“Ptolemaea” is Ethel Cain’s twist on Dante’s divine comedy, a femme version of Ptolemy, one of the circles of hell in which traitors reside. this song delivers us to hell inch by inch, takes us apart piece by piece, limb by limb, myth by myth. it tells the fictionalized story of a man (isaiah) murdering (and later cannibalizing) his girlfriend, ethel. the subjectivities merge in and out of each other; his voice melds into hers; there is a slipperiness to narrative and time protruding through here, and we’re drowned by it, as listeners—Ptolemaea/Ethel is begging, pleading, desperate and terrified and crawling on the floor of his basement, this man she thought loved her, and she repeats “stop” over and over and over until she ruptures the narrative with what feels like the only possible action, the only means of self-possession available—a horrifying scream, gnarled and raw and cut-off—and isn’t that scream familiar, doesn’t it live and fester in the bottom of our girl-throats and girl-histories, doesn’t it sting and ache and swell, unscreamed. somehow this song distills a hurtling sensation that is embedded in girlhood, but not cis girlhood, not an essentialized experience but rather a socially constructed and imaginary-yet-enforced one.
somehow ethel is cutting through the bone of it all. down to the red parts. fear spurting forward, blood loosened from the carotid.