Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig Page B

terms, now you understand that we have been fighting as much for you as for ourselves. In this war, which was also yours, you have taken part. Today, together, let us repeat as our slogan that all trace of violence must disappear from this earth, then the sun will be honey-coloured and music good to hear. The young men applaud and shout with all their might. They have brought their arms. The women bury them at the same time as their own saying, let there be erased from human memory the longest most murderous war it has ever known, the last possible war in history. They wish the survivors, both male and female, love strength youth, so that they may form a lasting alliance that no future dispute can compromise. One of the women begins to sing, Like unto ourselves/men who open their mouths to speak/a thousand thanks to those who have understood our language/and not having found it excessive/have joined with us to transform the world.
    It is evident that the women can go on no longer. They march by continually holding on to their bending legs. Now some fall down. They are seen to weep. Their hair is seen falling the length of their bodies. They tear it out in handfuls and throw it down alongside themselves in masses. Marie-Laure Hibon weeps saying, where is my long hair, my fair curly hair? They march casting their hair beside them without, so it seems, the strength to trample it underfoot. Old women stumble along after them, hopping and uttering little cries, look, they say, all that hair. Then they run here and there heaping up the balls of hair to make enormous masses, some sit on top and laugh saying all this hair. Others cannot manage to climb the hillock made of the hair they have collected. The women march holding on to their ever-bending legs, weeping it seems out of great fear and misery. Some fall down, no one sees them get up again. Sometimes an ululation is heard followed by other lesser sounds in concert. The ululations grow, suddenly it is as if two hundred ships in distress were calling for help in the night.

    HIPPOLYTA PETRONILLA
    APAKU EVE SUBHADRA
    LOLA VALERY AMELIA
    ANIKO CHEN-TE MASHA
    SEMIRAMIS THESSA OUR
    EURYDICE SE CATHERINE

    They say, hell, let the earth become a vast hell. So they speak crying and shouting. They say, let my words be like the tempest the thunder the lightning that the mighty release from their height. They say, let me be seen everywhere arms in hand. They say anger hate revolt. They say, hell, let the earth become a vast hell destroying killing and setting fire to the buildings of men, to theatres national assemblies to museums libraries prisons psychiatric hospitals factories old and new from which they free the slaves. They say, let the memory of Attila and his warrior hordes perish from history because of his meekness. They say that they are more barbarous than the most barbarous. Their armies grow hourly. Delegations go before them when they approach the towns. Together they sow disorder in the great cities, taking prisoners, putting to the sword all those who do not acknowledge their might.
    They quote long verses, We are truly the dregs of this world. Wheat, millet, spelt and every cereal, it is for others we sow them, as for us, wretched ones/with a little sorghum we make ourselves bread./The cocks fowls geese pullets/it is the others who eat them, as for us, a few nuts/we eat roots like the pigs./Wretched we are and wretched we shall be/we are truly the dregs of this world. They cite as a subscription to this quotation the phrase of Flora Tristan, Women and the people march hand in hand.
    They say, take your time, consider this new species that seeks a new language. A great wind is sweeping the earth. The sun is about to rise. The birds no longer sing. The lilac and violet colours brighten in the sky. They say, where will you begin? They say, the prisons are open and serve as doss-houses. They say that they have broken with the tradition of inside and outside, that the factories