Penelope and Ulysses (12 page)

Your husband has seen reason

and has been healed from his madness.

The gods have given me such powers.

ULYSSES: I will come.

I will come of my free will and a full heart.

I pledge myself to this cause and this war.

I will not speak the truth to our men.

We will destroy Troy,

their language and culture.

We will make their world in our image

and everyone will have our culture by force,

our way of life.

I am happy to open the doors to hell

and Agamemnon. And I will follow

and cut down the generations of my enemy,

who have the distorted reason of hate,

the desire to obliterate other men’s lives

as if they are a plague of locusts.

Or are we the plague?

I will come with you

and I will assist you in this quest.

AGAMEMNON
:
Good thinking, Ulysses.

Nothing like a crisis to bring you back to us.

My dear Ulysses, not being in battle

has left you with a twisted depth.

I have come at the right time.

This journey will lift your spirits

and fill your coffers.

I have come at the right time.

Had I left you any longer in Ithaca

you would have followed in the footsteps of Socrates.

I mean, what was his use in life?

Death has improved him, don’t you think?

We can’t have philosophers,

poets, or anarchists

running reason and civilisation.

I have seen many men die.

I have slaughtered many men.

I have no regrets.

I have slaughtered my own daughter.

And you must coil and coil

the thread of life around and around

the throat of the unsuspecting,

and then you pull them down

and strike hard into their heart.

All the while they will feel

surprise, fear, or even betrayal.

You see, Ulysses, you could not sacrifice you son.

Therefore, I am a stronger, nobler man.

Men surrender quicker

when you betray them

with the threat of slaughtering their “pretty ones”
31

and sexually consuming their wives.

It always works. And that is why, my Ulysses,

you must never love—

wives, children, men

are there for you to use as tools,

to gain power, fame, prestige, wealth.

This is who we are and this is how we have what we have.

We certainly have not worked for it.

Have
you
?

ULYSSES: We certainly have not worked for it,

like the ox

and like the peasants in the field.

AGAMEMNON: This is how you become a collector of many men!

You break them in spirit

and you collect them

in the hunt of the night.

Coil around and around their throats

the thread of distortion and deception

and then strike!

Deep,

deep,

deeper.

Until nothing remains pulsing,

flowing, beating, moving.

We have hunting to do, Ulysses.

Bring your nets.

We have many wild creatures to catch

in the sky, in the sea

and on the soil of Troy.

Come, Ulysses, you clever fox.

Take me to the eggs of their next generations

so that I can smash all of them.

[
ULYSSES
and
AGAMEMNON
exit
.
YOUNG
PENELOPE
and
PENELOPE
start
the
chorus
.
The
tapestry
is
war
scenes
and
the
colour
is
deep
red
.]

YOUNG PENELOPE: Dear God, set me free from all the pain.

“And when I keep to my bed, soaked in dew,

And the thoughts go groping through the night,

And the good dreams that used to guard my sleep.

Not here.

Terror, is at my neck.”
32

PENELOPE: “And swooping lower, all could see,

plunging their claws into a hare, a mother

bursting with unborn young—the babies spilling

quick spurts of blood—cut off! the race just dashing into life!

Blood will have blood.

BOTH: Blood will have blood

and suffer, suffer into truth.”
33

YOUNG PENELOPE: “They are kneeling by the bodies of the dead,

embracing men and brothers,

infants over the aged loins that gave them life, and sobbing,

as the yoke constricts their last free breath,

for every dear one lost.”
34

PENELOPE: And what of Agamemnon’s men?

Ashes and urns come back.

BOTH: “Blood will have blood.

A man’s lifeblood

is dark and mortal

once it wets the earth.

What song can sing it back?”
35

YOUNG PENELOPE: War is a creature

that has the legs of many men,

the heads of a few,

and the arms of millions

that will tear man, woman, and child into pieces.

PENELOPE: War is a living creature

that feeds on human blood.

It grows in its blind rage, seeking for more human blood.

It is organised by a select few:

the keepers of culture,

the keepers of intellectual power and knowledge,

the keepers of the secrets of the beast.

BOTH: It is kept alive by many.

PENELOPE: They feed it human flesh and human blood:

the flesh and blood of both

the kindred and the stranger.

The creature of war has no voice

because its mouth is full with human flesh;

therefore, its makers and keepers

will speak in a peaceful voice

“designed to make lies sound truthful

and murder respectable.”
36

YOUNG PENELOPE: This creature called war

grows from all its devouring,

from all the loss and grief of others.

It mutates the truth within the rotting corpses

into a mass rage and grief without relief—

a blind rage and deep grief

that words can never give relief.

PENELOPE: Some doors are not meant to be opened,

and all who pass those doors

“abandon all hope.”
37

BOTH: Once we have lost

the anchor and the thread to our life

it is the animals that pity man.

[
Note:
The
Chorus
has
been
interwoven
with
sections
from
the
Chorus
from
Aeschylus’s
The Oresteia
and
Euripides’s
thoughts
on
war,
The Trojan Women
.

This
section
is
not
intended
to
glorify
war
or
to
shock
the
reader;
it
is
there
to
engender
thought
and
compassion
for
those
caught
up
in
wars
or
who
have
come
from
wars.
If
enough
of
us
realise
the
price
of
war
on
both
sides,
we
might,
as
evolved
people,
consider
not
making
war
on
our
neighbours
and
realise
that
we
all
need
to
live
on
this
planet,
and
we
all
need
to
share
its
resources
in
peace
and
humanity.
I
have
put
this
section
in
to
expose
some
of
the
horrors
of
war
and
to
cause
reflection,
connection,
compassion,
and
a
more
evolved
way
of
addressing
our
problems,
as
a
humane
world
community.
]

Act IV
Under House Arrest
 

Colours of the Sea

[
The
PENELOPE
that
we
meet
in
this
dialogue
and
scene
is
more
controlled
and
planning.
She
is
standing
by
the
shoreline,
looking
into
the
sea,
reflecting
on
her
thoughts.
]

PENELOPE: The nets of the wolf and the jackal

have been thrown over Ithaca.

The hunters, the opportunists, the thieves

and the murderers live just outside my door.

I am under house arrest.

Right across from my courtyard

they have come, presenting themselves

as cultivated men,

as educated men,

as civilised men.

While all the while I can see their plans and nets,

their claws and smiling white teeth,

the teeth of the jackal and wolf

before they tear into the soft flesh of their prey.

They wait for the bait to fall

into their foaming mouth.

Are these men, wild dogs, or wolves?

I watch them from my courtyard.

They all have become a family that works together

in secrecy and crime

for the prize: the fall of Ithaca,

the bedding and betrayal of me,

the murder of my son.

[
AGATHY:
About
thirty-five.
He
is
handsome
and
lusts
for
PENELOPE
and
her
lands.
He
is
a
brute.
AGATHY
has
a
solid
build,
the
body
of
a
warrior,
with
dark
long
hair
and
dark
eyes.
He
has
no
scarring
on
his
body,
as
he
has
not
gone
to
war,
having
led
a
privileged
and
protected
existence.
His
hands
are
thick
and
heavy,
like
his
intellect,
and
all
culture
and
the
fine
arts
are
wasted
on
him.
He
is
vain,
proud,
and
arrogant
and
cannot
detect
when
he
is
being
mocked.
He
truly
believes
that
Zeus
gave
him
birth.

PETROCULOS:
About
fifty-five.
Intellectual,
patient,
experienced
in
political
and
personal
life,
he
wants
to
achieve
domination,
not
only
of
Ithaca
but
the
whole
region.
He
accomplishes
things
through
persuasion
and
gets
others
to
do
the
physical
violence
when
required.
PETROCULOS
is
a
tall,
lean,
elderly
man
with
the
look
of
education.
He
too
has
not
gone
to
war
but
has
given
advice
on
many.
His
hair
and
beard
are
grey;
he
gives
the
impression
of
being
your
kind
grandfather
and
“sister,”
and
therefore
others
trust
him
easily.