you were one of them,
from one of us, half-breed woven in--
hardened as a tool of war,
yet keen to have my heart.
my oppressors, free to vote,
**** and ****** on occasion--
they surround me now,
standing, coming forth in turns.
all has changed, it is the same.
i am strewn on sharpest leaves
to satisfy the needs our mothers always served--
be another mixing, nothoi bearing womb.
would you kiss me here
as you did in summer nights?
or stare unblinking at the laughs,
and lift me from the muddied earth?
will you love me equally?
will you set this pain aside
and meet me in our secret wood again?
--beyond the torches, arrive for me
a face of rage and fury wielding bronze
cut them into jets of red,
sever from your lineage
and bind us to a single fate?
alone our eyes were unafraid,
we made delight in safe, warm, dark--
sparked our love into an endless open eye
that gazes still, in bushes, roots of ease, not guilt
.
The helots, a subjugated population of ancient Sparta, "were ritually mistreated, humiliated and even slaughtered: every autumn, during the Crypteia, they could be killed by a Spartan citizen without fear of repercussion... Krypteia or crypteia (from κρυπτός / kruptós, 'hidden, secret things') was a tradition involving young Spartans, part of the regime of Spartan education."
"The Spartans used helot women to satisfy the state's human personnel needs: the '*******' (nothoi) born of Spartan fathers and helot women held an intermediary rank in Lacedaemonian society...and swelled the ranks of the citizen army. It is difficult to determine whether these births were the results of voluntary liaisons (at least on the part of the father) or part of a formal state program. Girls born of such unions, serving no military purpose, were likely abandoned at birth and left to die."
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypteia
^ J. Tregaro, "Les bâtards spartiates" ("Spartan *******"), in Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, 1993