Hunger's Brides (224 page)

36.
It has been said that conflict in the Egyptian pantheon is relatively rare—relative for instance to the squabbles among the Olympians. Mentions of the murder of Osiris, while found in the very early hieroglyphic texts, are brief and allusive. Fuller accounts may have been lost, but it has also been speculated that the horror was too great ever to relate directly. So although the murder story forms the backdrop to the “contendings,” no text integrates the two. And although fragments of the murder are more explicit, the fragments sometimes vivid, the one reasonably complete account of the
Contendings of Horus and Seth
is a meandering affair dating from a much later period. Of this version Simpson says: “Such a dichotomy between coarse humour, even about the gods, and seriousness in religion is an aspect of the Ramesside age …” (c. 1300–1000
B.C.E.
) Arguably there have been other such periods: the age of Greek Old Comedy, ending with Aristophanes; the Baroque; and the Postmodern, admittedly short on seriousness.

37.
While the hieroglyphic record of Osiris's murder is laconic, a very great deal is made of Seth's semen—no walk-on character this, but a speaking part. The rape of the child is handled uncomically.

38.
Apophis/Apep being the primordial serpent or dragon lying in wait in the marshes to attack the Sun Bark. The serpent has been glossed as the figure of chaos, and Seth's special task of riding in the prow to fend it off, as a kind of homeopathy: ‘Confusion' as an antidote to ‘Chaos.' It is not then inconceivable that the Egyptians saw variegations in the colourings of the chaotic. The picture clouds further in that the Greeks, at least according to Graves, saw Seth as Typhon, stupefying smoke, hot wind, hurricane,'moreover connecting Typhon, dyslectically say, to Python, the great serpent of the Oracle. So two serpents: one of storm or smoke or darkling sky, the other perhaps of chaos. (Though in fact Seth in Egypt was more often an ass, a boar, or a jackal.) But taking a deep breath and a wild stab, one could suppose that Beulah saw this too in her own special way. She would see chaos as a dynamic principle, but not precisely primordial: before the first order, and before the swirling chaos preceding it, would have been a stillness, inert, inanimate. Conceivably influenced by the Mexicans, Beulah saw Apophis as a dragon of entropy, inertia, indifference, soul death. Her term was acedia. Originally it referred to the mental prostration of hermits, induced by fasting; but it was eventually used almost as the spiritual equivalent of Sloth, the fourth cardinal sin. Acedia or accidie, from
a-kedos
, uncaring. As a modern medical term it is lumped in with ennui, alienation, inner torpor. For Beulah, it might have been closer to a spiritual heedlessness, a going native, or rather ‘going modern.' Here she had devised an extended etymology—from her notes:

1.
The quote, attributed to J. Bierhorst, is most likely drawn from
Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature
.

2.
Clendinnen, in
Aztecs: An Interpretation
, describes one of the effects of obsidian wine as a kind of parrot dancing, imitative movements.

3.
Rilke, apparently, from “The Spectator.”
Conquests no longer fascinate. His growth consists in being defeated / by something ever-grandlier great
.

4.
A debt is owing here, obviously, to Camus'
The Plague
.

5.
Sor Juana's
First Dream
. All translations of
First Dream are
by Alan Trueblood.

6.
Sor Juana once wrote that
First Dream
was the only poem she had composed for herself. An exaggeration, no doubt, but there is little doubt that it was different—from her other work and from anyone else's. Octavio Paz argues that it is without precedent in all of Spanish literature. Again Paz (and here at least one cannot quarrel with Beulah's choice of sources, which for sentimental reasons I cite here at some length):
“First Dream's
break with tradition … is a sign of her times. Something ends in that poem and something begins. This spiritual departure implies a radical change in the relationship between the human being and the beyond….” (Margaret Sayers Peden, trans.)

7.
First Dream.

8.
Harpocrates is sometimes identified as the Greek Horus, god of silence.

9.
First Dream
.

10.
Edna Alford,
A Sleep Full of Dreams
.

11.
First Dream
.

12.
Ibid.

13.
Ibid.

14.
Ibid.

15.
This note fragment is marked “from page 97 as observed by Emilie Bergmann.” The text in which this appears on page 97 is not specified. Emilie Bergmann has published widely on Sor Juana.

16.
Antonia, it seems, draws upon devices used earlier in the century by William Shakespeare.

17.
Attribution for translation?

18.
Wordsworth.

19.
Jann Arden.

20.
Reference unknown.

21.
For whatever reason, throughout this passage there appear references to and paraphrases of Shakespeare's “The Phoenix and the Turtle.”

22.
Plath.

23.
Eliot.

24.
From Ronald Wright,
Time Among the Maya
.

25.
‘Magic that loves the hungry.' Leonard Cohen,
Beautiful Losers
.

26.
“The Phoenix and the Turtle.”

27.
Ibid.

28.
Ibid.

29.
Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus.”

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
        

Debts of gratitude are owing.

To Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes
(FONCA)
, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes
(INBA)
, Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for financial and logistical support covering the
Hunger's Brides
theatrical tour to Mexico and a year or two of writing time. And, to the late, great Explorations program of the Canada Council.

To the staff and faculty of la Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, for inviting One Yellow Rabbit to perform staged readings from
Hunger's Brides
in the Claustro's chapel and for hosting us afterwards. To the venerable magazine
Vuelta
for letting us crash the party in the
gran patio
. A special word of thanks to the staff, faculty and writers of the Writing Studios at Banff Centre for the Arts, '95 and '97.

To Sor Juana scholars Emilie Bergmann and Fred Luciani for their sources and support; to Teresa Castelló Yturbide, distinguished Sorjuanista, and to Patrick Johansson, Mexicanist and Nahuatl scholar, for inviting me into their homes in Mexico to share their latest research. To Dr. Salvador Rueda Smithers of
INAH
for giving me free run of the Castillo museum archives. To John Pflueger for his professional and poetic ruminations on geology. To the dozens of researchers who shared their expertise on-line, through scholarly discussion lists such as
FICINO
, Renais-1, Aztlan, Nahuat-1, historia-matematica, A
NE
. Perhaps never has a book relied so greatly on the collegial offerings of so many scholars. For their often multiple replies to abstruse queries, I would particularly like to thank Mohammed Abattouy, Evelyn Aharon, Anthony Appleyard, Christopher Baker, Kevin Berland, Luc Borot, Luigi Borzacchini, Thomas Brandstetter, Galen Brokaw, Paul D. Buell, R. Joe Campbell, Geoffrey Chew, Duane J. Corpis, Chichiltic Coyotl, Sarah Davies, Myriam Everard, Joan Gibson, Jim Gomez, Paul F. Grendler, James Grubb, Scott Grunow, Jack Heller, Peter C. Herman, Chris Hermansen, Helen Hills, Tom Izbicki, Tomas Kalmar, Frances Karttunen, Dan Knauss, Anu Korhonen, Heinrich C. Kuhn, Ray Lurie, Mary Ann Marazzi, Michael McCafferty, Katherine McGinnis, Leah Middlebrook, Mark David Morris, Steven N. Orso, Helen Ostovich,
Jack Owen, Dan Price, Francois P. Rigolot, Stewart Riley, Betty Rizzo, David Sánchez, Mel Sanchez, John F. Schwaller, Christoph J. Scriba, Jutta Sperling, Laurie Stras, Sharon Strocchia, John Sullivan, Roberto Tirado, Frank Young, Germaine Warkentin, Steve Whittet, the late Paolo Renzi and Linda Schele, and many others. And to Mata Kitimisayo, whoever you may be off-line, please get in touch; Random House Canada will know where to find me. A word of praise and gratitude, also, for the invaluable Sor Juana database created and maintained by Dartmouth University. And to the philosopher Terence Penelhum, for the first intimations of an ideal.

For publishing excerpts from
Hunger's Brides
years before the end was in sight, thanks especially to Andris Taskans of
Prairie Fire
, Natalee Caple
of Queen Street Quarterly
, Juan Manuel Gómez of the Mexico City daily
La Crónica
, and to the editors of the Banff Centre anthologies
Meltwater
and
Riprap
. To Linda Spalding of
Brick
, which does not publish fiction, for reading everything I sent, just for the hell of it.

For certain of Sor Juana's chapters, I drew directly from articles developed by Sor Juana scholars whom I credit in endnotes. Influential, also, were comprehensive works by Stephanie Merrim, Antonio Alatorre, Martha Lilia Tenorio, Fernando Benítez, George M. Tavard, Margo Glantz and Marie-Cécile Bénassy. And it was only years after reading it that I understood how much I had been affected by Diane Ackerman's
Reverse Thunder
. Alan Trueblood's translations gave me a first audition of Sor Juana's English music. Thanks to Harvard University Press for its extraordinary courtesy in allowing me to reprint at length from Trueblood's splendid
A Sor Juana Anthology
and from Octavio Paz's work as translated superbly by Margaret Sayers Peden.

Two writers and their works, above all others, fired and fed the genesis of this work: Eduardo Galeano in his
Memory of Fire
trilogy and Blake Brooker, in
The Land, the Animals
, a theatre masterpiece born in the same year as
Hunger's Brides—
two verses of one song, of an America that is lost. And there is a book without which this novel could not even have been imagined. Octavio Paz's magisterial
Sor Juana or, The Traps of Faith
.

To other writers and artists who gave comfort and blood: Kelley Aitken, Ken Babstock, Kevin Brooker, Gregg Casselman, Joan Clark, Bo Curtis, Chris Cran, Don Gillmor, Irene Guilford, Louise Halfe, Karen Hines, Lee Kvern, Richard McDowell, Dave Margoshes, Kirk Miles,
Michele Moss, John Murrell, Rosemary Nixon, Peter Oliva, Joanne Page, Mariko Patterson, Howard Podeswa, Paul Rasporich, Barb Scott, Anne Simpson, Dorothy Speak, Joy Walker, Rachel Wyatt. And to Jane, for the gauntlet in the teeth.

Special thanks to theatre angels One Yellow Rabbit, and to the crew of the
Hunger's Brides
road show. Blake Brooker (for who we were then), Grant Burns (for the ending), Ralph Christoffersen (great white bear,
explorador)
, Denise Clarke (for the unbreakable commitment, the grace), Andy Curtis (who showed how deep Donald runs and, just perhaps, reintroduced Octavio Paz to Pablo Neruda), John Dunn (heart of the house), Michael Green (for helping make Núñez more than a special effect), Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez (brain-squizzer, comic, translator, theatre master, lexicographer, bringer of books and laughter), Richard McDowell (with such as these, one crosses deserts), Steve Schroeder, Elizabeth Stepkowski (for her journals and superb companionship, and for bringing Beulah to life in all her passion and yearning).

To the friends who always asked, so generous in their optimism: It's my fault if you don't know who you are. Cathy J., wherever you are, I hope you are well. The crew of Maiden Light (Andy, Hermann, Paolo), for the first big dream. To the friends who heaped material support upon the moral—a reading, a meal, a bed, a book, a name. Heather Elton, Warren Fick, Anne Flynn, Anne Georg, Anne Green, Emma Greenstreet, Shawna Helland, Michele Moss, Deborah Roth. And to Gerald Simon, gifted reader, gentle critic, fellow traveller on roads of myth.

My friends in Mexico form a category all their own: Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Guillermo Diego, Norma Chargoy, their son, Diego. To Amanda, thank you for the doll and the dances. I wish you love and health. And to
la familia
Rivera Morfín—Tey, Raúl, Raulito, Octavio and Fernando—thanks for so many things, for the introduction to Sor Juana and Nezahualcóyotl. And, of course, to Z.