I would surrender you to them
if you so desired.
I want you to have joy
and not be shipwrecked
on the shore of quiet despair
because you are not fully in your life.
So tell me, Penelope,
mistress of my senses and body,
who do you want me to bring to you
to keep your sanity and sexuality burning?
YOUNG PENELOPE: I burn for you!
I do not desire other men.
They are not even sexually desirable to me.
As pleasing as all the men you mentioned
may be to many women,
I can only think of them as my sisters.
YOUNG ULYSSES: Come and kiss me, light of my heart.
[They hold each other and kiss tenderly.]
YOUNG PENELOPE: I remember that old philosopher, Socrates,
telling me that if one is to jump
the abyss of separation,
one needs to be a dancer.
YOUNG ULYSSES: Does the abyss separate us?
YOUNG PENELOPE: No, the abyss is all around us.
Imagine if it is all around us,
then we are closer to each other
than we thought.
I sat with him under that old oak tree
for one day and one night
and all the time I wanted to warn him,
to plead with him to become a dancer.
YOUNG ULYSSES: Whatever happened to Socrates?
Did he jump into the abyss?
Did he finally seduce the forest nymphs
or did they seduce him?
Or did they consume him,
or did political man hunt him into the ground?
YOUNG PENELOPE: My poor teacher had to pay with his life
for his dance with the truth of the forest nymphs.
I learned that in order for one
to remain above the ground
one has to have mad dancing feet.
I am a dancer when my nimble feet and toes
dance on the tightrope of my life.
I am found and lost in dance,
“and there is only dance.”27
YOUNG ULYSSES: Come, my wild forest nymph,
and consume me with your dance.
What do the shepherds
say about wood nymphs?
YOUNG PENELOPE: If you are lucky enough to be sexually consumed
and burned by one,
it is said everyone will know of your ecstasy
for your feet will face backwards.
YOUNG ULYSSES: Come, my wood nymph,
and turn my feet backwards.
Let all the world laugh and say,
“There goes Ulysses!
He has been loved
by Penelope,
for his feet are taking him backwards
rather than forwards.”
Is that why you desired our bed
to be carved from a living tree?
We built our bed around this tree.
Did you need to sleep in the embrace of the tree
to feel protected and cherished,
my wood nymph?
YOUNG PENELOPE: You carved birds and the sea
so that when you are not with me,
I can still sleep and wake in our world.
I can still see what you have seen
in your journey into the sea,
into the sky, into the ground,
into the fire of all shaping and forming life.
That tree is alive.
It still breathes and moves
and whispers to me your secrets.
Did you know that in certain parts
there are trees that are
thousands of years old?
And in their deep silence they speak
to the pure heart and devoted soul.
In that carved tree
that we have made our marriage bed
I have given and received,
I have had your seed grow in me.
In that tree I have climbed
and looked into the secrets of the sky.
That tree we sleep on is from my home.
This is our shared world
and the tree will live
as long as we feed it with the seed of our love.
If ever life separates you from me,
no man will come into this room
and no man will sleep under the carvings
that you created from the language of our love.
No man will ever trick me,
making me believe that he is you,
unless he knows the intimacy of our secret.
The key to my bed is the tree.
The planning in my tapestry is the tree.
The beauty of my world is the tree.
YOUNG ULYSSES: Agape mou,
my sweet love,
my breath and life,
my blood,
if ever anyone tries to convince you
that they are me,
if ever the world parts us
and you are uncertain,
you can be sure by asking
the man who says he is me,
to describe the carvings.
Ask him about the carvings
that I have engraved to keep your dreams alive.
I have carved the forest,
the trees, the sky
and even the river pebbles for you,
my siren that seeks and finds me
in the deepest seas of my soul.
YOUNG PENELOPE: Ulysses, I can hear horses.
Many horses riding towards our world.
Can you hear them?
An army, a plague is coming our way.
YOUNG ULYSSES: My love, my joy,
let me hold you to me
before they arrive and remove me
from you and our son.
Hold me, for I sense
the hunter and the net are near.
Hold me my love.
You cannot protect me from what is mine,
but I am fox enough to protect you
and our son from what is not theirs.
You belong to no man,
not even me, my wild bird.
Look to your tapestry, your training, your tree
and there you will find me.
[The sound of horses gets louder.
They hold each other and kiss]
YOUNG PENELOPE: It is no other.
It is your past decisions and actions
that have arrived to claim you and me,
to remove you from me.
It is Agamemnon,
and the blood you spilled together
in your past and future wars.
Shall I lay out the deep red tapestries
or will I leave this gesture to his wife, Clytemnaestra?
Such a king should not step on the naked earth,
for he has soaked it with the blood of men,
cut down in their prime,
cut away from their lives,
cut away from their children.
Let him walk on the dead bodies
that have brought him here
and will take him to Troy.
YOUNG ULYSSES: What have I done?
What wolves have I killed with,
and what wolves have I brought to my den?
Kiss
me one more time.
Hold me close and put your lips to mine.
Closer, closer.
Penelope, leave now.
Leave me now to my past and future decisions
and the consequences
that they will have on our lives.
Hide our son.
Hide our son
from the darkness of this barbarian,
from this wolf
that would sacrifice his own daughter
to quench his blood thirst
and his excessive appetites.
Leave now!
[PENELOPE runs off stage.
ULYSSES closes the door of their secret chamber and the backdrop indicates a change of scene, into that of a white, barren, cold room.
He awaits Agamemnon’s entrance.]
Act III
Agamemnon
Colours of Blood
“If we could end the suffering, how we would rejoice.
The spirits brutal hoof has struck our heart
and that is what a woman has to say.
Can you accept the truth?”
(Clytemnaestra)
[The setting is outside the sacred chamber. It is a large, cold room that has a door and a window that faces the courtyard. Agamemnon is a strong, heavyset man, wearing full war armour. He has long, unkempt hair and a beard. His armour has much gold on it. He wears his sword and has some scarring on his face from the wars he has been in. His hair is dark and his eyes darker. He rarely smiles and has an air of arrogance and vanity about him. He is well trained in war, a successful politician, a successful king, a father and husband. He does not look like a monster; he actually looks human, and that is what makes him more dangerous, because one thinks they can negotiate with him and reason with him for the good of others.
ULYSSES stands looking towards the entrance, waiting for AGAMEMNON. AGAMEMNON enters. Stage lighting red.]
ULYSSES: I welcome you into my home, Agamemnon.
AGAMEMNON: My good friend, Ulysses,
what a glorious day to renew
our old alliance and friendship.
We have been through so much
together, killed so much together,
profited so much together.
We have taken so many adventures together:
you with your clever manoeuvring,
and I with the might and power
of thousands that follow us without question.
Well, if they question we brand them as traitor.
All the glory has been given to me
by others, you and the gods.
I am blessed.
In life you have to take what you want.
It is no good wishing for it
or hoping for it.
You have to take it,
either by persuasion or force.
A real man will never surrender
to obscurity and notoriety.
We both are political animals
and we both know the weakness
of common man,
the need for common man to be told what to do
and when to it.
They can’t manage without us,
and therefore they are there for us to use
as we use our horses and cattle and sheep.
Common man is there for us to exploit
and reap the rewards of our conquest of them.
Of course we practice civilised methods.
We have debates and lectures and we pretend to listen
as we portray ourselves as open
to the opinion and welfare of common man,
but to put into practise what they say
would remove us from our privilege and power.
Ulysses, you and I do not know hard labour,
nor do we follow or obey the laws
that confine and bind common man.
Therefore we harvest from their toil and sacrifices,
many things
for our elite way of life
that common man only dreams about.
ULYSSES: Agamemnon, we plan and organise methods
on how to strip the common man, the ordinary man—
the field hand,
the foot soldier,
the servant—
from his human right to live in peace,
to harvest the seeds of his labour,
to watch his family grow,
to stay home
instead of going into wars for you and me.
Profits the collective man will not see.
To die in a foreign shore
with strangers and enemies,
never to see their sons or daughters again.
AGAMEMNON: Oh dear! My friend, you have lost your senses—
this sentimentality for common man.
We make history and therefore the demands
and expectations on us are great.
What a burden I have to carry.
Don’t you see the weight upon me,
carrying all these people?
What would they do without me?
But I would gladly carry this burden
for the power and glory that my decisions bring to our nation.
No more talk about this, Ulysses.
I feel particularly good today.
The gods have blessed this mission,
although I had to offer my daughter to them
to appease them.
ULYSSES: So it is true! You have sacrificed your daughter, Iphigenia,
for this war on Troy.
AGAMEMNON: It had to be done.
I have other children.
What would you have me do—
not follow my destiny, Ulysses?
She was such a beautiful girl.
It had to be done, and I did it.
Now that takes courage.
ULYSSES: I am truly sorry.
AGAMEMNON: What are you sorry for?
Enough of this!
Let’s speak about today.
ULYSSES: Today has not unfolded
and the past is long gone and buried,
as some of our friends
and many of our enemies.
Why have you come to Ithaca?
What business do you have
among the forgotten?
I have changed, Agamemnon.
I am no longer the clever fox
that stole the eggs of future generations.
AGAMEMNON: What is this? Future generations? Eggs?
Have you been in the henhouse too long?
Or have you been under Penelope for too long?
ULYSSES: The spilling of so much blood,
it has driven me mad.
I have nightmares
and am not the man I was.
AGAMEMNON: Too much blood. Too little blood.
Does it really matter?
ULYSSES: This is the life force of a man
that we speak about
and we are pouring it into the ground
where nothing will grow for it.
And we do it
with indifference and contempt.
Have we been in so many battles
that we have become indifferent to death?
Or are we only indifferent
because it is not our death
and therefore it does not affect
our scheme and order of things?
So I ask you again:
w
hat business do you have with me?
AGAMEMNON: My good friend,
you have become philosophical and womanly
about life and our past together.
Philosophers and poets and women
are no good at making decisions about life and death.
They only talk about things after someone else
has taken action to improve things.
They do not have the lust to conquer
and keep conquering others.
Philosophers and poets and women lack the might
to cut away the life from another.
They have a problem with spilling a little human blood.
They are cowards and pathetic in life.
If we all sat around contemplating life
like that poor Socrates,
then I would insist that he drank the hemlock sooner.
Such weakness in the spirit
gives off the stench of apathy and melancholy.
What is the matter with you, Ulysses?
How else are we to take
our civilisation to other worlds?
How are we to educate these barbarians?
How are we meant to bring enlightenment to others?
How are we to liberate people from their oppressors?
Therefore we must go where others fear.
Isn’t it our responsibility,
our duty as educated and civilised Greeks,
to take our civilisation to others
who are still barbarians?
The Trojans are barbarians.
I hear King Priam still sleeps with the goats.
ULYSSES: This madness has taken a hold of me, Agamemnon,
and it is this madness that makes me reply as I do.
AGAMEMNON: What madness? This also is a weakness in man.
ULYSSES: I have become slow and cannot think as I used to.
Are you saying that we bring progress and liberation
to a group of people that we invade,
murdering their families
and stealing their land?
AGAMEMNON: What happened to my friend?
What madness has possessed you?
Don’t you remember our discussions in the past,
about our duty and responsibility
to civilise and educate so that we can bring our way of life
to these oppressed people?
I want you to come with me, my loyal friend.
You have skills that have proven useful to me in the past
and your skills will prove useful
in the spread of our civilisation to Troy.
We have fought in previous battles
and you have proven yourself clever and shrewd.
I have many men that can fight
and I can use them as fodder in battle.