Read Online Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig - Free Book Online

say that they hear themselves shout and sing, Let the sun shine/the world is ours.

    Look at him, this cripple, who hides his calves as best he can. Look at his timid springless gait. In his cities it is easy to do him violence. You lie in wait for him at a street-corner one night. He thinks you are beckoning to him. You profit by this to take him by surprise, he hasn't even the reflex to cry out. Ambushed in his towns you chase him, you lay hands on him, you capture him, you surprise him shouting with all your might.
    The women say that they could not eat hare veal or fowl, they say that they could not eat animals, but man, yes, they may. He says to them throwing his head back with pride, poor wretches of women, if you eat him who will go to work in the fields, who will produce food consumer goods, who will make the aeroplanes, who will pilot them, who will provide the spermatozoa, who will write the books, who in fact will govern? Then the women laugh, baring their teeth to the fullest extent.
    He begins to cry. And they say no, they could not eat the lion dog puma lamb giraffe mouse ladybird blackbird rabbit-stew. They say, look at this cripple who hides his calves as best he can. They say that he is ideal quarry. They say they must eat to live. He persists in saying that man is devoid of fangs claws trunk legs for running. He persists in saying, why attack such a defenceless creature?
    They say that most of the men are lying down. They are not all dead. They sleep. The women say of themselves that they leap like young horses on the banks of the Eurotas. Stamping the ground, they speed their movements. They shake their hair like the bacchantes who love to agitate their thyrsi. They say, quickly now, fasten your floating hair with a bandeau and stamp the ground. Stamp it like a doe, beat out the rhythm needed for the dance, homage to warlike Minerva, the warrior, bravest of the goddesses. Begin the dance. Step forward lightly, move in a circle, hold each other by the hand, let everyone observe the rhythm of the dance. Spring forward lightly. The ring of dancers must revolve so that their glance lights everywhere. They say, It is a great error to imagine that I, a woman, would speak violence against men. But we must, as something quite new, begin the round dance stamping the feet in time against the ground. They say, rise slowly twice clapping your hands. Stamp the ground in time, O women. Now turn to the other side. Let the foot move in rhythm.
    The women make warlike gestures, approaching and retreating, dancing with their hands and feet. Some hold bamboo poles sorghum stems wooden batons the long ones representing lances and great halberds, the short ones double-edged swords or ordinary sabres. Dispersing by gates and paths they jostle each other impetuously. Their violence is extreme. They crash into each other with bravura. No one can restrain them. Each time these exercises take place several dozen of them are needed so that they may play together thus.
    They stand on the ramparts, faces covered with a shining powder. They can be seen all round the town, singing together a kind of mourning song. The male besiegers are near the walls, indecisive. Then the women, at a signal, uttering a terrible cry, suddenly rip off the upper part of their garments, uncovering their naked gleaming breasts. The men, the enemy, begin to discuss what they unanimously regard as a gesture of submission. They send ambassadors to treat for the gates to be opened. Three of their number fall struck down by stones as soon as they are within range. The entire army hurls itself against the walls, with battering-rams flame-throwers guns scaling-ladders. A great tumult rises. The besiegers utter cries of rage. The women, modulating their voices into a stridency that distresses the ear, withstand the siege, one by one, with arrows stones burning pitch, not quitting their positions except to bring aid to someone or to replace a dead woman. Within, long