Read Online Art & Lies by Jeanette Winterson - Free Book Online
Authors: Jeanette Winterson
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of paper? Then I am not married to you. Is it Church approval? Then I am not married to you. Is it the fact of a roof, the fact of a bed, the fact of two keys in one lock? Then I am not married to you. Is it the Eye of the Law? Then I am not married to you.
If it is the daily pleasure in your face. If it is the quickening of my spirits at your face, if it is your face I seek when I seek no other, if it is the love of you that is consent, if it is consent to be of the same mind, then let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. There is some Latin that I understand; Consensus facit matrimonium et non concubitus.
And what about copula?
Read between the lines and there’s nothing but dirt. Dirt under my fingernails, dirt in my mouth, dirt between my legs where the pleasure grows. Don’t trust Rome. It was Savonarola (Florentine 1452–98 Occupation: Martyr and Zealot) standing in the courtyard of the Medici who denounced me as a corruptor and a devil and had my work burned.
My work. My work. The words spitting upwards in tongues of flame. The words smoking the clear uncritical air. The words curling off the manuscripts. The manuscripts cracking in the fire.
Sophocles (Athenian 496–406 BC Occupation: Playwright). ‘Gods, what impassioned heart and longing made this rhythm?’
My heart, my longing, the heart at bay where you hunt me. The heart that runs through the wood, sees a stream, crosses it, takes the cut against the cliff, and comes cornered to the sea. Where now? Where now, with the beating blue water behind me and your voice at my head?
Who calls whom? You call me your True Hart, a five-year stag with a beginning crown of surroyal antlers. Is it my hart-horn that pleases you? Is it your horn, brassy in the frost, that wakes me from quiet ease into this frothing chase?
This is the nature of our sex: I take bread from your hand. I take you on my horn. You skin me and call me ‘your little red deer’. You are fond of my haunches, I am fond of the flat of your hand. My heart. My longing. As the parched animal is slaked at the rich pool, I have satisfied myself with water from your well. My mouth knows the shape of you. My mouth overflows.
Out of my mouth, the words in frothing chase. The words that are spoken before they are written. The words that fill up the air and name it. Taking names out of the air I have pressed them on to the page. Atthis, Andromeda, Gyrinno, Eranna, Mnasidika. The burning and the burnt. The words that scorched my mouth and immolated themselves. The burning book that all the pyres of Time have not put out. Sappho (Lesbian c. 600 BC Occupation: Poet).
Doll Sneerpiece was a woman, and like other women, she sieved Time through her body. There was a residue of time always on her skin, and, as she got older, that residue thickened and stuck and could not be shaken off.
Her breasts, her thighs, were stippled with time. From her nose down to the corners of her mouth, were two river-bed creases where time flowed in obedience to gravity, a gravity Doll Sneerpiece denied by smiling at Newton in the street.
She waited for Ruggiero. Time mocked her.
Ruggiero didn’t love her. She looked in the glass.
‘Tar and Dross,’ she said to herself. ‘He is only a creature of Tar and Dross.’
‘And you?’ asked the glass. ‘What are you?’
She did not listen to the timely replies of scholarship and scripture. Had she, she might have been downhearted to find that every villainy in the world since Eve, was either from her or for her. The clock struck. Ruggiero was late. The clock struck again. The Doll answered the glass. ‘I am a woman who does not repent.’ The clock was silent.
She did not repent her past, she did not repent her years. She did not repent her gold, she did not repent the getting of it. She did not repent her lust for young men, her contempt for older ones. She did not repent her sex.
She reddened her hair, she rouged her cheeks, she bloodied her lips, she
If it is the daily pleasure in your face. If it is the quickening of my spirits at your face, if it is your face I seek when I seek no other, if it is the love of you that is consent, if it is consent to be of the same mind, then let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. There is some Latin that I understand; Consensus facit matrimonium et non concubitus.
And what about copula?
Read between the lines and there’s nothing but dirt. Dirt under my fingernails, dirt in my mouth, dirt between my legs where the pleasure grows. Don’t trust Rome. It was Savonarola (Florentine 1452–98 Occupation: Martyr and Zealot) standing in the courtyard of the Medici who denounced me as a corruptor and a devil and had my work burned.
My work. My work. The words spitting upwards in tongues of flame. The words smoking the clear uncritical air. The words curling off the manuscripts. The manuscripts cracking in the fire.
Sophocles (Athenian 496–406 BC Occupation: Playwright). ‘Gods, what impassioned heart and longing made this rhythm?’
My heart, my longing, the heart at bay where you hunt me. The heart that runs through the wood, sees a stream, crosses it, takes the cut against the cliff, and comes cornered to the sea. Where now? Where now, with the beating blue water behind me and your voice at my head?
Who calls whom? You call me your True Hart, a five-year stag with a beginning crown of surroyal antlers. Is it my hart-horn that pleases you? Is it your horn, brassy in the frost, that wakes me from quiet ease into this frothing chase?
This is the nature of our sex: I take bread from your hand. I take you on my horn. You skin me and call me ‘your little red deer’. You are fond of my haunches, I am fond of the flat of your hand. My heart. My longing. As the parched animal is slaked at the rich pool, I have satisfied myself with water from your well. My mouth knows the shape of you. My mouth overflows.
Out of my mouth, the words in frothing chase. The words that are spoken before they are written. The words that fill up the air and name it. Taking names out of the air I have pressed them on to the page. Atthis, Andromeda, Gyrinno, Eranna, Mnasidika. The burning and the burnt. The words that scorched my mouth and immolated themselves. The burning book that all the pyres of Time have not put out. Sappho (Lesbian c. 600 BC Occupation: Poet).
Doll Sneerpiece was a woman, and like other women, she sieved Time through her body. There was a residue of time always on her skin, and, as she got older, that residue thickened and stuck and could not be shaken off.
Her breasts, her thighs, were stippled with time. From her nose down to the corners of her mouth, were two river-bed creases where time flowed in obedience to gravity, a gravity Doll Sneerpiece denied by smiling at Newton in the street.
She waited for Ruggiero. Time mocked her.
Ruggiero didn’t love her. She looked in the glass.
‘Tar and Dross,’ she said to herself. ‘He is only a creature of Tar and Dross.’
‘And you?’ asked the glass. ‘What are you?’
She did not listen to the timely replies of scholarship and scripture. Had she, she might have been downhearted to find that every villainy in the world since Eve, was either from her or for her. The clock struck. Ruggiero was late. The clock struck again. The Doll answered the glass. ‘I am a woman who does not repent.’ The clock was silent.
She did not repent her past, she did not repent her years. She did not repent her gold, she did not repent the getting of it. She did not repent her lust for young men, her contempt for older ones. She did not repent her sex.
She reddened her hair, she rouged her cheeks, she bloodied her lips, she
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