Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig Page A

them is their contact, how their limbs relax and soften, how their muscles—touched by pleasure—become supple and light, how in this wretched state, when they are marked for death, their bodies—unbound and full of calm—begin to float, how the warm water, pleasing to the touch, carries them to a beach of fine sand, where they fall asleep from fatigue.
    The young men have joined the women to bury the dead. Immense communal graves have previously been dug. The corpses are arranged one beside the other, bearing a circle drawn in black on their foreheads. Their stiffened arms are bound against their bodies, their feet are tied. All the bodies have been mummified and treated with care for long preservation. The graves are not covered in with earth. Slabs are intended to seal them according to an arrangement that permits of their removal at any time. The women stand beside the graves, the men who have joined them by their sides, wearing like them the costume of peace which consists of black trousers flared at the ankles and a white tunic that hugs the chest. At a given moment the women interrupt their discourse and turning towards the young men take them by the hand. Then they stay like this in silence, holding each other by the hand, looking straight ahead at the open graves.
    They say that the event is memorable even though long in preparation and mentioned in diverse fashion by historians writers versifiers. They say that war is an affair for women. They say, is this not gratifying? They say that they have spat at the men's heels, that they have cut the legs off their boots. They say, moreover, that although laughter is the prerogative of man, they want to learn how to laugh. They say yes, henceforward they are ready. They say that the breasts the curved eyelashes the flat or broadened hips, they say that the bulging or hollow bellies, they say that the vulvas are henceforth in movement. They say that they are inventing a new dynamic. They say they are throwing off their sheets. They say they are getting down from their beds. They say they are leaving the museums the show-cases the pedestals where they have been installed. They say they are quite astonished that they can move.

    OMPHALE CORINNA ELFREDA
    LU-HU MEI-FEI VICVAVARA
    QI-JI VIJAYA BHATIKARIKA
    LUDGARDE GERTRUDE DIANA
    ROGNEDE MALAN CLEOPATRA
    AMERIZ BATHSHEBA CLAUDIA

    The women descend from the hill carrying torches. Their troops advance, marching day and night. They say, where shall we carry the flame, what land set ablaze, what murder perpetrate? They say, no, I shall not lie down, I shall not rest my tired body before this earth to which I was so often compared, turned upside down from top to bottom, shall be incapable of bearing fruit. They light the pine-trees cedars cork-oaks olives. The fire spreads with great rapidity. At first it is like a distant murmur. Then it is a roar that swells and finally drowns their voices. Then they fly, faster than the wind, carrying fire and destruction everywhere. Their cries and their fury compete with the noise of the fire.
    They say, you are speedy like Gurada the messenger, with the wings and feet of a swallow, who stole ambrosia and fire from heaven. They say, like Esée you can steal power over life and death, like her become universal. They say, you advance with the sun's disc on your head, like Othar of the golden countenance who represents love and death. They say, in your anger you exhort Out, who upholds the sky and whose fingers touch the earth, to shatter the celestial vault. They say, conquered like Itaura, you readjust the two halves of your body, heaven and earth, you stand erect and go shrieking, creating monsters at every step. They say, you leap on the corpses, eyes bloodshot, tongue lolling, teeth fanged, palms red, shoulders streaming with blood, carrying necklaces of skulls, corpses at your ears, garlands of serpents round your arms, you leap on the corpses.
    The women address the young men in these