The Haitian Trilogy: Plays

by Derek Walcott

  And in the forest, on both sides, were little people

  Born with their feet reversed, those mouse-eared elves

  The boloms, and the black coach went on,

  On the road to Guinea, it went along the road

  On the sea, and the sea was silver, when it reached

  The other side, they were all standing there,

  Boukmann, and Biassou, and Moise, who shot himself

  For discipline and example, and then the coachman

  Came down and stroked the horses, then the coach,

  And all the transparent shadows turned hard

  Or changed into a forest, then the old coachman

  Stood there between me, and something white was falling,

  First I thought it was feathers, then it was snow.

  If you have powers to see, tell ’em what it mean.

  (YETTE silent.)

  The woman must be punished. Executed. Hang her.

  The man is free.

  POMPEY

  Free? When I was ever free?

  Under you all?

  CHRISTOPHE

  You want to die with her?

  (He turns away.)

  POMPEY

  For me not to die with her, Christophe,

  Is the worse punishment that you could give me.

  (YETTE coughs.)

  YETTE

  I have one thing to say. That will be all.

  I never know I would ever find something stronger

  Than you, Ti-moune. Stronger even than us.

  Stronger and older than the love you teach me.

  To love the earth. This. Here. The Haitian earth.

  (She stamps her foot.)

  I am ready when you ready. Au voir, Ti-moune.

  CHRISTOPHE

  Come on, one of you. Help me into bed.

  (He exits.)

  YETTE (To the SOLDIER)

  Espérez. He love his country more than all of you!

  He is the sweat and salt of the earth, this man.

  And I prouder of him than if he was a king.

  (She shouts.)

  Chantez chanson nous, Ti-moune, chantez,

  Et prends courage. Chantez-lui fort, Pompey.

  Don’t beg them, Pompey. Don’t beg, you not a slave!

  (The CHORUS enters, as before. YETTE sings.)

  Haiti, Haiti, I shall love you.

  I shall join the Haitian earth.

  Suns shall set and rise above you,

  Sunset death and sunrise birth.

  (She climbs out of sight.)

  POMPEY, CHORUS, PEASANTS

  They cannot take our faith from us,

  We, who suffered many things,

  All the soldiers, guns, and drummers,

  All the emperors and kings.

  (A single drumbeat. POMPEY reenters, carrying YETTE’s body wrapped in a shroud. He shows her face.)

  POMPEY

  I have folded you up, the banner of my life.

  Ah, Yette, chérie, I took your body down

  To give enterrement in the Haitian earth.

  You will turn into grass in a high wind,

  You will have no regiments but the waving canes,

  You will be a country woman with a basket

  Walking down a red road in the high mountains.

  (He begins to dig the grave with a pitchfork, digging harder and harder. Fade-out.)

  ALSO BY DEREK WALCOTT

  POEMS

  Selected Poems

  The Gulf

  Another Life

  Sea Grapes

  The Star-Apple Kingdom

  The Fortunate Traveller

  Midsummer

  Collected Poems: 1948–1984

  The Arkansas Testament

  Omeros

  The Bounty

  Tiepolo’s Hound

  PLAYS

  Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays

  The Joker of Seville and O Babylon!

  Remembrance and Pantomime

  Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken;

  A Branch of the Blue Nile

  The Odyssey

  ESSAYS

  What the Twilight Says

  DEREK WALCOTT

  THE HAITIAN TRILOGY

  Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia in 1930. His Collected Poems: 1948–1984 was published in 1986; his subsequent works include the book-length poem Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), and, in an edition illustrated with his own paintings, Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), all published by FSG. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  19 Union Square West, New York 10003

  Copyright © 2002 by Derek Walcott

  All rights reserved

  First edition, 2002

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  CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that the plays by Derek Walcott in this book are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, the British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, and are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be obtained in writing from the author’s agent. All inquiries should be addressed to the author’s representative, Howard Rosenstone, Rosenstone/Wender, 38 East 29th Street, New York, New York 10016.

  eISBN 9781466880368

  First eBook edition: July 2014