Erinna: The Distaff

mswyrr:

  Translated by D.L.Page.  In his introduction, Page says: “This
beautiful fragment is part of Erinna’s ‘Distaff’, a poem written in
sorrow for the death of Baucis, a friend of her girlhood. Erinna herself
is said to have died at the age of nineteen : and this poem, which
(according to Suidas) consisted of 300 hexameters, was perhaps her only
published work.”.  

   Much more information about Erinna, along with the Greek text of this fragment and a French translation, can be found on the Chaerephon website.

… From white horses with madcap bound into the deep wave you
leapt : “I catch you,” I shouted, “my friend!” And you, when you were
Tortoise, * ran leaping through the yard of the great court.

Thus I lament, unhappy Baucis, and make deep moan for you. These
traces of you, dear maid, lie still glowing in my heart : all that we
once enjoyed, is embers now.

We clung to our dolls in our chambers when we were girls,
playing Young Wives, without a care. And towards dawn your Mother, who
allotted wool to her attendant workwomen, came and called you to help
with the salted meat. Oh, what a trembling the Bogy brought us then,
when we were little ones! – On its head were huge ears, and it walked on
all fours, and changed from one face to another!

But when you went to a man’s bed, you forgot all that you heard
from your Mother, dear Baucis, in babyhood : Aphrodite set oblivion in
your heart. So I lament you, yet neglect your obsequies — my feet are
not so profane as to leave the house, my eyes may not behold a body
dead, nor may I moan with hair unbound, yet a blush of shame distracts
me …

Because in the movie canon the Amazons do not have high tech, the work of the stuff of survival (spinning on the distaff, salting meat, making weapons, drying leather, making wine and beer, etc etc etc – people with more knowledge of pre-modern lifeways help me out here?) would be a constant part of Amazon lives – incorporating female coded labor with labor considered more noble/male in a way that erases distinctions. Senators and warriors spinning on the distaff as they discuss issues or wait for another training bout.

Erinna: The Distaff