The Odyssey: A Stage Version
Page 9
Know the sea well?
ODYSSEUS
Know it? Suffered it. For ten years.
EUMAEUS
You look like a turtle, poking out from that shell.
ODYSSEUS
A bitter friend said the same thing. Ten years ago.
EUMAEUS
Where’s home?
ODYSSEUS
Home? Crete, Crete.
EUMAEUS
What’s in the sack?
ODYSSEUS
Can’t you tell?
EUMAEUS
Sounds like a tinker’s fortune.
ODYSSEUS (Laughs)
Right. Crowns. Junk. You know.
(They stop.)
EUMAEUS
Look at those puddles lying like shields in the sun.
ODYSSEUS
Reflecting clouds and phantoms. Our passing travail.
EUMAEUS
Aye. Our shadows slide over them, and then we’re gone.
ODYSSEUS
The earth is still swaying.
(They move.)
EUMAEUS
Well, here we are. My hovel.
(He opens his hut door.)
ODYSSEUS
So where can I put my goods so they can be safe?
EUMAEUS
Look, I can’t guard them. I’ve too much to account for.
ODYSSEUS
How about back here? Away from the clawing surf?
EUMAEUS
Love rough, wet nights. Memories in rain and fire.
(Distant noise of SUITORS quarrelling.)
ODYSSEUS
What’s that?
EUMAEUS
Not dogs, men. Eating roasts from white-tusked boars.
ODYSSEUS
Who’re they?
EUMAEUS
Suitors.
ODYSSEUS
I’ll settle for bread and cheese.
EUMAEUS
Not them. Sucklings revolving on cracking embers.
ODYSSEUS
I’m not jealous, I’m hungry.
EUMAEUS
How far’re you from?
ODYSSEUS
White seas.
EUMAEUS
Three hundred and sixty pigs left. Won’t last the month.
ODYSSEUS
How long has that feast been raging?
EUMAEUS
Over three years.
ODYSSEUS
Must cost you a fortune to stuff everyone’s mouth.
EUMAEUS
Fortune is putting it thinly! My house is yours.
ODYSSEUS
Don’t put yourself out.
EUMAEUS
I’ve been put out already.
ODYSSEUS
Bread, cheese and this fire is fine. I’m no suitor.
EUMAEUS
She’d treat you well, even if you weren’t, my lady.
ODYSSEUS
Maybe if I were a bit younger, I’d suit her?
EUMAEUS (Laughs)
No. She’s got a husband. If he didn’t die.
ODYSSEUS
How would he treat those bores, then, your Odysseus?
EUMAEUS
Skewer their hearts on one lance and roast their livers.
ODYSSEUS
That’s a lot of hearts.
EUMAEUS
Oh, we’d cut them down to size.
ODYSSEUS
We?
EUMAEUS
We chased real boars, racing by white rivers.
(He serves, watching ODYSSEUS eat.)
ODYSSEUS
This is good. A long time since I’ve tasted such ham.
EUMAEUS
My pigs grow like wine-casks from acorns and fresh springs.
ODYSSEUS
But they eat your pigs when pigs should be eating them.
EUMAEUS (Laughs)
You remind me of him. He used to say such things.
(He pours wine.)
ODYSSEUS
Back to a broken kingdom. To brood on Troy’s fire …
EUMAEUS
Were you in that war?
ODYSSEUS
… and see Helen’s hair. I was.
EUMAEUS
For a faithless wife. Isn’t that what it was for?
ODYSSEUS
Among other things. The smoke has clouded its cause.
(Silence.)
EUMAEUS
I’d a wife, once.
ODYSSEUS
Still, the place prospers, Eumaeus.
EUMAEUS
Aye. Odd, in her absence, larks rise. Grass keeps growing.
ODYSSEUS
I’ve seen it myself. Nature’s contempt for our loss.
EUMAEUS
Sows, smiling on their sides, like barrels thick with grain.
ODYSSEUS
While his own wife pines.
EUMAEUS
And their boy, Telemachus.
ODYSSEUS
But he’s at the palace protecting his mother?
EUMAEUS
No. He fled from that pig-pen. Its screeching chaos.
ODYSSEUS
But, God, knowing all that, how could he leave her there?
EUMAEUS
Because they meant to kill him when he came of age.
ODYSSEUS
The suitors?
EUMAEUS
And now his mother must make a choice.
ODYSSEUS
Swine! Who’ll kill them?
EUMAEUS
Not you. What’s a beggar’s rage?
ODYSSEUS
But the boy is safe?
EUMAEUS
In Menelaus’ palace.
ODYSSEUS
Think it’s hopeless?
EUMAEUS
Hopeless.
ODYSSEUS
Won’t the son inherit?
EUMAEUS
No. Sea-hawks are circling to seize Telemachus.
ODYSSEUS
Listen to that wind outside, Eumaeus. You hear it?
EUMAEUS
And the fire’s raging.
ODYSSEUS
Like Troy’s. What a far cause!
EUMAEUS
A black-maned storm galloping with Troy’s wild horses.
ODYSSEUS
Wilder since the war.
EUMAEUS
God, what a man! No men left.
ODYSSEUS
You loved him?
EUMAEUS
A natural man, Odysseus.
ODYSSEUS
I know he loves you.
EUMAEUS
It’s passed. The moon’s going to lift.
ODYSSEUS
Cities crumble like clouds. Troy’s towers are no more.
EUMAEUS
Aye. The lances of wild grass march across its plain.
ODYSSEUS
The beetle climbs over its stones in its armour.
EUMAEUS
Aye.
ODYSSEUS
And crickets sing in helmets before the rain.
(Thunder passing.)
EUMAEUS
The storm’s shipping oars. I loved long oars and fighting.
ODYSSEUS
You move quite nimbly for your age, though, wouldn’t you say?
EUMAEUS
With the shanks of an egret, but its beak? Lightning.
ODYSSEUS
Mine thin like reeds now.
EUMAEUS
Well, we were great in our day.
(They laugh.)
ODYSSEUS
When next do you drive a herd up to the palace?
EUMAEUS
You mean when do I bring hogs to swine? Tomorrow.
ODYSSEUS
Take me with you.
EUMAEUS
No. It would lance your heart, that place.
ODYSSEUS
Who’d notice one more beggar in all that uproar?
EUMAEUS
True.
ODYSSEUS
You believe in the gods? In bright A
thena?
EUMAEUS
Well, at my age you’ve very little left but faith.
ODYSSEUS
In all my trials I’ve sensed but never seen her.
EUMAEUS
She pours mist into valleys. She makes the sea froth.
ODYSSEUS
I’ve lost all sense of city. Isn’t that sad?
EUMAEUS
A tight hill town. You’ll see when we bring the order.
ODYSSEUS
I passed through it once.
EUMAEUS
Walls splashed by the olive’s shade.
ODYSSEUS
Let’s hope its sunlit road remembers my shadow.
(He wraps the cloak around himself, exits, followed by EUMAEUS.)
SCENE III
ODYSSEUS curled up under a rock, asleep. Loud wind, sea, then a shaft of light, and ATHENA, radiant. The storm passes.
ODYSSEUS
He’s shot his thunderbolts. Old Zeus. Your father.
ATHENA
The cold sand is puddled. Look into your heart’s pool.
ODYSSEUS
I’d better not. I’d just cloud it with my anger.
ATHENA
Anger? At whom?
ODYSSEUS
Your thundering daddy.
ATHENA
YOU FOOL!
ODYSSEUS
See?
ATHENA
He sees! His forked lightning fingers each offence.
ODYSSEUS
Each offence? I’ve tried surviving, that’s all I’ve done.
(Pause. He paces.)
You have been my goddess and daughter, both at once.
ATHENA
And you’re to him what Telemachus is, a son!
ODYSSEUS
I’m the cause of my own wretchedness?
ATHENA
Since Troy, since …
ODYSSEUS
No! You gods who keep quarrelling like spoilt children.
ATHENA
LOOK, MORTAL! I SIDED WITH YOU, DESPITE YOUR SINS!
ODYSSEUS
What sins, dazzling Athena, marked me from men?
ATHENA
You mocked the immortal ones.
ODYSSEUS
Is that all you mean?
ATHENA
You are the first to question the constant shining!
ODYSSEUS
With good reason.
ATHENA
The first to discount each omen!
ODYSSEUS
On calm nights at sea I have seen the gods falling.
ATHENA
Mortal, if I were you, I’d start my confession.
(Silence.)
ODYSSEUS
My maddened crew butchered the oxen of the sun.
ATHENA
Why were your Greeks turned to statues, your ship a stone?
ODYSSEUS
All right! I gouged the Cyclops, son of Poseidon!
ATHENA
Why did your crew devour the sun god’s oxen?
ODYSSEUS
Corn and red wine. We had them. And then they ran out.
ATHENA
Those lyre-horned cattle were dear to Hyperion.
ODYSSEUS
Why should men starve when gods have all they can eat?
ATHENA (Laughs)
Still, you’ve done well. You’ve obeyed all my instructions.
ODYSSEUS
I gave orders, so I can take them, wise Athena.
ATHENA
Good. If your tongue slips, you bring on their destructions.
ODYSSEUS
That will be hard.
ATHENA
Now change. Act! No one has seen you.
(ATHENA fades. ODYSSEUS sits up from the dream. He paces the sand in the gale. EUMAEUS leads him. BILLY BLUE enters.)
BILLY BLUE (Sings)
Imagine the bitter ecstasy of Odysseus.
Imagine, after a hard night, coming home to your door.
Multiply that night by one week, by a month, Lord Jesus,
Multiply that month by a year, and then a score.
So you and the sunrise are climbing up your front step,
And some tree you knew looks suddenly twenty years older.
But that’s not what’s happening, that’s why the homecomer wept,
As he felt the fingers of dawn touching his shoulder.
Ain’t your house no more, your dog, your old lady, your cat,
Your son, your chair, your old coffee-cup, you’re a bum.
A doormat marked ‘Welcome’, they scrape their soles on your heart,
And you can’t do nothing about it, wouldn’t that be sump’n?
(EUMAEUS leaves ODYSSEUS.)
Twenty years, and you wind up a tramp, outside your own door.
Now, if you were that cat, tell me, brother, wouldn’t you be sore?
Wouldn’t you be sore? Come on now, brother. I would.
Man, I’d have their thighs for drumsticks, and for wine? Their blood!
SCENE IV
The palace kitchen. ODYSSEUS and BILLY BLUE as DEMODOCUS in different corners. Sound of the SUITORS.
ODYSSEUS
Do these lords ever give charity to the poor?
DEMODOCUS
They’re as tight-fisted as the roots of the olive.
ODYSSEUS
I’d like a simple answer, with no metaphor.
DEMODOCUS
Tight as crab’s arses, then. Metaphor’s how I live.
ODYSSEUS
Singing round the islands?
DEMODOCUS
Your tone is just like Troy’s.
ODYSSEUS
I have never seen Troy.
DEMODOCUS
Nor I, Mr No-man.
ODYSSEUS
I wasn’t at Troy.
DEMODOCUS
I never forget a voice.
ODYSSEUS
No?
DEMODOCUS
This wanderer spoke it, but hated poetry.
(Silence. He hisses.)
His name sounded like hissing surf. Odysseus.
ODYSSEUS
Never heard of him. I’ve heard the surf swirling, though.
DEMODOCUS
I can tell height from voices. You’re about his size.
ODYSSEUS
Really? You see Odysseus?
DEMODOCUS
Not see. I see through.
ODYSSEUS
That’s a strange dialect. What island are you from?
DEMODOCUS
A far archipelago. Blue seas. Just like yours.
ODYSSEUS
So you pick up various stories and you stitch them?
DEMODOCUS
The sea speaks the same language around the world’s shores.
ODYSSEUS
I’ve been blinded, too. By the sea’s blazing silver.
DEMODOCUS
It’s not quite the same, friend.
ODYSSEUS
I’ve put out a giant’s eye.
DEMODOCUS
So I heard.
ODYSSEUS
Yes.
DEMODOCUS
Man, you must be one mean mother.
ODYSSEUS
So’s any man in desperate straits.
DEMODOCUS
I fancy.
ODYSSEUS
Does she ever visit her kitchen?
DEMODOCUS
Rarely, friend.
ODYSSEUS
For one glimpse of her my heart might lose all reason.
DEMODOCUS
But why her, man? Is her patience now a legend?
ODYSSEUS
Because I once held such a woman. And our son.
DEMODOCUS (Sings)
There is only one thing that I can compare her to:
She is like a green pine that never sways on its hill,
Whose leaves repeat the swaying of burly water
Rooted in its cleft, not sea-grape or forked myrtle
Is as steadfast. Twenty years after Troy’s slaughter,
As a green pine will make a castle of herself
This pine will feed no man’s fire with crackling boughs
Or nestle his vows, as other branches, swallows,
But on her height, in a meadow of cold flowers,
She has weathered a siege even longer than Troy’s.
(PENELOPE enters.)
PENELOPE
Ignore this Egyptian. Blind, like all flatterers.
ODYSSEUS
It’s the truth.
PENELOPE
Maybe. But when did truth make men wise?
ODYSSEUS
May I talk with you?
PENELOPE
Our house is kind to beggars.
(She exits.)
DEMODOCUS
She’s a fine, bright soul. Her presence brightens my eyes.
ODYSSEUS
No woman’s company could lighten me like hers.
DEMODOCUS
What’s she look like?
ODYSSEUS
Wind, brightening an olive tree.
DEMODOCUS
What’s that, if it isn’t one of those metaphors?
ODYSSEUS
Right. I met her first, right?
DEMODOCUS
‘Met her first.’ That’s funny.
(Sings)
But on her height, in a meadow of cold flowers,
She has weathered a siege even longer than Troy’s.
(MELANTHO, the housemaid, Nausicaa’s double, passes, trips on ODYSSEUS, kicks him.)
MELANTHO
You nearly made me fall, you homeless parasite!
ODYSSEUS
Sorry. But, girl, have some respect for your elders.
MELANTHO
You wanted me to fall so you could see these thighs?
(She sits astride ODYSSEUS.)
Nice?
ODYSSEUS
You could be hanged for this obscene insolence.
(MELANTHO rises.)
MELANTHO
You’re going to be whipped! Who’ll hang me?
ODYSSEUS
Odysseus.
MELANTHO
Bleeeeh! (She wiggles her tongue at him.)
ODYSSEUS
Nausicaa’s mirror. Corrupted innocence.
(EURYCLEIA enters.)
EURYCLEIA
Melantho, get back inside and clear the table.
MELANTHO
No, you crooked black bitch! I’m engaged to a prince.
EURYCLEIA
Go on! That hot red mouth go bring you in trouble.
MELANTHO
And you’ll be six foot under before that happens.
(She exits.)
ODYSSEUS
This neglected marsh, this swamp and chaos of a house!
EURYCLEIA
Is years, sir, all this damned wilderness been going on!
ODYSSEUS
Where’s their master?
EURYCLEIA
Master? You mean Telemachus?
DEMODOCUS
The boy can’t control them. It’s a hundred to one.
(Two SCULLERY MAIDS pass with a small barrel of fish, barefoot, their shifts wet.)
FIRST MAID
I’m so sick of gutting fish! My arms are all scales.
(ODYSSEUS rises.)
ODYSSEUS
You’re sisters. The same white arms. I’ve seen you before.
FIRST MAID