Mirrors by Eduardo Galeano Read Free Book Online Page A

shut, back in the twelfth century, the nuns of Bingen convent on the banks of the Rhine still sang freely to the glory of paradise. Luckily for our ears, the liturgical music Abbess Hildegard created to rise on the wings of female voices has survived intact, unblemished by time.
    In her convent at Bingen and in others where she preached, Hildegard did more than make music. She was a mystic, a visionary, a poet, and a physician who studied the personality of plants and the curative powers of waters. She also worked miracles to carve out space where her nuns could be free, despite the masculine monopoly of the faith.

FORBIDDEN TO FEEL

    “Oh feminine figure! How glorious you are!”
    Hildegard of Bingen believed that “blood that stains is the blood of war, not the blood of menstruation,” and she openly invited all to celebrate the joy of being born a woman.
    In her writings on medicine and natural sciences, she dared to stand up for female pleasure in terms that were remarkable for her church and unique in the Europe of her day. Surprisingly sagacious for a puritan abbess who lived in and by strict habits, a virgin among virgins, Hildegard declared that the pleasure of love that smolders in the blood is more subtle and profound in a woman than in a man:
    “In women, it is comparable to the sun and its sweetness, which delicately warms the earth and makes it fertile.”
    A century before Hildegard, the celebrated Persian physician Avicenna included in his Canon of Medicine a more detailed description of the female orgasm, “from the moment when the flesh around her eyes begins to redden, her breath quickens, and she begins to stammer.”
    Since pleasure was man’s business, European translations of Avicenna’s works omitted that page.

AVICENNA

    “Life is measured by its intensity, not by its duration,” he said, but he lived nearly seventy years, not bad for the eleventh century.
    He was taken care of by the best doctor in Persia: himself.
    For centuries his Canon of Medicine was the work to consult in the Arab world, in Europe, and in India.
    This treatise on diseases and remedies not only collected the legacies of Hippocrates and Galen, it also drank from the springs of Greek philosophy and oriental knowledge.
    At the age of seventeen, Avicenna had already set up a clinic.
    Long after his death, he was still taking care of patients.

A FEUDAL LADY EXPLAINS HOW TO CARE FOR EARTHLY GOODS

    When it comes to sex, every churchman, from the pope in Rome to the most humble parish priest, dictates lessons on good behavior. How can they know so much about an activity they are not allowed to pursue?
    As early as 1074, Pope Gregory VII warned that only those married to the Church were worthy of practicing divine service:
    “Priests ought to escape the clutches of their wives,” he decreed.
    Soon thereafter, in 1123, the Letran Council imposed obligatory celibacy. The Catholic Church has warded off carnal temptation with a vow of chastity ever since, and it is the only enterprise run by single men in the entire religious world. The Church demands of its priests exclusive dedication, a 24/7 routine that protects the peace of their souls from conjugal strife and babies’ shrieks.
    Perhaps, who knows, the Church also wished to preserve its earthly goods, and thus placed them safely beyond the reach of women’s and children’s claims to inheritance. A trifling detail, but nevertheless it is worth recalling that at the beginning of the twelfth century the Church owned one-third of all the lands of Europe.

A FEUDAL LORD EXPLAINS HOW TO CARE FOR THE PEASANTS

    At the end of the twelfth century, Bertrand de Born, lord of Périgord, warrior and troubadour of violent verse and valiant curse, defined his peasants thus:
By reason of his species and his manners, the peasant comes below the pig. He finds moral life profoundly repugnant. If by chance he achieves great wealth, he loses all sense. So you see, his pockets must be kept