Neither sainte nor super. Embodiment of third-gender paragon, neither woman nor man, though as dauntless as either, as reckless as both. Not following, less leading, wildness and wiseness, welded. Virility deprived; its virtues, its vices, denied. Effeminacy bestowed; physically, mentally, sensually, warrioress of non-opprobrious submission, best in service, best in servitude, a vast surrender her only strength. Not άλφα, nor βήτα. Her heart, however, stronger than any hand; her will, more persevering than fiercest persistence. Shame in nothing; humiliation, mere gratification. Leave her out of his-story, mere emptiness prevailing.
In her own person, merely being, poet and sorceress, angel and curse, sister and succubus. Heroine without a patron. Benefactress without a suitor. Her poems, muse-obsessed. Her lovers, in her poems immortalised. No sin without guilt; no guilt without shame; no shame without fear; no fear without dishonour. No truth for the bard but that soaked in blood. Defiance, wilfulness, aberrance, abiding; her magnanimity of heart yet enchanting both love and vision of women and men. And now, despite and still, between the mystery and the myth, between the concealment and the honesty, between the invention and the reality, identity but presumed, she yet commands the affection and homage of those who read her life enchronicled.
For truth is no historian, to touch the random scene with probability’s enchantment. She is the muse who serves herself, an eye that strays not after passing sights, an enemy not lightly brought to battle, a friend not lightly given drink, primed to the banquet’s need of company—no friend at reach of chance, or love at distance of bold lover’s legs, neared by mercurial familiarities: But in the selfless thought a thought most far, yet as man’s own by selflessness, by covenant of peace eventual—one sense, the words which importune and the words which dispose.
À la recherche de licornes. 