Penelope and Ulysses (14 page)

Of course I tell her

that Zeus gave birth to you.

I have explained to you

when we started to collaborate together,

that what I seek is the security of Ithaca

and the regions around it.

I am a law maker not a law breaker.

I believe in law and order,

and I am a civilised and educated man.

AGATHY: I am the only suitor worth her consideration.

PETROCULOS: I will offer her my counsel.

And here is the plan, my boy.

If she was going to choose you,

she would have done this already.

She is not going to betray the memory of Ulysses,

and I don’t even think she likes you—

no offence to your high sexual drive.

So you and I need to work together

to obtain the wealth we want,

since neither one of us

cares for her or her son.

I recommend and advise,

—and I suggest you take it in,

Son of Zeus—

that you
frighten
her a little bit—

put sexual pressure on her, but don’t rape her;

traumatise her, but don’t bruise her.

She will not reach out to any other suitors for assistance,

so we are protected.

She will come and find me, Agathy,

and she will seek my services for the safety of her son.

Of course, I will marry her but I will not bed her.

You can have her

or send her home to your family as a servant.

It will work.

When she feels threatened by you,

she will be drawn to me

for the safety and security of both herself and her son.

When she chooses me it will be

because I have told her that she can trust me

and that I will protect her and her son from all others.

AGATHY: And what do you want for your services?

PETROCULOS: I want the regions and some of Ithaca

under my orders and control.

AGATHY: You are right!

I have noticed that she heats up

when I follow her on her walks,

walks fast and tries to avoid me.

PETROCULOS: How do you know that she “heats up”?

And is the heating from the waist down

or the neck up?

AGATHY: I told you before,

I have made it my life’s work to study women.

Of course she heats neck upwards

for her cheeks become red

and her hands are clenched.

I tell you she is hiding her deep desire for me.

I understand that she is baiting me

and playing the game of the vixen.

She wants to save face by not being too eager

to have me sexually.

I have seen her shake her head

and walk fast away from me.

Are you saying this is not

sexual attraction towards me?

PETROCULOS: Well, my boy,

you’ve already done the hard work in getting her attention.

AGATHY: She . . . Quick, Petroculos! I can hear her steps!

Leave her with me

and I will show her what she is missing.

PETROCULOS: I will leave you alone with Penelope.

Remember that the other men must not know

of your physical aggression towards her.

And for heaven’s sake and for your life’s sake,

do not bruise her!

[
AGATHY
exits.
]

PETROCULOS: Yes, you fool.

Drive her into my arms.

I will have Penelope legally

and you will make sure that she trusts only me.

For I will offer her my loyalty,

my devotion and compassion, and my understanding.

And I will offer myself to her as her loving, caring friend.

I will seek to protect her son

(until we are married, at least),

and I will offer to her

the love of her father, her brother, and her sister.

In all our talks, she often refers to me

as her sister.

I will promise her to keep peace in the region,

to legally remove the suitors,

and allow her to wait for Ulysses.

She would believe that a sister

would allow her to wait for her husband.

If and when he returns,

I shall be happy for both of them.

And why should I be happy?

Because I love her in a platonic way.

She will choose me.

My age and wisdom will help me.

She will choose security and safety.

Yes, you fool!

Drive her into my arms

and then I will have you killed

for being too intimate

with my wifely sister.

[
PETROCULOS
exits
.]

Act V
The Suitors
 

Colours of the Forest

Scene 1 – The Wolf

[
AGATHY
approaches
PENELOPE
as
she
walks
towards
him
.
She
tries
to
walk
away
from
him
to
escape
into
the
forest,
but
he
steps
in
front
of
her
and
she
has
to
speak
with
him.
]

AGATHY: Penelope, I heard you in the garden

and wanted to walk with you.

PENELOPE: I like to walk alone.

AGATHY: Dear Penelope, you do not have to be alone.

Why are you tormenting yourself with this self-denial

and not being with a man who can make you happy?

I can make you happy.

Being with me will remove

this gloom and depression

that travels with you.

PENELOPE: I am not
that
depressed.

And if I suffered from this self-indulgence

I would marry one of you

so that I could torment you

and make your life a living hell.

In fact, I would marry
all
of you,

so that you all could suffer from my depression.

AGATHY: Penelope, Penelope.

My love, my dear one, my only one—

PENELOPE: Now I am feeling depressed.

AGATHY: I’m feeling excited by such talk.

Is this your foreplay?

All this and humour also!

My sweet little woman.

PENELOPE: Oh, but I was not humouring you, little man.

AGATHY: This is serious for me.

I know you like to play with my deep feelings for you,

and I will allow you some fun,

but I must talk with you.

Has anyone told you

that you are beautiful, truly beautiful?

I have been with many women,

so many that I have lost count,

but you are truly beautiful!

PENELOPE: Oh, do you really believe

after being surrounded by over a hundred suitors

that I not would hear such words from other men?

But they are empty words, to catch the fish,

to net the wild creature.

Only empty words.

AGATHY: My love, men are hunters and fishermen.

You are correct—they are baiting you.

But you must believe me when I say to you

that I have not

thought of any other woman

all the time I have been on your island.

All other women, compared to you,

look like my grandfather.

PENELOPE: Go and be with your grandfather.

AGATHY: Dear Penelope, my concern

is for you from the other men.

They are getting restless.

And for how long do you think

you will be able to call them brothers and fathers and sisters?

You need a strong man who will protect you

and send them back to their homes,

back to their mistresses.

PENELOPE: Please do not concern yourself

with my welfare and safety.

AGATHY: Does it not drive you mad

to have so many men around you and with you

and not sleep with any?

You sleep in an empty bed every night.

Where is Ulysses? Should he not have returned by now?

All the others have returned to their homes.

He has found someone else.

How can you continue to resist for so long

for a lie?

Aren’t you like other women?

Aren’t you wanting and longing?

Don’t you lust for man?

PENELOPE: I have chosen this Journey,

and I have chosen to remain

faithful and devoted

to my heart, vision, and destiny.

Ulysses is alive!

And why he is not with me

is because something or someone

is preventing his return home.

But he will return!

Until he does,

I am not afraid to be alone in my bed.

I am not afraid to be alone with my thoughts.

And I am not afraid of abandonment and betrayal.

Betrayal is here.

Betrayal is all around us.

Look around you. Look in you.

It is all around you.

As for you, Agathy, you are a common species of man.

You work in a pack, as wolves do,

to achieve your ends.

I do not trust you.

I do not lust for you.

I do not want your company.

AGATHY: Come, Penelope my love,

give up this madness.

It is not healthy for you as a woman.

You are playing with me

so that I can come over and touch you,

and you touch me.

PENELOPE: I would not touch you,

let alone play with you.

You do not understand.

It is not about sex,

it is about my mind, my heart, my spirit,

desire, passion, and vision,

my seeking, searching, longing.

My longing for Ulysses

and that he find his way home.

As for being alone, I sing to the sea,

and the sea carries the song to my husband.

The sea keeps my life afloat;

Therefore, we have an intimacy

that few would understand or want.

AGATHY: I have come at the right time in your life.

This morbid melancholy,

this foreign language that you speak,

this solitude that you live in,

it will drive you mad.

It will dry you up as a woman.

PENELOPE: You know nothing about women’s fluids,

and you are starting to make me angry.

AGATHY: My dear Penelope, to be a little wild is exciting,

but to be so unrestricted, unbridled,

and unharnessed is frightening.

You cannot live the rest of your life on the past.

I will not allow you.

PENELOPE: How can it be the past

when it prevents you from having what you want

in the present and the future?

How can it be the past

when every moment, every thought and action,

is alive and electric with the substance of Ulysses?

My lover is not of the past;

he is of the present and now

and I have the seeds of his soul and body

under my tongue and in the wilderness of my soul.

When I am surrounded by aloneness and darkness

I bite on these seeds from eternity

and I am no longer afraid or alone.

He is swimming in me.

He lives; he lives in me.

Are you so blinded

by your own ambitions and vanity

that you do not see Ulysses swimming in me?

How can that be the past?

He is in the heat of the moment,

he is in the fire of yesterday

and he is of the spark of tomorrow.

He is in front of me, preventing your claim on me.

He is behind me, preventing your betrayal of me.

He is inside me

and keeps me alive

and passionately in love.

AGATHY: When you speak like that, Penelope, you frighten me.

How will you ever settle

into a calm and domesticated relationship with me?

Let me help you and your son.

Real people do not love as you say.

These are poems from poets who make things up.

Such people have invented love

because the world is too barren and lonely for them.

They suffer from anomalies

because of the long hours and years in living alone.

I see you have been speaking

with the old men who dote on you.

I don’t know why they came here.

Maybe just to get away from family and relatives.

PENELOPE: Or demanding mistresses?

AGATHY: The old men.

Did they come here to seduce you or to nurse you?

What is it about you and older men?

The older they are, the more time you spend with them.

PENELOPE: They are impotent—or so they tell me.

What they lust for is prestige and power

rather than sexual satisfaction.

Do you think you will be saying that you are impotent

when you get to their age?

AGATHY: Never!

I suppose you are going to tell me

that one gains wisdom in life

when one can no longer light the fire of the body.

I think you are shrewd,

cunning, and clever,

and you have seduced

the only thing that still works—their minds.

PENELOPE: Well no one can accuse me

of seducing your mind.

It would mean that I would have to find it first.

AGATHY: Penelope. You do make me suffer.

But I think you enjoy the little suffering

and the little deaths that you inflict on me.

I am happy to suffer this for you,

for you will choose me in the end.

You will be pleading with me to help you.

PENELOPE: You don’t understand

that once you have experienced

this love from the absolute,

you can never be with anyone else.

To have experienced soul immortality,