Category: heirs
Quotes of Category: heirs
The Chorus Line: The Birth of Telemachus, An IdyllNine months he sailed the wine-red seas of his mother's bloodOut of the cave of dreaded Night, of sleep,Of troubling dreams he sailedIn his frail dark boat, the boat of himself, Through the dangerous ocean of his vast mother he sailedFrom the distant cave where the threads of men's lives are spun, Then measured, and then cut shortBy the Three Fatal Sisters, intent on their gruesome handcrafts, And the lives of women also are twisted into the strand. And we, the twelve who were later to die by his handAt his father's relentless command, Sailed as well, in the dark frail boats of ourselvesThrough the turbulent seas of our swollen and sore-footed mothersWho were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection, Bought, traded, captured, kidnapped from serfs and strangers. After the nine-month voyage we came to shore, Beached at the same time as he was, struck by the hostile air,Infants when he was an infant, wailing just as he wailed, Helpless as he was helpless, but ten times more helpless as well, For his birth was longed-for and feasted, as our births were not. His mother presented a princeling. Our various mothersSpawned merely, lambed, farrowed, littered, Foaled, whelped and kittened, brooded, hatched out their clutch. We were animal young, to be disposed of at will, Sold, drowned in the well, traded, used, discarded when bloomless. He was fathered; we simply appeared, Like the crocus, the rose, the sparrows endangered in mud. Our lives were twisted in his life; we also were childrenWhen he was a child, We were his pets and his toythings, mock sisters, his tiny companions. We grew as he grew, laughed also, ran as he ran, Though sandier, hungrier, sun-speckled, most days meatless. He saw us as rightfully his, for whatever purposeHe chose, to tend him and feed him, to wash him, amuse him, Rock him to sleep in the dangerous boats of ourselves. We did not know as we played with him there in the sandOn the beach of our rocky goat-island, close by the harbour, That he was foredoomed to swell to our cold-eyed teenaged killer. If we had known that, would we have drowned him back then? Young children are ruthless and selfish: everyone wants to live. Twelve against one, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Would we? In only a minute, when nobody else was looking? Pushed his still-innocent child's head under the waterWith our own still-innocent childish nursemaid hands, And blamed it on waves. Would we have had it in us? Ask the Three Sisters, spinning their blood-red mazes, Tangling the lives of men and women together. Only they know how events might then have had altered. Only they know our hearts. From us you will get no answer. book-quoteheirshierarchymaidens
