Awake by Harald Voetmann

Author:Harald Voetmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811230827
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2021-09-21T00:00:01+00:00

Pliny the Younger

It is quite a pity that my uncle did not live to witness our mighty emperor Trajan, who is truly, and deservedly, Fortuna’s favorite.

Pliny the Elder

It is said of Caesar the dictator that as a young man he dreamt he raped his mother. It was the same dream that ignited his ambition because he took it to mean that his mother was the Earth herself, and that he would one day become her master. To his mind the disgrace of the offense was entirely eclipsed by the fact that its achievement was within his power. It was Caesar who in his time — and with the characteristic contempt for divinity that ultimately led to his own deification — had the marsh drained where Novum Comum was founded. By doing so he ceded part of the goddess’s realm to mortals with no sacrificial offerings or temple constructions to atone for the infraction. For naturally a goddess lived in the lake, and naturally she wasn’t thrilled to see her realm diminished. Her true name was believed to be Laria but she was only ever called Coma Viridis, greenhair. The prior settlers, the Orobians, a Gaulish people, probably had closer ties to her, what do I know. They weren’t here anymore, the remaining few had withdrawn to remote parts of the hills and didn’t dare to approach the lakeshore. Each summer a wooden figure in the goddess’s image, with hair of light green rushes and water lilies for breasts, was launched on a small raft. The figure was placed atop a pile of twigs and straw, which, once the raft had made some distance to the shore, was set alight by flaming arrows. The young townsmen competed in firing the shot that would engulf the pile in flames instantaneously. The winner would boast the title of the King of the Lake until the following year. The idea behind the ritual was never discussed but it must have been introduced with the intention of sending an annual message of warning to the lake’s green-haired mistress. That she had better stay submerged and keep from meddling in human affairs. I imagined her supine body on the lakebed looking up at her burning portrait, hissing with anger though no emotion could be discerned in her dark pike eyes — the fire in them was merely the reflection of the flames on the surface. As the sun set and the portrait of the goddess burned, the King of the Lake would mate with a whore on the muddy bank while the town cheered and applauded, setting the beat of the mating with cymbals and rattles. She was painted green with rushes braided into her hair. I feared those whores as a boy. I remember how I squeezed between my mother’s legs, and how my mother took my hands and clapped with them. I did not understand the meaning of it and I didn’t understand the clamor and rejoicing, why the green woman screamed and howled.

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