handel in vrouwen, kinderen, organen & ban{an}en?!

TOCH
merkwaardig dat
sommige 'mannen' vrouwen,
kinderen en elk ander
zo vaak 'aanranden, verkrachten &
blijven doden'!

Some trace the discursive modes through which is achieved
"the literary transformation of would-be 'manly' women - viragines -
into feminninely docile virgines."
The most vivid example of this
is in their reading of Prudentius's poem on the death of the martyr Agnes.
In this text, the virgin presents her breast to the persecuting executioner's sword,
but in the end is executed by decapitation.
This is a highly marked shift, as they argue, imploying the work of others.
Death by sword to the breast is a masculine death, the death of a warrior;
death by sword to the neck is a feminine death, the death of a sacrificial victim.
Strictly speaking, it is death by piercing or slashing the throat that is marked as "feminine."
But surely, in the contrast netween the manly death place of the breast
and the womanly death place of the throat, this distinction would hardly have been determinative.
Although, if the interpretation that this piercing of the throat is a symbolic oral rape,
a forced irrumation, is accepted, then the distinction would make more of a difference.
It is not clear, however, that this interpretation is ineluctable,
particularly given the antecedents in tragedy.
It is shown how shifting versions of the story of the death of the Trojan virgin Polyxena
from Euripides through Virgil differently construct this symbol.
In various of these versions, Polyxena is either given the choice of the virile death by sword to the breast
or denied that choice and forced to accept the feminine death.
Some demonstrate how the variations of the death of this virgin as it moves from Euripides through Ovid and Seneca are vital for understanding its Christian version in Prudentius.
In the Greek, Polyxena offers the executioner the manly breast or the womanly throat,
and the latter chooses the throat.
Ovid and Seneca, on the other hand, "unlike Euripides, are willing to grant the virgin at least the outward sign of a noble and manly death, admittedly still controlled by bridal and sacrificial interpretations."
Prudentius's variation, however, is even more chilling than Euripides' because this virgin offers only the manly breast, but the text has her killed nevertheless via the suppliant bend of the neck for decapitation.
In short:
"Prudentius does not fail to exploit the exaggerated boldness of the Latin Polyxena as she shapes his portrait of Agnes, but like the Greek tragedian he compromises his portayal of manly womanhood at the final, fatal moment. Refocusing the narrative gaze on the vulnerability of the female neck, Prudentius provides Agnes with the place of death which for him, as for ancient Greek tragedy, re-establishes her essential femininity in sexualized subjugation.
But the message now rings more harshly.
Euripides' Polxena offers both breast and throat only to die by the more feminine death of the throat.
But Prudentius's still more virile Agnes affers only her breast, so that it is in complete and chilling disregard of her words that her neck is severed.
More violently even than Euripides' Polyxena, the Christian Agnes must be wrenched back into her womanly place."

Blijkbaar
hangt de
menselijke soort aan
elkaar van krankzinnige rituelen
tot en met de gekste
'verklaringen'?

En
dan te
bedenken dat we
ons al meer dan
tientallen eeuwen verheven achten boven
al die andere planten,
dieren, mensapen &
aapmensen!

De
vraag blijft
bestaan in hoeverre
we echt 'vooruit' zijn
gegaan gedurende al
die eeuwen.


02 sep 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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