The Odyssey: A Stage Version

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The Odyssey: A Stage Version Page 7

by Derek Walcott

ODYSSEUS

  What?

  CIRCE

  Your spasm’s force need not bring oblivion.

  ODYSSEUS

  And my wife?

  CIRCE

  My cold lips will be Penelope’s.

  ODYSSEUS

  Ah!

  CIRCE

  We’ll re-create the gendering of your son.

  ODYSSEUS

  No ‘home’ and no mercy. The white harbour. The heat.

  (CIRCE lifts the bedsheet.)

  CIRCE

  After rough seas, rest. From this tangled linen, calm.

  ODYSSEUS

  To lie on my olive-tree bed, sun crossing its sheet.

  CIRCE

  Rest your head on the length of this ebony arm.

  (She licks his body and rolls over. They make love, then sleep. ATHENA enters as a servant. She draws a circle around their bed, sprinkling it with flour, hides. CIRCE leaps up.)

  ODYSSEUS

  What’s wrong? You just leapt out of bed like a whirlwind.

  CIRCE

  Someone was here.

  (She rises, paces, distracted.)

  ODYSSEUS

  The sheets are all soaked with your sweat.

  CIRCE

  I heard: ‘You’re a monstrous bitch. You’ll pay in the end.’

  ODYSSEUS

  Who?

  CIRCE

  A green-eyed goddess. You’re her favourite.

  ODYSSEUS

  Who was she?

  CIRCE

  She sprinkled it round this bed. White sand.

  ODYSSEUS (Tasting it)

  It’s not sand, it’s flour.

  CIRCE

  That girl crept back in here.

  ODYSSEUS

  You heard her whisper something? I didn’t hear a sound.

  CIRCE

  We’re ringed by an owl’s cold eye. Death is its centre.

  ODYSSEUS

  The forest is thick with branches where wild owls brood.

  CIRCE

  And they are her heralds. Maman de l’Eau. Athena.

  ODYSSEUS

  You’re cold as a corpse.

  CIRCE

  A vision has iced my blood.

  ODYSSEUS

  Then change my men back.

  CIRCE

  A white owl with lids of stone.

  ODYSSEUS

  So, an owl flew in. Not all owls are an omen.

  (ATHENA exits.)

  CIRCE

  She hides in a waterfall’s cascading curtain.

  ODYSSEUS

  Maybe she wants you to turn your swine back to men.

  CIRCE

  Her words kept bubbling like a pool’s cold basin.

  ODYSSEUS

  Muttering nonsense.

  CIRCE

  That you were her chosen man.

  ODYSSEUS

  What about my men?

  CIRCE

  Remorse will change them from swine.

  (She huddles in a corner, moaning.)

  ODYSSEUS

  Don’t huddle there like a little girl, please; don’t moan.

  CIRCE

  A RIVER OF FIRE, A RIVER OF LAMENTATION!

  ODYSSEUS

  Wake up! You were dreaming.

  CIRCE

  You must go down to hell.

  ODYSSEUS

  Child! Hell is the shadow of imagination.

  (Points to the window-curtain billowing.)

  CIRCE

  Look! Look at that curtain.

  ODYSSEUS

  Now it lifts like a sail.

  (CIRCE looks under a pillow for a pack of cards, spreads them, holds one up in fear.)

  CIRCE

  Let me trace your palm’s rivers. Sit; open to me.

  ODYSSEUS

  I don’t believe in that hoodoo, or in this card.

  (He shows his palm. CIRCE reads it.)

  CIRCE

  A cock to Shango or sombre Persephone.

  ODYSSEUS

  Some plumed rooster like Ajax strutting in your yard?

  (CIRCE kisses him.)

  CIRCE

  Love, in this world where my body was your compass.

  ODYSSEUS

  Where I’ve spun for twenty years without my true north.

  CIRCE

  Enter the magnetic earth through which our souls pass.

  ODYSSEUS

  Why?

  CIRCE

  Eternity’s lost. My mouth leeched to your mouth.

  (She kisses him again.)

  ODYSSEUS

  Suppose it wasn’t prophecy but a bad dream?

  CIRCE

  No.

  ODYSSEUS

  You’re trembling. Come, I’ll lift the cloud of your hair.

  CIRCE

  I saw black Acheron fuming, that stinking stream.

  ODYSSEUS

  But those who cross to its bank can go no farther.

  CIRCE

  Their faces will turn to meet yours. Enemy, friend.

  ODYSSEUS

  I shall greet the dead?

  CIRCE

  Dig this trench. Long as your arm.

  ODYSSEUS

  You’re mad!

  CIRCE

  You’ll see a blind man shawled in a black wind.

  ODYSSEUS

  I thought only pigs saw the wind. In your pig farm.

  CIRCE

  You’ll sprinkle this raw trench with wild barley and milk.

  ODYSSEUS

  Persephone’s rites. You know what my nightmare was?

  CIRCE

  What?

  ODYSSEUS

  To drown in this oblivion of scented silk.

  (He yanks off the sheets.)

  CIRCE

  Drown? Didn’t the rustle of linen please your ears?

  ODYSSEUS

  Carried far from my coast on pillows of lace-foam.

  (He tears open the pillows.)

  CIRCE

  Go home, then!

  ODYSSEUS (Barking)

  Yap, yap! Licking your feet like a dog.

  CIRCE

  Finished?

  ODYSSEUS

  Clicking your fingers. ‘Come when I say “Come!”’

  CIRCE

  But I loved you, my pet.

  ODYSSEUS

  Good. Unleash him. Your dog.

  SCENE XIII

  A yard. DRUMMERS, SHANGO DANCERS in white, with candles, a sacrificial rooster swung by the neck as a circle of chalk is drawn on the ground by PRIESTS, and ODYSSEUS, in an admiral’s uniform under his great-coat, is given a sceptre and a wooden sword, as CIRCE leads him to the centre of the chalk circle.

  CELEBRANTS (Chanting, dancing)

  Shango

  Zeus

  Who see us

  Man go

  Name Odysseus

  Go down

  Go down

  Ogun

  Erzulie

  Go down to hell

  Sprinkle water

  Erzulie

  Athena

  Maman d’l’Eau

  River Daughter

  Shango

  Zeus

  All who see us.

  CIRCE

  Your soundless sword will divide not only the air.

  SHANGO PRIEST

  Severing this world of light from one past knowing.

  CIRCE

  Where buried Persephone glides for half the year.

  SHANGO PRIEST

  Till helmets of gold crocuses shoot with the spring.

  CIRCE

  As this blade divides the world from the underworld.

  SECOND SHANGO PRIEST

  So the hairline of one breath keeps body from soul.

  CIRCE

  O world halved by absence, by Time’s exacting sword!

  SECOND SHANGO PRIEST

  While both worlds keep yearning to make each other whole.

  CIRCE

  Go, where the chosen of gods alone can enter.

  SECOND SHANGO PRIE
ST

  This crack in the heart-broken earth, here you descend.

  CIRCE

  Tell green-eyed Athena I’ll never offend her.

  ODYSSEUS

  And my crew?

  CIRCE

  Restored. Our life ends in a black wind.

  (ODYSSEUS’ eyes are wrapped in a black cloth.)

  FIRST SHANGO PRIEST

  You dig a trench. This long. (Showing an arm.)

  CIRCE

  You must wound the ground.

  ODYSSEUS

  With what?

  CIRCE

  This sword. It’ll open. A woman stands there.

  ODYSSEUS

  Who?

  CIRCE

  A phantom on a platform. An iron sound.

  (Sound of huge door opening.)

  FIRST SHANGO PRIEST

  Earth’s stomach.

  CIRCE

  A widowed phantom. Your dead mother.

  ODYSSEUS (In tears)

  You swine!

  (He swings the wooden sword.)

  CIRCE

  To see her, enter this divided stone …

  ODYSSEUS

  Why this heart-breaking vision? Why not another?

  CIRCE

  A station, echoing arches. And her, alone.

  (ODYSSEUS draws an ‘L’ on the earth. The CELEBRANTS and CIRCE withdraw. The earth opens.)

  SCENE XIV

  The Underground. ODYSSEUS removes his bandage, enters the turnstile. A machine with a mirror. Then, behind him, a woman in a coat, hat and scarf: his mother, ANTICLEA.

  ANTICLEA

  Is it running late? These days they’ve been running late.

  ODYSSEUS

  Don’t you recognize me?

  ANTICLEA

  Who are you?

  ODYSSEUS

  Mama, I’m your son.

  ANTICLEA

  Odysseus? You’re now one of our bodiless freight?

  ODYSSEUS

  No. I’m not dead. Now I pray that I will be soon.

  ANTICLEA

  Well, one’s no worse than the other.

  ODYSSEUS

  When I look in a mirror …

  ANTICLEA

  Yes?

  ODYSSEUS

  I see the skin wrinkling at my throat now; like yours.

  ANTICLEA

  If I looked in a mirror there’d be nothing there.

  ODYSSEUS

  Not the ‘you’ that I find in me over the years?

  ANTICLEA

  Is that how I smiled? Did I toss my chin like that?

  ODYSSEUS

  Every mirror echoes it. Your mannerisms.

  ANTICLEA

  Including this one? ‘Boy, I’ll give you a big clout.’

  (She pretends to strike him, smiling.)

  ODYSSEUS

  My tears multiply you as if they were prisms.

  (He weeps.)

  Why’re you here alone? Why’re you waiting around?

  ANTICLEA

  It’s my station. Under the bed of the river.

  ODYSSEUS

  How many more stations are there in the Underground?

  ANTICLEA

  You never get off. The train goes on forever.

  (BILLY BLUE, as a blind vagrant with his guitar, belongings and a stick, stops and puts out a palm.)

  BILLY BLUE

  Two coins for these white eyes, sir, and I’ll prophesy.

  ODYSSEUS

  You live here?

  BILLY BLUE

  Correct. Sleep most nights under the bridge.

  ODYSSEUS

  Homeless?

  BILLY BLUE

  No more than you, sir. So far as I see.

  ODYSSEUS

  How far’s that?

  BILLY BLUE

  The future.

  ODYSSEUS

  I doubt.

  BILLY BLUE (Shrugging)

  Your priv’lege.

  ODYSSEUS

  I’ve no money. Time has broken me at great cost.

  BILLY BLUE

  Yeah, but the word ‘home’ swirls in the caves of your ears.

  ODYSSEUS

  Grief added to my fortune the mother I lost.

  ANTICLEA

  Just give him one coin. He hustles his prophecies.

  (A train flashes past. ODYSSEUS pays BILLY BLUE. TIRESIAS enters.)

  ODYSSEUS

  My comrades screamed in the window behind the glass.

  TIRESIAS

  Right. Heard what they were saying?

  ODYSSEUS

  No. Not a sound.

  TIRESIAS

  They were the open mouths of your crew. More will pass.

  ODYSSEUS

  When do they stop?

  TIRESIAS

  Their station. Wherever they sinned.

  (ELPENOR appears on the opposite platform, in a midshipman’s uniform, with a bag, his head bandaged.)

  ODYSSEUS

  There, across these, what are these?

  TIRESIAS

  Tracks.

  ODYSSEUS

  I’ll talk to him.

  ELPENOR

  I couldn’t bear to face you. I’m sorry, Captain.

  ODYSSEUS

  Dear boy, my other son! I still haven’t reached home.

  TIRESIAS

  Wait, he’s on the other platform, it’s not your turn.

  ELPENOR

  I got drunk. I fell. The blades of the propeller.

  ODYSSEUS

  Elpenor, you precede me, but I’ll come over.

  ELPENOR

  No! No, sir, not yet. Forgive that drunken error!

  (A train arrives. ELPENOR walks quickly towards it, not turning.)

  ODYSSEUS

  Then his body swirled away from us like an oar.

  TIRESIAS

  In that alphabet of souls, Ajax to Zeus.

  ODYSSEUS

  This ‘O’ will be nothing that is Odysseus.

  ANTICLEA

  No. Your house waits beyond the foam-shouldering seas.

  TIRESIAS

  Make it two coins. Two eyes for the fate of others.

  (ODYSSEUS pays a coin. THERSITES passes.)

  ODYSSEUS

  Thersites?

  TIRESIAS

  Yes. His useless sword on one shoulder.

  ODYSSEUS

  Didn’t he find peace?

  TIRESIAS

  Too much. His true home was war.

  ODYSSEUS

  All his exploits forgotten, this rusted soldier?

  TIRESIAS

  He’ll reach for his wife from boredom and fall on her.

  (AJAX strides past, visored. THERSITES exits.)

  ODYSSEUS (Shouts)

  AJAX!

  TIRESIAS

  He will not turn or unvisor his eyes.

  ODYSSEUS

  He will, for me.

  TIRESIAS

  His gaze scorches on what it falls.

  ODYSSEUS

  Great heart, are you still sullen that you lost that prize?

  (AJAX stops, turns, lifts his visor.)

  TIRESIAS

  There.

  ODYSSEUS

  Achilles’ shield! It’s drowned!

  (AJAX turns, continues.)

  If that’s how he feels.

  (AJAX exits.)

  TIRESIAS

  Even in hell he cuts inferior shadows.

  ODYSSEUS

  He always strode as if earth were dung to his heels.

  (AGAMEMNON crosses, bleeding, in a net.)

  ODYSSEUS

  This one?

  TIRESIAS

  Towered on his mound, mourning Achilles.

  ODYSSEUS

  Agamemnon?

  TIRESIAS

  His was the saddest of their fates.

  ODYSSEUS

  God, look how he writhes in a net! Gaffed. A clubbed shark.

  ANTICLEA

  His own wife did that to him. You see how he fights?

  TIRESIAS
/>   Visions can blind you. Better to grope through the dark.

  (AGAMEMNON exits.)

  ANTICLEA

  Earth has its joys, though all those joys are above us.

  (ACHILLES runs past, helmeted, in light.)

  TIRESIAS

  Achilles, lightly leaping through asphodel fields.

  ANTICLEA

  He’s happy that his son survived war’s victories.

  TIRESIAS

  Like a stag in spring, kicking flowers from its heels.

  ODYSSEUS

  Lucky father.

  (ACHILLES exits.)

  ANTICLEA

  Don’t blame Troy on one fickle wife.

  TIRESIAS

  She was its cause, not its root. You’re under a field.

  ANTICLEA

  Where Time stalks circling with his remorseless scythe.

  TIRESIAS

  Weeding graves for generations, his sack is filled.

  ANTICLEA

  Being the determined gardener that he is.

  TIRESIAS

  With brown pods of helmets, dried ferns of warriors.

  ANTICLEA

  Flower-eyed Nausicaas and bristling Thersites.

  TIRESIAS

  Raking in those leaves that autumn held in arrears.

  ANTICLEA

  He felled me on earth, a tree with crippled branches.

  ODYSSEUS

  Couldn’t he have spared you a few extra leaves?

  ANTICLEA

  Why?

  TIRESIAS

  We don’t understand this rage of life for answers.

  ODYSSEUS

  Questions are in our nature.

  ANTICLEA

  Then end naturally.

  TIRESIAS

  Look through that tangled rigging of roots above you.

  ANTICLEA

  Through that crack of sunlight left by the sliding dirt.

  TIRESIAS

  A figure, whose sorrow is to blindly love you.

  ANTICLEA

  From dawn to the moon’s white motion. Can you still doubt?

  (Roots dangle, then a shaft of light.)

  TIRESIAS

  No. There through those roots that let in the light of earth.

  ODYSSEUS

  A woman sobbing under olive trees, alone.

  TIRESIAS

  Wait, till the leaves shift.

  ODYSSEUS

  I can’t see clearly enough.

  TIRESIAS

  Now?

  ODYSSEUS

  Unh!

  TIRESIAS

  Your wife.

  ODYSSEUS

  Each tear thuds my chest like a stone.

  ANTICLEA

  Son…

  ODYSSEUS

  How many seas before my sail slides its mast?

  TIRESIAS

  More islands, more trials.

  ODYSSEUS

  And more years. I’m still hers?

  ANTICLEA

  There isn’t a rock on your own coast more steadfast.

  ODYSSEUS

  Even though a long absence has earned her divorce?

  ANTICLEA

  Like a bridal rock she veils and unveils herself.

  TIRESIAS

  She’s still besieged like Troy by those roaring suitors.

  ANTICLEA

  She’s a rare vase, out of a cat’s reach, on its shelf.

  TIRESIAS

  One day his leaping claws could snatch her. Antinous!

 

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