Bits of Yarn, Calico and Velvet Scraps                                                            Page 13

When archaic memory first began to stir it was Eve

who spoke:

It was not I who began it.

Turned out into draughty caves,

hungry so often, having to work for our bread,

hearing the children whining,

I was nevertheless not unhappy.

Where Adam went I was fairly content to go.

I adapted myself to the punishment: it was my

life.

Judith Wright, 'Eve to Her Daughters'

How like her I had become! Where Adam went I

was content to go and was not unhappy. As she

herself pointed out, I was her daughter, I inherited

her own faults of character; I was submissive,

'following Adam even beyond existence... I adapted

myself to the punishment: it was life'.

There was a deeper memory, evoked by Eve's first

words: 'It was not I who began it'. She knew as

well as I that she had been badly done by, in the

collective/selective memory. One of her daughters,

Mary, was treated even more unjustly, if that is

possible. No, she was not rejected but rather

seduced into becoming perfect in submission.

'Seduced' I mean in the imagination of the 'fathers'

who caricatured her thus. When memory starts to

work it uncovers layer upon layer and arrives at

questioning not only the 'punishment' but also the

preceding 'crime'.