416. Gratitude for Memory

I remember this:

    a maid tipped out water for their hands

from a golden pitcher into a silver bowl,

and set a polished table near at hand;

the larder mistress with her tray of loaves

and savories came, dispensing all her best.

I am looking at this:

young women from the college moving from table to table bringing cake, then ice cream, setting pink punch at the side, and water, "if you want it," bending to hear our feeble answers.

I remember that those serving maids served also their masters' beds, which, if they betrayed, brought death on them from the master, as witness the returned Odysseus's ready noose.

I am looking at women working for degrees in social work or geriatrics, getting a part-time job to help with the tuition, glad to get one that fits their ambition and their instinct to care for the weak

I am remembering where the maids who served Homer's men came from: possession by other men or upbringing in the household after their mothers' possession by other men, the transfer, the post-battle transfer, rendered, for once, from the woman's point of view, the woman bent grieving over the preceding man, feeling "the spear, prodding her back and shoulders."  You're mine now.

I am looking at women who have, or have not, at their choice, taken a lover.

I am remembering a John Manifold poem I loved for another reason, the calm Australian's acceptance of his fate as, with his platoon marching toward their troopship, he sees a girl:

She ran down the stair
A twelve-year-old darling
And laughing and calling
She tossed her bright hair;
Then silent to stare
At the men flowing past her —
There were all she could master
Adoring her there.

It's seldom I'll see
A sweeter or prettier,
I doubt we'll forget her
In two years or three,
And lucky he'll be
She takes for a lover
While we are far over
The treacherous sea.

             

She'll choose the lover.  Not be presented with one determined by her parents (recent past) or by battle (distant past).  Matter-of-factly assumed here, but not noticed until the memory takes in a larger swath of history and literature.  Women's years of being able to choose are so few, so recent!  Seeing that takes a while.  Not many are allowed enough years.