Gutsy Women in Besieged Fortresses

Gutsy Women in Besieged Fortresses

       By Besieg Reimer

In the Maccabees, the story is told of a powerful queen who intervened on behalf of the frightened Israeli army and slew the enemy king whose victory over the weakening city seemed inevitable. How she did it has been the subject of a great deal of interest among marginal readers of the Bible and less so among the steadfast and devout. The Israelites quaked before the huge army sprawled around the fortress walls. There were so many enemy tents that none could see the farthest reaches of this field of canvas. The Israeli women wailed and the children whined as only kids can at the doorstep of their deaths. A cat, for instance, hates going and knows it will go before it goes, even more certainly than its human counterpart does, since it has this sixth and even seventh sense. So, if you ever intend to dispose of a family pet pussy, you will find that it complains something fierce. Yet, not as irritably as a human child whose nasal screeches when peeved are enough to drive one to murder, almost. That is why W. C. Fields hated kids, not cats.

       To make a long story short, this queenly woman finally had enough of the puling and snivelling of her guard and soldiery and set out one morning to solve the matter on her own. She took with her a basket of fine foodstuffs and the best wine the Israeli nation produced. Not much of it was left in their larders, though, but she managed to find a few bottles. She dressed in her most beautiful skirts, highlighting both her youthful beauty and her modesty, she had the gatekeeper let her out of the gate at an early hour, and straightway made for the enemy camp. From the enemy sentinel she learned which was the General’s tent. When the General’s guard had made sure that she was not carrying weapons, they, with smirks, knowing what would become of her, let her in to please their bored captain. Six weeks of lying about doing nothing (even for a leader) is a long time, we all know that. Now, she set out to do her violence as well as to protect her sanctity.

       “First,” she said to her host, “before we proceed with what we both want, let us drink some wine.” She tasted first and, he, then, assured, tasted next. He loved the proffered vintage--and vintage in general. She practiced the art of seduction then that the drowsy light of wine reliably makes more inviting still, and before long he was drunk and all over her. Despite her promise to herself, she did enjoy his advances to a small degree as he undressed her, admired and tasted her breasts, and found with some clumsiness her female body’s entrance with fingers and hands. She resisted at this point, but he refused any more wine until she would let him divine her. This refusal of drink made it possible for her, without self-blame, to encourage resistingly him to proceed with the embracings. She permitted the General, with gentle coyness of remonstrance, to explore to his heart’s content, taking long and long to discover where to place his fork and find water. After much mumbling and uncertainty of location, he finally discovered the aquifer and did not hesitate to both dip in precipitate and proclaim again and again, over the sounds of the splendid callings and entreaties of his skirted partner, his convictions about the purity, fineness, softness, newness, tightness, smallness, energetic pulsation, slightness, wetness, smoothness, clarity, sweetness of taste, general loveliness, exquisite luck, wicked possibilities, and perfumance of the well and water amid its surrounding hills.   

       She stayed in the tent, with him intermittently snoring, until it was nearly morning.  Guards came in once or twice, only to find master and mistress well and game. At the right time she took the general’s sword, cut off his head, placed it in her basket. Meekly, followed by her maid—every modest woman had to be accompanied by a maid—and, with an air of blushing modesty, she walked past the guards who smiled and smirked, imagining what pleasure General had just taken, weighing their chances if they should now take some of it for themselves.

       When she returned unmolested to the her fortress gate, her officers received her with amazement, praising God and singing psalms. With trumpetry and other fanfare they showed the severed head from the walls and the luckless enemy, immediately in disarray and terror, fled, the Israelies pursuing and slaughtering till no soldier or retainer remained. A woman, a rich, gentle, spirited woman had shown the cowardly heroes what to do. Agamemnon’s wife was a woman to be dealt with, too, as was Odysseus’s. Let me briefly recount the stories. One loved her husband; the other hated hers.