mydierotiek: zoete dromen van weer gaan & komen

In Prudentius's hymn to Agnes, that virgin's telos is rendered with compelling eroticism.
Miracles prevent her from being sexually violated, but none will circumvent her desire for martyrdom.
Thus
as the executioner approaches her,
she speaks:

I revel more a wild man comes,
A cruel and violent man-at-arms,
Than if a softened youth came forth,
Faint and tender, bathed in scent,
To ruin me with chastity's death.

This is my lover, I confess,
A man who pleases me at last!

I shall rush to meet his steps
So I don't delay his hot desires.

I shall greet his blade's full length
Within my breast; and I shall draw
The force of sword to bosom's depth.

As bride of Christ, I shall leap over
The gloom of sky, the aether's heights.

Eternal King, part Heaven's gates,
Barred before to earth-born folk,
And call, O Christ, a virgin soul,
A soul that aims to follow thee,
Now a sacrifice to Father God.

The "wild man" is both executioner and Christ bridegroom,
but the last lines of the speech add yet another wrinkle, for now the virgin soul identifies herself with Christ as a sacrifice to the Father. The plays of identification and desire are as complex as any neo-Freudian couls possibly want.

At the point of Prudentius's writing, however, Christian women were hardly being martyred anymore.
The virgin martyr was now the model and type of the ascetic life of the Bride of Christ, the nun, while,
of course, the option of carnal marriage also was available for women.

This tension between virginal ideal and a valorization of marriage was textualized and to a certain degree
resolved in the Gesta of the Roman martyrs, a genre of fiictional martyrology roughly contemporaneous with Prudentius The Virgin and the Bride.

This was done in part by "encouraging married women to imagine themselves as the spiritual heirs of the pre-Constantinian martyrs," I will be forgiven seeming cynical, however, if I suggest that the example of Agnes or Eulalia (especially Eulalia) was more likely to encourage young women to be nuns than wives. Even Anastasia's exemplum would hardly inspire women to marriage.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the Catholic Church was powerfully engaged in a struggle to validate the spirituality of both the virgin and the bride by the fifth century. It is important to note the thesis that an ancient Christian tradition of validation of the chastity of the matrona was threatened by the rise of the ascetic movement in the fourth century, while my instinct, not nearly as educated, suggests that the needs of the post-Constantiniam Church would require a greater emphasis on the spiritual vocations of those who were the pillars of everyday society.

Thus, I would be inclined to lean a priori tot the option that the "emphasis on the spirituality of the
matrona in the Liber and the Passio [of St. Anastasia]" finds its "context in the battle between orthodoxy and the Manichaeism of the fifth-century Rome," as opposed to the option that they 'represent a last flicker of the traditionalism of the late fourth-century senatorial Christians'.

Kortom,
waar 't op neerkomt is,
dat elke tijd & plaats, iedere groep,
z'n eigen imaginaire & feitelijke machtsverhoudingen bepaalde
aan de hand van 'modeverschijnselen' die al of niet langzaam of sneller in-
geburgerd raken aan de hand van 'n
onderhuids & binnenbreins proces
of acceptatie & afstoting
van 'wat dienstbaar is'
voor 'individueel &
sociaal welzijn'.

Je zou het
kunnen vergelijken
met de vooroorloge toestand
van 't "Colijn tijdperk" met de 'goudstandaard',
't werklozenbeleid, de ontginning van woeste gronden,
met de daarbij behorende seksuele moraal, beleefdheidsnormen
& gangbare sociaal gedrag binnen alle betrokken groepen
& individuen, die zich daar al of niet min of meer
aan onderwierpen op Joodse, Rooms Katholieke,
Protestantse, Liberale, Socialistische,
Communistische of "Fascistische"
manier met alle daarbij
behorende beloften &
rituelen van 'uit-
verkorenheid',
'hemelse paradijzen'
& 'helse krochten', 't "ieder voor zich & God voor ons allen",
'heil- & sovjetstaat', 'de Grote Leider' & 't getransformeerde Volks-
lichaam en dergelijke fantastische
verbeeldingen & illusies
van aanstaand
& toekomstig
'heil en
geluk'!?

NU,
al meer
dan 'n halve eeuw later,
is de balans verschoven
van vooroorlogse t{r}uttigheid & dictatuur,
naar 'naoorlogse' chaos & de ijzeren wetten van 'vraag & aanbod', "anything goes",
zolang bepaalde opiniemakers, media & machtsverhoudingen eraan verdienen in financieel opzicht,
en stijgen in waarde van 'aanzien, pretentie, economische regels & Image':
in feite het 'oude liedje', maar wel stap- & trapsgewijs of via schokkende
{r}evoluties van 2000 jaar omvormingen of basisvariaties,
modeverschijnselen en de keiharde wetten
van bestaande & veranderende
machtsverhoudingen.

En
een ieder
vulde de leegte
op eigen wijze nader
in met alle beschikbare middelen,
fantasies, imaginations, illusions
& [on]mogelijk-
heden
...

Sweet
dreams als
je nu rustig
gaat slapen: morgen zien
we dan ongetwijfeld
wel weer
verder
...