The Odyssey: A Stage Version

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The Odyssey: A Stage Version Page 5

by Derek Walcott


  ALCINOUS

  The more outlandish your tales, the more they’ll please us.

  NAUSICAA

  My father loves stories, he rewards their singers.

  ODYSSEUS

  Devious Odysseus, divisive Odysseus.

  SECOND COURTIER

  Did you know him?

  ODYSSEUS

  In Troy, that’s what he was known as.

  ALCINOUS

  Troy’s wind has touched every island with its ashes.

  FIRST COURTIER

  You’ll do well singing about him, eh, Phemius?

  NAUSICAA

  You know his stories?

  ODYSSEUS

  That liar Odysseus?

  SECOND COURTIER

  Tell us his stories, stranger.

  ODYSSEUS

  In a sailor’s prose?

  THIRD COURTIER

  As blind as he is, he’ll stitch them into one song.

  FIRST COURTIER

  His lines can hum like a succession of arrows.

  SECOND COURTIER

  Or combers that crest from the shale, horizon-long.

  FIRST COURTIER

  They are like huge oars lifting, the heft of his lines.

  THIRD COURTIER

  Thudding like lances on to the heart of this earth.

  SECOND COURTIER

  He baffles augurs. He can hear the bird’s designs.

  FIRST COURTIER

  He can smell the smoke of Troy, and that’s far enough.

  ALCINOUS

  He can feel the truth. The way blind men sense the wind.

  PHEMIUS

  What lasts is what’s crooked. The devious man survives.

  ALCINOUS

  Why’d you say that, Phemius? Because you’re blind?

  PHEMIUS

  That’s the way with tears. Crooked streams join their rivers.

  ALCINOUS

  Why has it taken so long to reach your kingdom?

  NAUSICAA

  You’ve found no mercy from the sea, make this your shore.

  ODYSSEUS

  No wanderer ever had a warmer welcome.

  NAUSICAA

  Tell us his enchantments.

  ODYSSEUS

  You’ve heard of Calypso?

  LISTENERS

  Yes.

  ODYSSEUS

  Her marble arms entombed him for seven years.

  NAUSICAA

  What kind of a woman was she? I know. Soft, but stern.

  ODYSSEUS

  Odysseus couldn’t recognize Odysseus.

  NAUSICAA

  Most women who look like statues have hearts of stone.

  ODYSSEUS

  Foam girdles the waist of her island with white lace.

  FIRST COURTIER

  Nausicaa’s blushing, look.

  NAUSICAA

  I’m not. Don’t stop for me.

  ALCINOUS

  She’s Atlas’ daughter. What do they call the place?

  ODYSSEUS

  Like her dimpled white mound: the Navel of the Sea.

  ALCINOUS

  Return us to her island. Now that you’re healing.

  ODYSSEUS

  A cave’s blue entrance: alabaster, porphyry.

  NAUSICAA

  I’m sealing my eyes.

  ODYSSEUS

  Waves of light on its ceiling.

  NAUSICAA

  I hear a spring chuckling like a woman, softly.

  ALCINOUS

  You’re too young for all of this, you’ve imagined enough.

  ODYSSEUS

  No, let her learn not to exploit her innocence.

  NAUSICAA

  Two bodies tangled in linen as white as surf.

  ODYSSEUS

  O Nymph, let your freshness salt and cure all my sins!

  ALCINOUS

  Was enchantment hidden in the island itself?

  ODYSSEUS

  In her and the island. One cleft of flesh, one of stone.

  NAUSICAA

  Soon I’ll have the power to make grown men dissolve.

  ALCINOUS (To NAUSICAA)

  Girl!

  (To ODYSSEUS)

  They claim she tames fierce creatures, not men alone.

  ODYSSEUS

  Lions purr under her palm, wolves flatten their ears.

  ALCINOUS

  And those wild beasts prowled the door of light from her cave?

  ODYSSEUS

  They growled when thoughts of home clouded Odysseus.

  FIRST COURTIER

  But didn’t he find delight in her happy grave?

  ODYSSEUS

  No. He sank into a sadness no flesh could cure.

  FIRST COURTIER

  Sadness?

  ODYSSEUS

  Longing for his island. She heard him weep.

  NAUSICAA

  Even while she oiled his body and brushed his hair?

  ODYSSEUS

  Leopards with lantern-eyes guarded their sleep.

  NAUSICAA

  Now she adores a mortal. Unhappy goddess!

  ODYSSEUS

  So she helps him build a tree-raft, fastened with vines.

  NAUSICAA

  He leaves?

  ODYSSEUS

  He leaves one dawn, when clouds open their doors.

  PHEMIUS

  Our bodies long for their far shore, this raft of veins.

  ALCINOUS

  Yet he stayed there, cloud-pillowed, for seven years her guest.

  FIRST COURTIER

  How could a mere mortal break from immortal arms?

  ODYSSEUS

  Because that beach was shadowed by another’s ghost.

  FIRST COURTIER

  Whose?

  ODYSSEUS

  His wife’s. The raft is ready. That moment comes.

  (Silence.)

  ALCINOUS

  Now?

  ODYSSEUS

  The goddess offers godhead. He refuses.

  FIRST COURTIER

  He declines immortality? God! Tell us why!

  ODYSSEUS

  He longs for his own rock, too stony for horses.

  FIRST COURTIER

  Over heaven?

  ODYSSEUS

  It seemed natural. Men love, then die.

  FIRST COURTIER

  But his name, Odysseus, rivetted in stars!

  ODYSSEUS

  He prefers to kindle the lamps of his own house.

  PHEMIUS

  And that house will be the lamp by which his raft steers.

  NAUSICAA

  Monsters, more monsters! Let’s have monster stories.

  ODYSSEUS

  You beg for what he’d rather forget. Well. Monsters.

  ALCINOUS

  Tonight you’ll curl in clean linen, the shell of sleep.

  NAUSICAA

  You’ll smell rain in the earth, and when the hillsides shine

  ALCINOUS

  You’ll see purple vineyards laddering every slope.

  NAUSICAA

  Then, our marriage-cart, drawn by nodding white oxen.

  ODYSSEUS (Laughing)

  Whoa! Whoa! Not so fast! You deserve a good husband.

  NAUSICAA

  There’s a ‘but’?

  ODYSSEUS

  How’ll I explain it to my wife?

  (Laughter.)

  NAUSICAA

  Tell her you met me and were swept overboard and …

  ODYSSEUS

  That’s true.

  NAUSICAA

  Wouldn’t she be happy that I saved your life?

  ALCINOUS

  She’s a smart girl but a bit too fresh for her age.

  NAUSICAA

  Goddesses can be so vulgar! Caves made of gems!

  ALCINOUS (To PHEMIUS)

  Listen, poet, and let your eyes seal each image.

  NAUSICAA

  Remember you heard them at the Phaeacian games.

  ODYSSEUS

  Sir, the truths I will tell are too full o
f horrors.

  NAUSICAA

  We idle in the sun. We never have nightmares.

  ALCINOUS

  Let’s all move to another room to hear these stories.

  ODYSSEUS

  Some might redden the innocent shells of her ears.

  NAUSICAA

  Oh, please, please, begin your stories! You’ve a lot to gain.

  ODYSSEUS

  Then imagine an iron island. Sunless. Cold.

  NAUSICAA

  I’m shivering.

  ODYSSEUS

  The future is where we begin.

  NAUSICAA

  Is this just a dream?

  ODYSSEUS

  No. A place where dreams are killed.

  (All exit, except BILLY BLUE, still as PHEMIUS, and three COURTIERS.)

  FIRST COURTIER

  You can build a heavy-beamed poem out of this.

  SECOND COURTIER

  It will ride time to unknown archipelagoes.

  PHEMIUS

  I heard that voice at Troy. This is Odysseus.

  THIRD COURTIER

  Why lie about it? Natural cunning, I suppose.

  (They exit.)

  MARTIAL CHORUS (Off)

  To die for the eye is best, it’s the greatest glory:

  Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

  There is no I after the eye, no more history,

  Except his own, Odysseus. This was his first story:

  A sea, like lead, heavy as time’s weight in water,

  And a sullen harbour, eternally overcast.

  Not a seabird beating, a thousand years in the future,

  Time, altering the bodies where they were encased.

  SCENE VIII

  A long, grey, empty wharf. A sheep’s carcass, gutted, hanging from a pole. An oil drum rolls on, chased by the PHILOSOPHER, who rummages in the contents of the drum. ODYSSEUS, EURYLOCHUS and two SAILORS enter.

  EURYLOCHUS

  This is frightening, sir. What kind of city is this?

  FIRST SAILOR

  Like one long Sabbath, an infinite, empty wharf.

  (The PHILOSOPHER runs towards them.)

  PHILOSOPHER

  History’s repeated! A second Odysseus!

  ODYSSEUS

  Stop!

  PHILOSOPHER

  Wanderer, you’ll need advice.

  FIRST SAILOR

  Listen, buzz off!

  PHILOSOPHER

  They praised you once, Odysseus, forbidden phantom!

  ODYSSEUS

  Sir, none of my virtues is nobler than all men’s.

  PHILOSOPHER

  Well, now you hear to what quiet a country can come.

  EURYLOCHUS

  Apart from this bleating of sheep herded in pens.

  FIRST SAILOR

  Sir, everywhere there’s the sign of this giant eye!

  PHILOSOPHER

  A man becomes nothing at that Zero’s bidding.

  ODYSSEUS

  Is this the Greece that I loved? Is this my city?

  PHILOSOPHER

  Philosophy’s cradle, where Thought is forbidden.

  ODYSSEUS

  Can I see the Eye?

  PHILOSOPHER

  No, rather the Eye sees us.

  EURYLOCHUS

  The Eye’s their shepherd, and the nation are his sheep?

  PHILOSOPHER

  Return to that age of heroes, Odysseus!

  ODYSSEUS

  I’d like to see this monster. Does it ever weep?

  PHILOSOPHER

  No.

  ODYSSEUS

  And the wall?

  PHILOSOPHER

  Erected to keep us in pens.

  ODYSSEUS

  So this city is nothing but a giant cave?

  PHILOSOPHER

  With History erased, there’s just the present tense.

  ODYSSEUS

  I breach walls.

  PHILOSOPHER

  For a freedom that men dare not crave?

  (Distant sound of a parade over the roofs of the city. Sings along.)

  Listen.

  What to the eye is best, the greatest glory?

  Dulce et decorum est – to die for a lie with zest –

  Pro patria mori.

  EURYLOCHUS

  There is no art, no theatre, no circuses even?

  PHILOSOPHER

  This is the era of the grey colonels. Grey rain.

  EURYLOCHUS

  So one cold eye is all these Greeks know of heaven?

  PHILOSOPHER

  Their statues weep with grime over history’s ruin.

  ODYSSEUS

  EURYLOCHUS, SHAKE ME! WAKE ME UP FROM THIS DREAM!

  (Sound of a huge door closing.)

  EURYLOCHUS

  The cave is blocked. We can’t leave, Captain Odysseus.

  PHILOSOPHER

  The future happens. No matter how much we scream.

  (Sound of boots over cobbles, two PATROLMEN in sheepskin coats enter, carrying chains.)

  FIRST SAILOR

  The Eye has found us.

  PHILOSOPHER

  Bay! Obey! Do what it says.

  FIRST PATROLMAN

  Do not talk to this one. He has slandered the Eye.

  PHILOSOPHER

  My turn has come.

  SECOND PATROLMAN

  By the way, what is your name, sir?

  (The PHILOSOPHER is seized.)

  PHILOSOPHER

  My name is Socrates Aristotle Lucretius. Philosopher.

  (He is marched up against a wall, clubbed, then held upright.)

  FIRST PATROLMAN

  Lower your heads, you sheep! The Great Shepherd is here.

  (The door opens and the CYCLOPS slowly approaches. Sound of cheering crowds, distantly.)

  PHILOSOPHER (Recites)

  Yet I was one among many thousands in the square,

  But always too late, too far at the back to see

  The smiles of the tiny faces on the balcony.

  Those in front with the caps, braids and medals, and those at the rear

  In coats and identical hats who didn’t wave

  Like the central one, turning both profiles repeatedly

  Into a coin or a postage stamp. I had to be there

  With the roaring victims who craned or held up children

  And yelped and jumped high like dogs that you are training

  In that boxed, crammed square that felt like a mass grave

  To a drifting smell of formaldehyde or adrenaline,

  Learn what I remember, that someday it could save.

  But I swear, on my grave, now that it’s all over,

  And the square and the balcony empty, I was there, but I didn’t wave.

  (The PATROLMEN remove him.)

  Let the Greeks remember Odysseus the Brave!

  (The CYCLOPS faces ODYSSEUS.)

  CYCLOPS

  Don’t stare.

  ODYSSEUS

  Sorry.

  CYCLOPS

  What is your name?

  ODYSSEUS

  Nobody.

  CYCLOPS

  Where’re you from?

  ODYSSEUS

  Nowhere.

  CYCLOPS (Nodding)

  Where’re you going?

  ODYSSEUS

  I don’t know.

  CYCLOPS

  Nobody.

  From nowhere.

  Going where he doesn’t know.

  Normal.

  No?

  ODYSSEUS

  Yes.

  CYCLOPS

  What do you believe in?

  ODYSSEUS

  Nothing. For now.

  CYCLOPS

  Nothing?

  Not the Great Eye?

  ODYSSEUS

  Not yet.

  CYCLOPS (Laughing)

  Not yet?

  Nyet.

  Why not yet?

  ODYSSEUS

  I don’t know you.

  CYCLOPS

  I s
ee all.

  Everything.

  You believe I see all?

  ODYSSEUS

  No.

  CYCLOPS

  No?

  ODYSSEUS

  You don’t see anybody.

  CYCLOPS

  I see you.

  ODYSSEUS

  I’m Nobody.

  CYCLOPS (Laughing)

  So you said.

  ODYSSEUS

  All you see is nobody and nothing.

  CYCLOPS

  The Eye likes you.

  ODYSSEUS

  The ugliest thing is a liar. So you’re really ugly, sir.

  CYCLOPS

  Noooh?

  How ugly am I?

  (ODYSSEUS dances.)

  ODYSSEUS

  Man, you so ugly nobody would believe it.

  CYCLOPS

  Except you.

  ODYSSEUS (Black accent)

  I’m nobody, dude. You’re ugly, I believe it.

  CYCLOPS (Roaring with laughter)

  God, what accent is that? I’m going to die.

  ODYSSEUS

  Oh, you will, you will, boss.

  CYCLOPS (Weeping with laughter)

  Stop, you’re making me cry.

  ODYSSEUS

  Laughter and tears, right? Pouring from the one eye.

  CYCLOPS

  I’m exhausted. You’re funny. I’ll see you again.

  ODYSSEUS

  Not if I see you first, man.

  CYCLOPS

  You’re a killer, Nobody.

  ODYSSEUS (Laughing)

  Not as much as you, my man.

  CYCLOPS

  You’re coming to dinner.

  ODYSSEUS

  I thought I was dinner.

  (The CYCLOPS exits, roaring with laughter. EURYLOCHUS and the two SAILORS get up and join ODYSSEUS.)

  EURYLOCHUS

  What do we do now? Think, Captain Odysseus!

  FIRST SAILOR

  You must have some ideas: you’re famous for scheming.

  ODYSSEUS

  Let me think, let me think. There’s some way out of this.

  SECOND SAILOR

  They’re coming back. Oh God! Let us all be dreaming!

  (The PATROLMEN return.)

  FIRST SAILOR

  Come on, then. They need us. Don’t whimper, don’t bend.

  EURYLOCHUS

  Generations of men, like seeds flung on the wind.

  (ODYSSEUS obstructs a PATROLMAN.)

  ODYSSEUS

  Listen, the Cyclops likes me, sir, I’m his good friend.

  FIRST SAILOR

  Oh God, sir! Oh God, please, Captain.

  ODYSSEUS

  Leave him behind!

  (The SAILORS and EURYLOCHUS are removed.)

  SCENE IX

  A dinner table. Night. ODYSSEUS and the CYCLOPS eating, attended by RAM, a manservant.

  CYCLOPS

  Know what you’re eating? Your men. As good as sheep.

  (ODYSSEUS pauses, eats.)

  ODYSSEUS

  And you know what they call these drops from my eyes? Tears.

  (He stops eating.)

  CYCLOPS

  My eyes cloud when I laugh. You must teach me to weep.

  ODYSSEUS

  Well, first you must lose things you loved.

  CYCLOPS

  Then cry, like this?

  (He squeezes his eye shut.)

 

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