[Insert your name here] is a...

"Camilla is a hag." (For those of you with limited memory, that is my name - or my assumed name. Psych.) Followed by "Camilla is a commoner". The self-inflicted cruelty of asking Google who I am was sparked by Facebook. If Facebook says to do something, you do it. Or don't it, depending on your stance towards social media. In which case this cruelty is news to you. I didn't do it, not for any political reason, but because who has never Googled their name before? Apart from that new village of pygmies that discovered us recently. Or more accurately, discovered a race of helicopters.

Which makes me wonder about the helicopter maker. Upon discovering the helicopter hovering above them like she was going to lay ginormous eggs, did the men defiantly waving spears at her guess the object is human-made? Or would they have to take a closer look to pull apart wires and empty fuel tanks? Or would they assume the forest (being the source of all and named Djengi) created this really big dragonfly, like the Khoisan men in The Gods Must be Crazy who only showed up everyone's lack of sophistication.

They may have Googled their names having discovered us, because no doubt they are now clothed in Hawaiian shirts and begging poverty, while the forest is being cut down at a rate of one football field a day (I assume this is big, being (still awaiting its status as a standard unit) untranslated into soccer fields).

The Camilla referred to is Parker-Bowles. Even as a child, people used to tease me with that and think they were the first ones. To adults, I laughed and made a face. To people I didn't have to be respectful to, I asked if they thought I looked like a horse. So if I were Googling her name, that would be my contribution. How terrible, I know, but I don't know her and I was scarred by the whole Charles-love-letter thing as a child so I feel justified.

It's a silly game meant to point out the silly things people ask Google, as if Google were Djeni, the creator of the helicopter. I hope. But also we're saying who we're not and (in those cases where the result is blush-worthy) who we are, in our lifelong search to chisel out our identities. (No, I'm not saying you're Michelangelo. Or a sculpture.) Just to clarify, I am not a hag. Yet. I may be a commoner, but I think Marx and Engels had a point, before they wandered down the illogically violent path of Robespierre.

Most people know what their name means, even if it is so old we no longer use the name to mean what it means in normal (or in my case any) conversation. I am neither Russian nor more than one half (going back three generations, so ok, some fraction on either side) British. My name means 'attendant at a sacrifice', suggesting it's really old, because we don't sacrifice anything except our integrities these days. I could have done worse - I'm just there holding the sacrifice down and mopping up the blood.

Although, two things occur to me: I am more disturbed by the thought of sacrificing a sheep or something, and as with Robespierre, attending these things usually puts you on list to be sacrificed. When the winds change, they don't only bring the stench of the things you have done.

At this point I must remind myself (and you, you) that I have never participated in or sanctioned blood sacrifice (except of integrity). This chisel is faulty.

My name is not a common one (score). So there is only one other cultural reference to my name, but it is (mostly) worthy of one's pride in the character of someone who isn't you. Chisel-stuff.

This Camilla is a warrior princess favoured by the gods. One of them at least. She only takes up a few lines in Virgil's Aeneid, but she is almost totally who I wish I were. Kind of. If I could stay me and be those bits of her. Without any sacrifices. Because, as I think about it, there is at least one in this part of the epic poem. To clarify, deity of the helicopter, before you award me what I wish for and whisper be careful underneath your breath, I would like to still be me, as I am now, with additional qualities from the warrior-princess, as enumerated below, in a context-appropriate way (I don't own a bow or a horse), without sacrifices, except ones of integrity, but only if sacrifices are part of the deal, which I don't want them to be.

"Woodcut illustration of Camilla and Metabus escaping into exile - Penn Provenance Project" by kladcat - Woodcut illustration of Camilla and Metabus escaping into exile

She is a tot in swaddling blankets when the commoners run her father, a king, out of town for being a tyrant. He runs like a bat out of hell with his daughter until he comes to a river that he can't cross with the little one in his arms. Instead of looking for a more rational mode of transport, he appeals to the goddess Diana, promising her his daughter if she arrives safely on the other side. Well, lands safely, because (yip) he throws her across, tied to a spear, and then follows doing doggy paddle.

She lives. (Don't try that at home; this is mythology.)

Diana was one of those multi-tasking goddesses: she liked to hunt and could talk to animals, as well as being obsessed with the moon. Camilla grew up wild and hunted a lot, so she looked impressive when she rolled into the town of Ardea to fight the Trojans: "her hair/Bound in a coronal of clasping gold/Her Lycian quiver, and her pastoral spear... and her, the maid, how fair!"

Camilla and her band of merry hunters ride into battle without fear (a healthy emotion) and she proves why: she lays half a horde of men low with bow and arrow, and then ducks back when she sees the other half are intent on revenge. She is so effective in battle that the narrator asks: "Whom first, dread maiden, did thy javelin quell?/Whom last? how many in the dust lay low?" Then he enumerates them and their bloody deaths. Let's skip the sacrifices.

Then she forgets herself. She sees a man who looks like one of the Clegan brothers from Game of Thrones and gets greedy. She spears him and taunts him as he dies. "Yet take this glory to the grave, and say/Twas I, the great Camilla, made thee die." The blood-lust has her and the taunt becomes a battlecry. Instead of striking and then retreating, she chases her prey, yelling: "Fie! shall a woman scatter you in flight?/O, slack! O, never to be stung to shame!" Granted, the horde of dead men is piling up.

One of the Trojans who escaped her spear, stalks her and stakes her. These guys were more talented than modern mafia henchmen and zombie killers, because every soldier dies on first hit. She dies and Diana despairs. Because a goddess is involved, the story doesn't end (the epic is an epic for a reason, but this sub-plot too). Diana dispatches one of her nymphs to revenge the man who killed her (for all intents and purposes) daughter. Complaining about the waste of an arrow on such a cretin, the nymph kills him. He dies quickly, because we're distracted bemoaning Camilla's fate.

This goes on for a while, so I'm making an executive decision to end the story here.

Camilla is all the things a warrior should be, with all the merits of a princess. I'll take that thanks: speed, determination, bravery, strategic skills, beauty, poise, with the patronage of a goddess. But in the midst of battle, she becomes greedy and cocky. She yells taunts that are beneath her - what does she need to prove? And why?

There's something I haven't told you yet. Why are they fighting if Camilla's father lost their kingdom yonks ago? Who are they fighting for? Camilla and her soldiers needn't have marched into battle. Ostensibly, the king of the Rutuli is a good friend of hers (platonic, if you know anything about Diana), so they are marching to his aid. He has a kazillion soldiers of his own with those of other kingdoms - she and her crew are not a host, even if you squint, even if Camilla is pretty terrifying.

She goes to battle partly because she wants to prove something but also because she has fallen in love with the bloody end of the hunt. She wants to experience the power of taking the life of a man equipped to take your own. She imagines that, as a woman, she is underestimated and proving each man otherwise is part of the thrill. And remember that she survived being thrown over a river on the back of a spear. Who wouldn't feel immortal?

Trust me, I know this all because I share her name. I signed the contract assuming her identity (but I didn't check the clause about the sacrifice). Really, I did some reading, and some of it is just me and my chisel hacking away. The line between the two is made of salt and it just started raining. I don't feel guilty for misinforming you, because isn't that what reading is about? Making something out of clues? Carving yourself out of marble? Or making a helicopter?

For years, I disliked my name, because I thought it was out-modish and staid. Learning the meaning of my name cast it in a different light: a bit mystical - for ages, I struggled to understand what 'attendant' meant: someone who simply attended, was part of the crowd, or someone who participated but was not the ringleader or the actual sacrifice. I still don't know, really. That in itself is revealing, right? But would you rather be the one watching or the one doing something? There may be a strain of Camilla in me yet - be careful what you wish for.

PS. The Aeneid is an Epic Poem, in the sense that it is part of a genre and in the sense that it is Very Long. It ranks up there in the ratio between efforts and results with Chaucer. Or Franzen's The Corrections. Choose wisely.