Collection Study

Paula Rego, St Mary of Egypt, 2011

Marina Warner’s Pentimento is written in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in pencil and conte, St Mary of Egypt (2011) and tells the story of the little-known saint from fragments of reports of those who knew and remembered her. Knowing Rego’s love of storytelling and character studies, Warner has written a fictional account of a professor who has discovered Rego’s drawing and has pieced together memories of the saint gathered from a fictional fourth-century palimpsest she is researching from the city of Fustat (old Cairo).

It was inspiring to return to commune with Paula’s generous imagination, always so empathetic and alert to the ambiguities and seductions of our fallen flesh. — Marina Warner

Text by Marina Warner

Pentimento

September 1, 2023 ­­— Dr Patrizia Caraisl posted on www.sacredtoday.org:

Very excited to discover a drawing by Paula Rego of the fourth-century saint, Mary of Egypt. Around two decades after she included her in Crivelli’s Garden (l990-2), Rego re-imagines the hermit as a ripe young woman, luxuriant black hair cascading down her back, sitting, her lap spread, her face tilted upwards as if waiting, with her lion familiar rumbling beneath her. The pose partly echoes a Pietà, as if this Mary were waiting for the heavy body of her son to lie slumped across her knees. But Rego also characteristically intuits the psychosexual undercurrents in Mary’s life, for the pose also recalls Danae in Mabuse’s painting showing Zeus descending on her in a shower of gold. This Mary of Egypt is waiting for the godhead: it’s a profane annunciation.

Not much is known about her — according to legend, she was born in Alexandria in AD 344 and lived in that rich and sophisticated Mediterranean port city until around the age of sixteen when she left for Jerusalem. There she underwent some profound crisis and renounced the world for the desert where she died. A fourth-century palimpsest from Fustat (old Cairo) was recently discovered and I’ve been fortunate to work on it with my wonderful team. Hitherto our entire knowledge of Mary’s existence came from the Vita written by her contemporary, the hermit Zozimus. He can be heard in these scraps, which give startling glimpses of Mary of Egypt’s world.¹

¹ For any of you followers of this blog eager to know more, see my article `P.Caraisl, “Maria Egiziaca: Fragments of a fourth-century penitent’s Process in Sanctity (MS. Syriac 1433)”, forthcoming in Crypta, Vol CXXVI, Number 1 (January 2024)

Miriam, a neighbour: Mary never knew her parents. At least we have no record of them. Perhaps they died when she was too young to know them — or perhaps they went missing. Her nan Sophronia was her mother’s mother and she brought her up. She was a widow; she’d always been a widow, at least that is what she said. When Mary was grown, though still very young, people pitied her granny. They would exclaim, laughing in Mary’s hearing, ‘She must be a right handful!’ At this Mary would frown — half smilingly — and answer back, ‘Look at her, my Nan’s hardly an old crone limping after me and whining for me to come back and be good. Oh no! She sets the pace, and I must keep up with her.’

Gregory, a tavern keeper: Mary the Egyptian had a sweet expectant face framed by that mass of unruly dark hair that grew and grew no matter how often she took shears to it to tame it. She habitually wore a look of hope for better things, of trustfulness that whatever befell would not embitter her.

Solomon Ben Sira, a cantor: She probably started out as a qaina, one of the many qiyan, singers and dancers who work the streets and pavements of our bustling city. Mary’s granny, Sophronia might well have practised those arts in her time, too, and trained the little girl in her care to perform for pennies in the streets, outside the cafes on the harbour front.

Miriam: Sophronia went gleaning on the docks where the ships are being loaded. She’d go down with a sack thrown over her shoulder and set to picking what fell out of the huge bales as they were being carried up onto the decks by a swarm of porters and hurled into the vessel’s empty belly — a bag of grain might leave a rich drift of corn kernels, a stack of baskets might brim over with grapes. She took her little granddaughter with her as soon as the child could help her gather the scattered treasure, and later, made sure to protect her when she went with men on the harbourfront, for men like young flesh and will pay over the odds for it. Although Sophronia was still young herself. But not young enough.

Eucharia, a midwife: Sophronia gave birth to Mary’s mother when she was hardly more than a child herself, thirteen years old, and she was determined to protect little Mary from that experience and indeed from other dangers — violence, disease, parasites — as much as she could even if their way of life exposed the child day and night. ‘She knew secrets, my Nan,’ Mary would remember, ‘Women’s wisdom,’ she called it. She’d show the young girl how to soak a sponge in preparations she’d learned to make from her grandma before her and then stuff it inside her to stop…well, possible babies. The mixture smelt good, clean, and sharp — it was greeny-coloured and fresh, and Mary never suffered misfortune in all that time. Not that kind of misfortune. Her Granny was looking out for her, Mary always said. She was grateful. I too know how to ward off vermin and other ills, how to make soothing pessaries to salve the young women’s bruises. Sophronia would also keep lice from nesting in Mary’s hair. She had a magnificent mane!

Solomon: Innocence such as young Mary possessed is irresistible and somehow indestructible. There was a force in her of hope and trust and expectation and, yes, passion.

Miriam: Mary was barely fledged when her nan Sophronia died. She must have been fourteen or fifteen. In her sorrow and apprehension, the openness of her expression still conveyed she expected something marvellous to happen at every moment. It was as if she always knew she was to be granted an epiphany and she opened herself to the possibility. Yes, she was amenable and that could be misconstrued. But she wasn’t addicted to pleasure, as some evil tongues would have it. She’d discovered how to make the best of her fate.

Gregory: Many boats docking in the harbour at Alexandria were carrying a new kind of pilgrim to Jerusalem. Mary may not have intended to leave Egypt. She’d given no sign of interest in the new faith. Maybe she was caught still on board when it left the dock. Maybe another girl suggested that the pious passengers might share their food and wine in exchange for…the young women’s attentions. However it may be, I heard from customers in the tavern that our Mary had left us for Haifa on board the Santa Tecla. Or thereabouts. She never did return to Alexandria.

Clelia, a Venetian jeweller: I met Mary on board. I was travelling with Maestro Teodoro a silversmith. I was apprenticed to him, and I’d disguised myself as a lad for safety’s sake. My master and I were to do business in the Holy Land selling trinkets and amulets, as we still do here in Cairo today. Many pilgrims surrounded us in the boat. It was summer. We were sleeping on deck. The first night on board, I felt hands creeping towards me as we lay under the stars and beginning to fondle me. But finding nothing where she’d expected to coax solid flesh, she began to giggle like the little girl she was until I clapped my hand over her mouth. I whispered to her… ‘No more of this, my sweet girl. What is your name?’

And she answered, ‘Mary. They call me Mary Gip because I am Egyptian.’

We became co-conspirators. In those days Mary gave little thought to what she was doing. She was living from day to day. Yet her habitual expression of sweet expectancy — which the male pilgrims found so irresistible — wrapped her presence in an aura of reckless promise, a force that rose off her, like vapour from the ground when it has been a hot day and the night’s cool descends to meet it. Even in the days when she was wantoning, the energy that she gave off was uncanny, or so it seemed to those who knew her and kept close to her.

A witness, unidentified: It was devil’s work.

Clelia: No, no. It was uncanny, but not sinful.

Maestro Teodoro, a silversmith: Many of the pilgrims on board — men and women — enjoyed young Mary of Egypt. I warned my wife (for Clelia was soon to become my wife) that she should avoid further friendship as soon as we’d disembarked. We began the long, hot, dangerous journey to Jerusalem and left Mary behind on foot while we hired an ox cart. But soon Clelia pleaded with me to let her squeeze in beside us. I could not refuse Clelia and besides, I could feel the power in Mary. Also I pitied her.

Clelia: Once we’d passed through the Golden Gate of Jerusalem we were borne forward on the throng. Pressed together, we poured towards the church of the Holy Sepulchre. And there on the parvis, as we drew near the small, low doors of the holy place, something happened. Mary came to a halt with a strange expression on her face.

The crowd kept pushing us forward, but she was fixed to the spot and struggling for breath.

Zozimus, a hermit: A wind rushed at her, propelling her backwards, bringing her to a standstill, pushing her to retreat. It was like the power that Job felt: ‘Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face…and I heard a voice.’

Mary told me it was the epiphany she’d always anticipated. The voice was calling to her by name, she told me. ‘A fierce command,’ she said, ‘urgent and. ungainsayable, God in my ear — like a lover.’

Clelia: I tried to hold her by the arm to propel her forwards with the rest of us, but Mary fell back crying out she could go no farther. Her expression was rapt in bliss. Like a swallow who rides the magnetic currents of the sky, she’d been flying in one direction and now, her winter was over. She swerved, changed course, and began speeding to another climate.

Zosimus: That unseen force — nobody else around her felt or saw anything — was the breath of Jesus himself.

Clelia: I knew that Mary had been building towards renunciation for some time. Really, as soon as her nan died, she’d wanted to give up her life. Maybe Sophronia was still looking out for her, and it was her breath that Mary felt overwhelmed her.

Zozimus: In her state of sin, she felt she would pollute the sanctuary.

Clelia: She often remarked, before she changed her life, that she was ashamed of what she’d done or what others had done with her or to her. She felt dirty and sad, but what was strange, she also said, was that the dirt and sadness wasn’t distinct from the enjoyment.

Zozimus: Mary once said, ‘Shame was the most complicated and most interesting state we humans feel.’

A witness, unidentified: But this is the very quintessence of sin! It’s what our first parents experienced in the Garden of Eden after they’d eaten the apple. They were right to be ashamed. They covered their nakedness because they knew.

Zosimus: But Mary had insight. You can see she’d always the makings of a saint. Repentance opens the gates of paradise. Jesus said, there is more rejoicing in heaven over the lamb that is lost… Think of the Prodigal Son — the father killed the fatted calf for him, not for the son who’d stayed at home.

Witness, unidentified: You’re excusing her stubborn heart, her ineradicable wickedness. What happened when Eve gave Adam the fruit and inveigled him into tasting its forbidden delights? She was cursed…to bleed every month, to labour in agony.’

Clelia: But Mary understood that. And she found glory in her shame.’

Zosimus: From that moment at the door of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Mary of Egypt stripped herself of her possessions — and she’d indeed acquired some since she’d worked her passage on the boat. She forswore friends and playfellows and joined the band of solitaries who, like myself, have withdrawn from the world.

I met her there in the desert by chance. I like to go wandering about (not for me the life standing on top of a column). I talked a little with Mary about our chosen way of life — her lovely voice was roughened by little use. I envied her, I told her, for she was mantled to her knees in her thick pelt, which kept her warm in the bitter chill of the desert nights, whereas my hair is scant. I noticed hers was flickering with lice, a hazard of our calling. She was fond of the creatures, she told me, as she had so little other company. And besides she now counted it a worldly luxury — a sin from her past life of pleasure — to comb the creatures out of it. Underneath, she was stark naked, leathery, and shrivelled to the bone.

Later, when I found her again, she’d befriended a lioness. They would play together: the animal was as gentle with her as a dove. Strange miracle! I saw her measure her strong calloused feet and compare her long hard nails with the animal’s softer pads and sharp claws. Sometimes she rode her like a child and encouraged her to roar as if she were squashing the life out of her.

She’d given up eating and drinking. She was waiting for something more to happen. And God soon rewarded her rigours. Angels came and gave her sips of honey and water, like mother birds.

After another month had passed, I looked to find her again, but I failed until one night I came across her body lying stretched out on the parched soil under a desert moon.

She was shrunken, as light and sere as a husk the wind has dried and hollowed out. I approached her thinking to bury her and then became aware of a long shadow falling across the place, for the moon was low and bright enough as a silver sun. I was afraid, for I recognised the lioness, and I how heard her low roar. My instant thought was that perhaps the beast was intent on savaging the little meat on Mary’s corpse. But by the grace of God, she was only watching over her. The animal had always recognised that the power that emanated from Mary was holy.

Postscript

Paula Rego always spoke of the women who surrounded her when she was growing up in Portugal, remembering how they told her stories that thrilled and alarmed her, that gave her funny feelings, because they concerned sin, usually committed by a girl like herself. The world of a Catholic girlhood is alive with shivery possibilities, forbidden pleasures and transgression and Mary of Egypt is the subject of one of the most alluring of such stories.

Paula and I, when we first met, found we shared this background and many experiences, but I didn’t know she had been inspired by the story of the repentant prostitute Mary of Egypt until I was asked by the Roberts Institute of Art to respond to the drawing. It was inspiring to return to commune with Paula’s generous imagination, always so empathetic and alert to the ambiguities and seductions of our fallen flesh.

The drawing is a study for a painting, which I didn’t know until after I had written my tale, and I find the drawing more powerful and intimate, the face of the saint wonderfully enraptured while the lion grimacing underneath her adds a touch of mischievous humour.

Marina Warner
March 5, 2024