does not want to, he does not know or care whether I stand firm on ground, or rock in All-Father's flames. He does not want speech with the woman who I am, but rather possession of the woman whom he thinks he sees and whom he thinks will be made his by continuous sight and grasp and hearing, by the constant usage of her mouth and lips for smell and taste. That is neither courage nor wisdom. What, has All-Father played tricks on me, his wish-child? Or is it that some new invention or corruption has come between the Norns and their spinning, something put in from outside, some accident? Ha then, I said, upright on the thwart, why stay? Grane, my horse, my horse, come to me, let us leap!
But again no Grane came, no whinny from the boat, no hoof-stamp on by-gliding beach or rock or thicket. Only a giggle from the ripple at the prow and the prancing dive of Flosshilde or Woglinde and their weialala lifting and cradling the boat down the long, sweeping, water-smooth plane of the Rhine-slope. Sisters, ah sisters, I whispered at them past the thick crouching me-ward-looking men, Woglinde, Flosshilde, Wellgunde, where, where is Grane my horse? And they answered, tossing in light bubbles, “The horse has gone to the hero. Siegfried has Grane.”
In the three rings of their diving leialala the name echoed growing as the ripples lessened. No trick of All-Father, but Sieg-fried
the brave and wise who had parted the flames and come to me, young and certain: Siegfried who comes always the straight way fearless, as the birds and beasts know, giving him fearlessness back: Siegfried giver and not taker. Somewhere, I said to myself, Siegfried will be, and we shall look at one another straight without hurting fear or digging greed. Then all will be well. Only may it be soon because it is loathsome for me being among these Gibichungs, in their dirt, for them to tread, and with the flames springing up ever and blotting out from moment to moment my purpose of me.
At mid-day they ate, grabbing and belching, and in undertones promising quarrels, hands ever at knife-hilts. Gunther must needs share with me meat and mead, heavy-smelling, an occasion for his gripping paws to slide and fondle. In the heat and sparkle of the afternoon he spread a cloak in the bows and winked me to it. But I was still dazed with flames and currents and remembrance; I did not move. He would not force me in front of his men, even he, even they. And in their hearts all were proud that I did not move, since a wife, in their way of it, should be cold and constantly forced: thus men show their power with their pleasure, not only the Gibichungs but all tribes of men who are not more than mortal.
During the afternoon some slept, and the Rhine daughters out of the surface sparkle threw evil dreams at them, so that they twitched and jabbered and pulled wry faces in their sleep. It seemed that Woglinde and her sisters had lost something, yet what it was I could not tell because of the waving and breaking of the flames between me and them. And in the evening we came to
the black rocks and the ravens flying and the heavy pillars of the Gibichung house reflected in the wine-coloured Rhine-stream.
Strange cries and shouts rose ahead of us, blare of war-horns and burst of warning drums, clanging of magic bells to avert evil, since they were afraid of what I might be. As I too was afraid. So in a fear-sunset our boat steered in to the landing-place. Above on the highest rock was Hagen among the ravens, black as the bridal night. Below clustered and swarmed the ragged hosts, savage, suspicious even of their own lice, their own leaders, their own women, loading their bodies with bronze and hides, their heads with horns and feathers stripped from dead forest creatures. From behind, girls peered and peeked, fear-shy, dirty, with matted hair, not knowing themselves as persons, with reason or purpose, but willing to accept all from the men.
In the house of the Gibichungs was light of torches. More girls came out, these with combed hair flower or gold decked, and gold and amber at breast or waist. But they too walked in fear, or with little hard spurts of anger and greed, clustered together lest some wrong man take them; since they were for the man with the most gold on his belt and bracelets, the most spells on his sword and spear, and the most power of death over other men. These girls waved hands and branches, welcoming me, crying to me to become one of like kind with themselves. For me, as for them, would be flesh-feasts, stories and singing and displaying of craft, the showing of themselves fine and well-clad to the men on May Days and Midsummers, the hot flicker of the digging eyes warming their skins to pink. For me, as for them, would be winter coziness in crowded bowers, the woman-smell, the gossip, the gig-gling
retreat from men's hands clutching at skirt or ankle on the stairs at the back of the dais, while outside snow might drift, frost hold, Gods walk the bare woods or treacherous river-ice, bondsmen and bondswomen freeze to chilled submission on straw in huts. For me, as for them, the life of the Gibichungs.
I stood by Gunther on the landing stage in shrunk horror, aware all the time of this new thing, fear, pinching me like new shoes. Is this your will, All-Father, I said, that I am to be turned into this kind of animal? Must I now say good-bye to my own purpose, my own life? The shields clashed horribly in the gathering darkness, and Gunther laid creeping hands on me and spoke of me as a beast of the chase, a champion deer or bear at last shot down by the might and cunning of a Gibichung. And it was as though I were an empty pelt, a dead carcass which could not flee from knife or teeth.
Then through the swan-herd of Gibichung girls, one came thrusting in pride of waist-long yellow hair, much gold, much amber, much coral, proud upward curling of polished bronze, the princess, Gutrune. She was the centre of all that, and she had Siegfried by the hand.
Yet I did not for one moment consider her hand in his. I only knew that after all there was escape. This Gibichung evening was not real, was not to last, was not to catch me. We two should at once get clear of it, into reason and gentleness of our own; and all would be as the Norns had spun for us. All this was so certain that I stepped forward saying, Siegfried! I was thinking of his gladness in escaping with me from the scuttling darkness of fear-stricken greed, from the black flames. Siegfried!
He did not step forward to meet me, glad of an equal at last. His face was young and merry. He looked at me. He seemed to know me with his eyes yet not to know me with his blood, as I knew him. He only knew me as Gunther knew me, as the new possession of the Gibichungs. Yet did my certainty of him not waver. These were his hands, his mouth, his body. Yet other. He had been changed. As he spoke, and as Gunther spoke, and as I did not speak but waited, I became aware of how much. He was still brave but he was no longer wise. Reason had gone from him, and clarity, and the straight way.
Grane, my horse, my horse, that was the end, that had to be the end, was it not so? He had touched evil things; he had touched gold and would not share it; he had come to the house of the Gibichungs and had been taken by it instead of hating it; he had been willing to change his own shape, the very shape of his clear mind; he had wanted the flesh-feasts and the boastings of the women, the power over men and the blood-brotherhood with Gunther. They had but shown him these things and he had trusted childishly, and childishly desired the chief prize, Gutrune. Worse followed bad. He had laughed at the Rhine maidens and he had forgotten the flames and the cold rock of the mountain top. Grane, my horse, my horse, how if he was young, innocent, without knowledge of the Gibichungs and their enchanted cup? Because of that let him still be held hero, let him be remembered as he was. Because of that let build the resin-flaring pyre to destroy all that was evil, to burn up, wood with vermin, the Gibichung house, collapse of beams to back-break master with slave. Let build the pyre to burn the body that was once wise friend of
wood-birds, once queller of flames, once Siegfried. Let build the split-log pyre whose heat shall draw subtly the cold Rhine daughters, up, up, weialala, lap-giggling rock to black rock, then sudden terror of spread, and so to lie finally quiet, current-smoothed over a no longer bubbling ruin, over soaked and dispersing ash that will have been us. Because Siegfried was young and still wise on the mountain top, let build the pyre to wipe out fear with fear and flame with flame until all shall be even as at the first even spinning of the Norns. Let me topple now from the precipice of dark and unbearable flames into the light flames which must for a moment be borne, and then nothing will again be nothing as in the no-time before All-Father wished me into being. Grane, my horse, my horse, because all was once well it makes no difference to the ending.