The Odyssey: A Stage Version Read online

  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