Explore "She Contrasts with herself Hippolyta" by Hilda Doolittle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Can flame beget white steel -- / ah no, it could not take / within my reins its shelter; / steel must seek steel, / or hate make out of joy / a whet-stone for a sword; / sword against flint, / Theseus sought Hippolyta; / she yielded not nor broke, / sword upon stone, / from the clash leapt a spark, / Hippolytus, born of hate.
What did she think / when all her strength / was twisted for his bearing; / did it break, / even within her sheltered heart, a song, / some whispered note, / distant and faint as this: