"History's Greatest Love Story" and the demonizing of the sexual woman

When the concept of history's greatest love story is bandied about, there are certainly many that leap to mind. Arthur and Guinevere perhaps (though their claim to being historical rather than fictional is dubious)...Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn (for which a whole system of belief and politics was uprooted and re-shaped, in the English Reformation)...but in my mind, the love story of the Roman poet Catullus and the noblewoman Clodia tops them all. Catullus wrote stunningly intense and immediate poetry about their love affair, made even more poignant because he wrote equally agonized poems about its collapse. Catullus died young, and there was no happily ever after for them. There is debate even as to whether the "Lesbia" (as Catullus calls his beloved in the poems) is Clodia at all. But having studied that debate myself, I believe she was. And that leads to the second part of this blog's title, the demonizing of the sexual woman. Clodia was considered notorious,and has often been portrayed in literature as downright villainous. A state which both Guinevere and Anne Boleyn have endured as well, when you give it some thought. And why? By and large, despite being part of love stories that have inspired lovers for centuries, because of their powerful sexuality. It's a double standard that has always troubled me, and one that I believe is alive and well today. The stereotype of the "evil temptress", the "fallen woman", as well as invectives far more crude.

I love to write about love, and about the sensuality of the body, mind and soul that accompany it. But the concept that sexual power equates automatically to a fallen women is a stereotype I can never embrace. Rather, sensuality, when embraced by a secure and unthreatened partner, elevates both lovers.

In my novel about Clodia and Catullus, "The Festival of Seven Nights' Passion", I take the demonizing of Clodia apart, placing it instead in the context of a time in history when women, even aristrocrats, were considered little more than possessions...where romantic dalliances by men were considered a sign of virility, and by women, a sign of wild immorality. Sound familiar? Some things haven't changed much since the First Century BC.

Here's a brief excerpt from the book, in which Clodia looks back in her mind at the men she has known:

Possessed. The men who had possessed her in one way or another, had laid claim to her body and all of its shocks, pains and pleasures...possession had looked different for each.

     I can’t hear the tone of Sulla’s voice any more. For a long time when I had nightmares, his voice would seem as real and present as if he stood right beside me, or held me next to him. “Claudians. Why is it that Claudians are always such beautiful things? Come here little Claudia, take it in your hand. You have perfect hands, my child. I’ve never been touched by anything half so soft.”

     Then later, crying at all the wrong times, embarrassing father at the dinner table when I tried to put food in my mouth, or to cease playing out in the garden and suddenly kneel in the dirt and wail. Father would cuff me with his palm and send me to my room. You came then, Publius, sneaking in to see me when the house was asleep. Always with the same promises, to get revenge on all the old men, the bastards, to let me watch while you tortured and ruined them. Holding me, rocking me, kissing me. When you held me in your arms it was like being cradled, even though I’m the older; or caressed and loved by my own mirror image, my own soul given the shape of a man, who could do things, change things. “I won’t let any of them have you, Claudia. Not ever again.”

     Then Metellus, and that was the final end of such illusions. He was rough with the Knot of Hercules on my wedding dress. He pulled off my red veil and dropped it on the floor. He didn’t bother with kissing me. Pluto stealing Prosperpine, taking her to the Underworld on his black horse with red eyes, whose hooves could cleave rock.

      Finally, Catullus, there was you.

     “You have no meter, Clodia.”

     Meter’s not important. It shouldn’t be about meter. There are other ways find mastery of the secret language, the one that enables souls to look into one another as one would look at the sun, and without being blinded.

     Clodia let her hands stray to the curves of her body, still beautiful, still desired, even after all the ravaging forces.

     But now I belong only to myself. Perhaps that was always true, and it has just taken the longest time for me to realize it.

.....
The Festival of Seven Nights' Passion by R. Paul Sardanas