Odysseus

SCENE ONE:  HEAVEN ON MOUNT OLYMPUS

Zeus: I find it so lamentable that men should blame the gods for everything they bring upon themselves, All their afflictions come from us, we hear, and what of their own failings? Take that man, Aigisthos, who stole Agamemnon’s wife, then killed him the day he returned from Troy. And yet we gods had warned him, sent down Hermes, our most observant messenger, to say, “Don’t kill the man, don’t touch his wife, or face a reckoning with Orestes.” Friendly advice- but would Aigsthos take it? Now he is dead, as we said he would be.

Athena: O Father Zeus!

Zeus: Athena?

Athena: O Majesty, that man is in the dust he deserved- let all who act as he did die that way, But listen to me now: My own heart is broken for Odysseus, the master mind of the war, so long a castaway upon a tiny island in the running sea. Calypso, the goddess there, will not let Odysseus go. She keeps coxing him with her beguiling talk, to turn his mind from Ithaca, while his only desire is to see his homeland once again. Are you not moved by this?

Zeus: Could I forget Odysseus? It’s only Poseidon who bears the fighter an old grudge, since Odysseus poked out the eye of Cyclops, Poseidon’s son. Naturally, the god, after the blinding- mind you, he doesn’t kill the man, but only buffets him away from his home. But come now my brother’s gone to Ethiopia; let’s take up the matter of Odysseus’s return. Poseidon must relent, for being quarrelsome will get him nowhere.

Athena: O Majesty, O father of us all; if it now please you, send the way finder, Hermes, across the sea to Calypso’s island. Let him tell the nymph with the pretty braids that she must let Odysseus go.

Zeus: We shall do it

Athena: We must act soon! There is a wolf pack of suitors at Odysseus’s door harassing his wife Penelope, for her hand, destroying his house, making wantons of his maids and eating up his property. His son Telemachus can do nothing against them. I’ll go to Ithaca, stir up Telemachus, send him to the mainland, to Sparta, for the news of his father, in this way he may win his own renown about the world.

Zeus: An excellent plan. Farewell, my child.

SCENE TWO:  VISITATION

Drumming. Ithaca: the palace of Odysseus. All the suitors enter together, moving slowly. Then, as the music grows and accelerates, they disperse and begin to tear up the place. They fling chairs around, cavort with the maids, etc. Penelope and her son, Telemachus enter. Telemachus is wearing his father’s old cloak (too big for him). Penelope and Telemachus hold hands walking through the chaos of the suitors, Penelope becomes overwhelmed and runs off. Eventually the music dies away and the suitors, exhausted, grow still. The blind singer Phemios enters, Athena, carrying her long spear, comes into the doorway and looks around. She is disguised as Icmalius, a crusty old seadog.

Telemachus: Welcome stranger. Welcome to my house… I am Telemachus

Icmalius (Athena): Young man, I’ve come-

Telemachus: No please, come in and sit before you tell me why you’re here. Come this way. (Suitors make a loud disturbance) I apologize for them they have an easy life, living off the livestock of another. (He sets up two chairs as he speaks. They sit). But were do you come from? Is Ithaca new to you, or were you a guest here in the old days?

Icmalius: My name is Icmalius. You don’t remember but years back, my family and yours were friends. As for my sailing here- the tale was that Odysseus had some home: therefore I came. (Suitors make a disturbance)I see the gods delay him

Telemachus: Don’t say “delay” my friend, he’s lost; his bones are rotting somewhere now, there’s no help in hoping he’ll come back. That sun has long gone down.

Icmalus: But never in this world is Odysseus dead-

Telemachus: Sir-

Icmalus: only detained somewhere on the wide sea, upon some island, with wild islanders; savages they must be to hold him captive. Ah yes, I can see you are Odysseus’s boy- the way your head is shaped, your fine eyes, and your suspicions.

Telemachus: Yes, they say I am Odysseus’s son; but I say I wish I had instead some simple happy man for a father growing old here in his home. (Suitors make disturbance.)

Icmalius: Who are these men? They seem so arrogant! Making pigs of themselves in your father’s house.

Telemachus: They are lords of all the other islands here courting my mother; they use our house as if it were a house to plunder. My mother hates them all, but we don’t dare turn them away- we are far too outnumbered. Here is my forecast; they will destroy everything we have, as soon as they can, they will kill me and one of them will take my mother.

Icmalius: Perhaps it is well Odysseus is delayed. His heart would break to here you speak like this. I must rejoin my ship; my crew grumbles when I keep them waiting.

Telecmachus: You must get back to the sea, I know, but come and have a hot bath and rest, accept a gift.

Icmalius: Please do not delay me, for I love the seaways. (Turns suddenly and flies off. The suitors do not see but Telemachus does.)

Telemachus: A god has been my guest.

SCENE THREE:  CALYPSO

Calypso is playing solitaire. On her wrist is one end of a long rope which trails off to something out of sight. Hermes enters on a bike, ringing the handlebar bell. He is dressed like a bike messenger, with winged feet.

Calypso: Hermes! What brings you here? You hardly ever come! Come inside and say what’s on your mind, and if I can, I’ll help you. (She sits down and fetches him tea as he speaks.)

Hermes: I was sent. You think I’d come here otherwise? Who would come over all that water if someone didn’t make him? It was unending- not a single city on the way, no mortals to make sacrifices, nothing to do, but when Zeus makes up his mind…(glances up at Zeus.)

Calypso: Zeus? What does he want with me?

Hermes: He says you have some man here left over from Troy. Ten Years ago he did something to offend Poseidon and there’s been trouble ever since. Now it seems Athena wants him home and Zeus agrees. You have to let him go and give him transportation.

Calypso: What monsters you are!

Hermes: Excuse me?

Calypso: You gods who live up in the sky! You can’t bear to see a goddess sleeping with a man, even if she lives in the middle of the ocean and has no one else for company. You’re pretty slick yourselves with earthy girls, but when it comes to us-!

Hermes: [glancing up at Zeus] Calypso-

Calypso: So now you grudge me, too, my mortal friend. But it was I who saved him—when all his troops were lost, his good companions – the wind and current washed him here to me. I fed him, loved him, and sang that he should not die nor grow old, ever, in all the days to come. But know there is no eluding Zeus’s will if he insists.

Hermes: He does insist.

Calypso: but surely I cannot “send” him. I have no long-oared ships, no company

to pull him on the broad back of the sea. I live alone

Hermes: He is to build his own ship, and you’re to help.

Calypso: All right, I’ll let him go. I’ll help him build his ship. Go on, get out of here.

You’ve given me my message. Go on!

Hermes: send him off at once, Calypso. And show more glace in your obedience, or one

day we might get annoyed and punish you. [exits]

Calypso: Farewell, winged giant-slayer!

            [Odysseus is revealed at the other end of Calypso’s rope. He is sitting with the

            rope around his neck, his back to us, staring at the sea]

Calypso: Unhappy friend, come here

Odysseus: Calypso, please.

Calypso: It’s not for that Odysseus. I don’t want anything from you. Odysseus, your

unhappiness has just ended. You’re going home.

Odysseus: Don’t tease me, sweet Calypso.

Calypso: You’re going home. No need to grieve, no need to feel your life consumed here.

I have pondered it and I shall help you go.  Come and cut down high timber for a

raft so you can ride her on the misty sea.  Come I’ll help you—

Odysseus: After all these years,

            A helping hand? O goddess, what guile is hidden here?

            A raft you say to cross the Western Ocean

            Rough waters and unknown? Seaworthy ships

            That glory in god’s wind will never cross it.

            I take no raft you grudge me out to sea.

            Or yield me first a great oath, if I do,

            To work no more enchantment to my harm.

Calypso: What dog you are to think of such a thing!

            Come Odysseus, my heart is not a piece of stone.

[Calypso removes rope from around Odysseus’s neck. He begins to build his boat from bamboo poles and Calypso’s dog gets underfoot. Odysseus is intent on his task.]

For seventeen nights and days Odysseus

sailed to open sea without incident.

But on the eighteenth, the dark shoreline

of Phaecia appeared. Poseidon, storming home

over the mountains of Asia with his thunderclouds,

saw him. Grew sullen and said

Poseidon: here’s a pretty cruise! So I only had to

            Go to Ethiopia for the gods to change their

minds about that man. Still, I can give him

a rough ride in, and will.

Calypso: The sky began to darken.

            And it began to rain.

[Calypso exits, drummers drum. Poseidon attacks Odysseus tearing his boat apart and tossing him about. Athena pulls Odysseus away and fends off Poseidon. Drumming slows and diminishes.]

Poseidon: Always in trouble, all over the seas, wherever you go, Odysseus!

[he exits. Drumming remains]

Athena: Sleep well, Odysseus. You are safe ashore.

           

SCENE FOUR: THE LAND OF THE PHAECIANS

Odysseus: [awakening] Alas! What country have I come to now?

            And what is this shrill echo on my ears as if some girls were shrieking?

[Athena intercepts the ball being tossed by women at play and drops it near Odysseus. Nausicaa follows and sees Odysseus half drowned.   ALCINOUS the King narrates from the side.)

Alcinous: The two of them both thought,

Nausica and Odysseus: Human or divine?

Alcinious: Odysseus seemed somewhat

Nausica: Like a god

Alcinious: But also like 

Nausica: a drowned cat.

Odysseus: Mistress, please, are you a goddess or a girl?

            If you’re a goddess, you must be Artemis—

            You have such grace in playing. But if you are a girl

            How blessed your father and your gentle mother,

            How lucky your brothers. How their eyes

            Must brim with tears each time they see

            Their wondrous child go dancing!

            I’ve been on the sea for nineteen days, and yet—

Nausica: Hush stranger! It’s clear to me you have no evil in you.

            You’ve come to the land of the Phaecians,

            And I, myself, am Nausica, daughter of our king Alcinous.

            While you’re here, of course, we’ll give you everything.

Alcinous: And so Odysseus goes with the laundry and the wagon

And the girls toward the Phaecian city.

SCENE FIVE: PHAECIA: THE CITY AND THE GAMES

[All Phaecians Sit in their great hall playing games. Alcinous and queen Arête, sit in thrones. Odysseus Appears and is shoved forth by Athena before them, abruptly stopping the music]

Odysseus: Great Queen, here is a man bruised by adversity

            Thrown upon your mercy and the kings, your husband’s,

            Begging indulgence of this company.

            Grant me passage to my fatherland.

Alcinous: My friends, how lucky we are.  The gods have blessed us

            With a guest, to entertain and to serve—

            Who knows? Perhaps he is a god himself.

Odysseus: Alcinous, you may set your mind at rest. A most

            Unlikely god am I, being all earth and mortal nature.

Odysseus [recorded voice over]: what shall I

            Say first? What shall I keep until the end?

            The gods have tried me in a thousand ways.

            I am Laertes’ son, Odysseus.

            My home is on the peaked seamark of Ithaca,

            A rocky isle, but a good boy’s training;

            I shall not see on earth a place more dear,

            Though I have been detained in the smooth caves

            Of Calypso, and in the halls of Circe the Enchantress

            Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass

            His own home and parents? In far lands

            He shall not, though he find a house of gold.  But what of my sailing after Troy?

           

[As he speaks the Muse crosses unseen to Odysseus and embraces him. Phaecians, Athena and the Muse disappear one by one. They embody the fragmentary scenes that Odysseus Describes before melting away]

The wind that carried west from Ilion

Brought me to Ismaros, on the far shore

A strongpoint on the coast of the Cicones.

I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.

Plunder we took, equal shares to all—

But on the spot I told them: “Back and quickly!

Out to sea, again!” My men were mutinous,      

Fools, on the stones of wine. Sheep after sheep

They butchered by the surf

And kept on feasting—while fugitives

Went inland, calling to arms the main force of Cicones. 

We made a fight of it,

We backed on the ships, holding our beach,

Although so far outnumbered,

But one by one we gave way.

Six benches were left empty in every ship

That evening when we pulled away from death.

And this new grief we bore with us to sea;

Our precious lives we had, but not our friends.

[Odysseus is alone. Silence]

We put up our masts and let the breeze take over,

But as we came around to Malea, the current took us out to sea.

Nine days we drifted. Upon the tenth, we came to

The land of the Lotus Eaters—

[music]

men who drowse all day

upon that flower. They have no will to do a person harm,

but those who taste this honeyed plant will forget

mother, child, and home and wish to stay forever

in the pleasure of the flower. Not knowing this, I

sent my men to explore, and soon enough, they

fell in love with Lotus Eaters.

 [lotus eaters ENTER,  dance and play about, Odysseus’s sailors are one by one seduced. He manages to pry his shipmates from the arms of the lotus eaters and go back to the ship]

Odysseus: I drove these men, wailing, back to the ships,

            And called out to the rest: “all hands on board;

            Come clear the beach!”

            Filing in to their places by the rowlocks,

            My oarsmen dipped their long oars in the surf,  

            And we moved out again.

SCENE SIX: CYCLOPS

Odysseus: [joins his sailors on his ship] After three days’ hard rowing

            It seemed we had drifted into a cloud upon the sea.

            We could barely see our own bows in the dense fog around us

            No lookout, nobody saw the island dead ahead;

            We found ourselves in shallows, keels grazing shore.

            [sailors disembark, turn chairs over and sleep against them]

            we disembarked where the low ripples broke,

            not knowing then that we had reached the land of Cyclops.

            [music ends]

Sailor: Captain, the men are asleep. I—

Odysseus: I’ll take first watch. Now Cyclops

            Are giants, louts without a law to bless them.

            They neither plow nor sow by hand,

            They have no meetings, no consultation,

            They dwell alone in lonely cave. And each one

            Has but one great eye in the middle of his forehead.

            I did not know this then.

            [Dawn, sailors stir]

            Old shipmates, friends,

            Lets explore this land. Find out who the natives are—

            For they may be wild savages, and lawless, or hospitable

            And god-fearing men. Bring wine for an offering.

Athena: [in the heavens above]

            Odysseus gave this last command because

            In his bones he knew some towering brute

            Would be upon them soon—all outward power,

            A wild man, ignorant of civility.

[Odysseus and sailors approach the cave of Cyclops, sheep are in a pen]

Odysseus: We climbed a Cliffside and crept inside a cave. My men were uneasy.

Sailor: Captain, let’s take these cheeses down to the ship, then if there’s time before the owner returns, let’s steal the sheep. If not, then let’s straightaway make for the open salt water.

Odysseus: No, I wish to meet the owner of this cave. It’s clear he’s a Shepard out tending his flocks.

[Cyclops appears upstage, behind him. Sailors see him and hear his approaching thunderous steps]

Odysseus: I have hopes, men, that we might collect some friendly gifts from him. The gods will smile on us, and … men? Men?

Cyclops: (bellowing) Strangers, who are you? What are you doing in my home? Are you wondering rogues, who cast your lives like dice and ravage other folk by sea?

Odysseus: We are Acheans, homeward bound from Troy. Sir, do not harm us! Zeus will avenge the unoffending guest.

Cyclops: Little man, you must come from the other end of nowhere, telling me to mind the gods. We Cyclops are stronger than gods. Who cares for them? But tell me, where was it, now, that you have moored your ship? Around the point, or down the shore, I wonder?

Odysseus: My Ship? Poseidon broke it up on the rocks at your land’s end. We are survivors these good men, and I.

Cyclops: Come here, why don’t you, so I might take a closer look?

[Two foolish sailors approach]

Odysseus: Don’t go. Stay back! Stay back!

Other sailors: No do as he says! Do as he says!

[Cyclops grabs the two, tears them to pieces, ad devours them]

Cyclops: that was good. You Acheans make a fine meal.

Odysseus: With that, the Cyclops drew a boulder in front of the cave’s mouth and fell asleep.

Sailor: Odysseus! Now’s our chance! Take your spear and stab him!

Odysseus: Don’t you understand? If we kill him now, we’ll never leave this cave. All of us together can never push that boulder aside.

Athena: All that night, he prayed to Athena to grant him some idea. In the morning, the Cyclops stirred, grabbed two more men for breakfast, and departed with his sheep, rolling the boulder back in place.

[Cyclops exits]

Sailor: Odysseus! Do Something!

Odysseus: Men, take this olive branch and scrape it down. Cut off a six-foot section and make a stake with a pointed end.

Athena: All day long they held the stake in the fire’s heart and turned it toughening it, then hid it, well back in the cavern, under one of the dung piles in profusion there. At evening came the shepherd with his woolly folk.

[Cyclops enters, blocks the cave with a boulder, and sits to milk his sheep]

Odysseus: Cyclops, try some wine. Here’s liquor to wash down your scraps of men. Taste it, and see the kind of drink we carry under our planks. I meant it for an offering if you would help us home.

Cyclops: give me another, thank you kindly. Tell me, how are you called? I’ll make a gift will please you.

Odysseus: Cyclops, you ask my honorable name? Remember the gift you promised me, and I shall tell you. My name is Nobody; my mother, father, and friends, everyone calls me Nobody.

[The sailors concur repeating “Nobody”]

Cyclops: Nobody, here’s your gift; I’ll eat you last after all your friends.

[Cyclops laughs then passes out]

Odysseus: Men, this is our chance. May the gods help us!

Athena: Forward they sprinted, lifted the olive branch, and rammed it deep in his crater eye, Eyelid and lash were seared; the pierced ball hissed; and the roots popped.

Cyclops: Cyclops! Cyclops! Help me! Help!

[Other Cyclops come]

First neighboring Cyclops: What ails you Polyphemos? Why, do you cry so sore in the starry night, depriving us of sleep?

Second neighboring Cyclops: Is a robber stealing away your sheep, is somebody trying to kill you or ruin you?

Cyclops: Nobody! Nobody’s tricked me! Nobody’s ruined me!

First Neighboring Cyclops: Ah well, if nobody has played you foul there in your lonely bed, you must be sick.

Cyclops: But Nobody-!

Second Neighboring Cyclops: Sickness comes from Zeus and can’t be helped.

First Neighboring Cyclops: Pray to your father, Poseidon

[Other Cyclops depart. Odysseus laughs}

 Athena: Odysseus was filled with laughter to see how like a charm the trick had worked.

[Cyclops blocks the entrance to the cave with his body]

Sailor one: what now Odysseus? We can’t run past him!

Sailor two: We’re finished! Odysseus!

Odysseus: What? You think that idiot can defeat me? I have another trick. Death sits there huge, but my wits are greater.

Athena: Odysseus took the woolly sheep from their pens and tied them together in groups of three. Then underneath each group he secured a man.

Cyclops: Poor sheep, it’s time for you to go; go on- out to the lush green pastures.

Athena: blinded, sick with pain, the master stroked each fleecy back, then let it pass, he never felt the men below, their fingers twirled deep in sheepskin ringlets for an iron grip.

[All the sailors have escaped}

Odysseus: last of all my ram, the leader, came weighed by wool and me with my meditations.

Cyclops (gently): Sweet cousin ram, why lag behind the rest in the night cave? You never linger so, but graze before them all, and go afar to crop sweet grass and take your stately way leading along the streams, until at evening you run to be the first one in the fold. Why now so far behind? Can you be grieving over your master’s eye? The carrion rouge and his accursed companions burned it out when he had conquered all my wits with wine.  Nobody will not get out alive, I swear. (Rage grows) Oh had you brain and voice to tell where he may be now dodging all my fury! Bashed by this hand and bashed on this rock wall his brains would strew across the floor, for the outrage Nobody worked on me!

[Ram passes with Odysseus]

Odysseus: We took Cyclops’s precious sheep and ran down to the shore.

[Drumming. They run to the ship and begin to row furiously. Athena comes down and places a little boat in front of the blinded Cyclops and pulls it slowly away from him on a string]

Odysseus: We loaded up the ships and set sail. I shouted to my adversary; O Cyclops! Would you feast on my companions?

Cyclops: (blindly lunging at the little boat) Nobody?

Odysseus: Puny am I, in a caveman’s hands?

Sailor One: God sake, Captain! Why bait the beast again? Let him alone!

Cyclops: Nobody? Nobody!

[Cyclops gropes at the boulder.]

Odysseus: How do you like what we’ve done to you?

Sailor two: Captain!

Odysseus: You damned cannibal!

Sailor three: You’re giving him bearing with your shouting!

Sailor four: He’ll smash our timbers and our heads together!

Odysseus: But in my glorying spirit, I would not heed them. I let my anger flare and yelled: “Cyclops! If ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him Odysseus, raider of cities, you took your eye: Laertes’ son, who lives on Ithaca.

[Cyclops stops with boulder above his head]

Cyclops: Odysseus? It was foretold to me that one day I would lose my great eye at Odysseus’s hands. I had in mind some giant, armed in giant force. But this, but you- small pitiful, and twiggy-

[He drops to the ground and struggles towards the little boat. Athena pulls it safely out of reach]

Cyclops: come back Odysseus and I’ll treat you well, praying to Poseidon to treat you well. I am his son. He may heal me of this wound.

Odysseus: If I could take your life I would and take your time away and hurl you down to hell. Poseidon could not heal you there!

[Poseidon enters upstage and praying to the sky]

Cyclops: (kneeling and praying to the sky) Oh hear me, Father, Lord Poseidon, grant that Odysseus never see his home! Should destiny intend he see his roof again, far be that day and dark the years between.  Let him lose all companions and return under strange sail to bitter days at home. (Drumming and rowing stop.)

Odysseus: In these words he prayed.

Poseidon and Odysseus: and the god heard him

SCENE SEVEN:  AEOLUS

Odysseus: After a hard day’s rowing, we made our next land fall on the floating island of Aeolia, domain of Aeolus Hippotades, king of the winds both mild and violent.

[Aeolus enters with his family, the sailors disembark and the boat disappears]

Odysseus: Now I must tell you, this king has twelve children- six daughters and six lusty sons- and he gave girls to boys to be their gentle brides. Here we put in, while Aeolus played host to me. He kept me one full month to hear the tale of Troy. When it was time for us to leave, I asked for his help.

Aeolus: Odysseus, in exchange for all your tale of Troy we’ll stint at nothing. We’ll give you provisions, and here-

[A servant enters with a giant bag.]

Aeolus: here are all our boisterous storm winds sewn up in a bag. Wedge it under your afterdeck, secure it with burnished wire to prevent the slightest leakage, and you shall have fair passage home.

[A boat with four Sailors appears. Odysseus boards. Aeolus turns his back but remains onstage. His family leaves.]

Odysseus: Then he called up a breeze from the west to send us on our way. For nine days we sailed without incident, I manned the till alone, and on the tenth-

Sailor: Ithaca!

Odysseus: Ithaca, our homeland, came in sight. Men, I find I’m weary to the bone, bring the ship…on…home.

[He falls asleep.]

Sailors [variously]: Sleep well, Odysseus. Yes, Odysseus. Don’t worry.

[Things grow quiet. During the following, Athena enters and walks slowly across the stage, upstage of the Sailors, carrying a small boat before her in her hands. The Sailors row in silence for a while.]

Sailor One [casually]: What do you suppose is in the bag?

Sailor Two: Presents from Aeolus. Silver, I think. And gold.

Sailor Three: It never fails. He’s welcomed everywhere: Hail to the captain, have some gifts.

[They row in silence.]

Sailor Four: What did you all get from Troy?

Sailor One: Nothing.

Sailor Three: Nothing.

Sailor Two: I got this.

[He holds up a little souvenir from Troy. Nothing much. The Sailors stop rowing for a moment to look, then begin to row again in silence.]

Sailor One: Odysseus got a lot at Troy.

Sailor Four: Well, he is the captain.

Sailor One: True.

[They row.]

Sailor Three [suddenly]: Let’s see what’s in the bag.

[They dash to the back of the boat and open the bag of winds.]

Sailor One: I can’t see anyth-

[An enormous storm comes up. The little ship flies out of Athena’s hands. The chairs topple; the Sailors roll around. Ithaca disappears from view.]

Sailors: Ithaca!

Odysseus [waking]: Men! What have you done!

Sailors: Ithaca! Ithaca!

Odysseus: Every wind roared into hurricane; the ships went pitching west; our land was lost. The rough gale blew the ships and rueful crews clear back to Aeolia.

[The boat is reassembled. The Sailors are embarrassed.]

Aeolus: Why back again, Odysseus? What sea fiend rose in your path? Didn’t we launch you well for home, or whatever land you chose?

Odysseus: It was my rascally crew, and a fatal nap. Make good my loss, dear friend!

[Aeolus is suddenly, irrationally furious. He storms.]

Aeolus: Get out of here! The world holds no more creeping thing than you, Odysseus! Out! Your voyage is cursed by heaven!

Odysseus: He drove me from the place, groan as I would, and comfortless we went again to sea, no breeze to help us on our way; six indistinguishable days and nights. At last we made landfall on the island of Aiaia.

SCENE EIGHT: CIRCE

Odysseus: some god must have guided us in, for we came into a cove without a sound. I climbed a rocky point and saw a wisp of smoke woodland hall. I sent half of my men off to explore, but late that day only one returned.

[Eurylochus runs on terrified]

Eurylochus: Odysseus, glory of commanders, our friends are lost- are gone!

Odysseus: Speak Eurylochus, what happened?

[As Eurylochus speaks, sailors enter upstage and approach Circe’s palace, there are enchanted animals there. All transpires as Eurylochus describes]

Eurylochus: We went up through the forest where you sent us until we found a palace, in a glade, a marvelous stone lay wolves and mountain lions, animals of all kinds- but none attacked. Oh- it was strange, I tell you- they fawned on us with their mighty paws; they switched their long tails like hounds who look up when their masters come, or lie beneath a table.

Odysseus: What next?

[Circe enters]

Eurylochus: There was a woman inside; she called to us.

Circe: Welcome strangers- sailors by you looks- come in! Come in, poor tired men.

Odysseus: They didn’t.

Eurylochus: They did! They followed her like sheep! Only I was afraid and hid outside by the entrance.

Circe: Oh, you big, poor, sad, tired, big poor men! What hard work, rowing those big, big ships! That must be so hard!

Sailors: variously yes…yes…it is…

Circe: However do you do it? All daylong? Drink up. (Offers them drinks in the golden object.)

Sailors: Thank you thank you, kind lady…

Sailor one:  (toasting) Dear Lady, we salute you. You are the essence of hospitality. Even your animals are kind; they seem almost hu- almost hum- (he begins to snort and grunt. The others do the same. They all turn into swine- unhappy, distressed swine.)

Circe: What’s that? What’s that you’re trying to say? Speak up dear. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Soooo-eeeee! Soooo-eeeee! Soooo-eeeee!

(She laughs, herds the pigs around, and then strolls off. The pigs remain, disconsolate.)

Eurylochus: None of our friends came out of that house. I waited for hours; only swine filled the yard!

Odysseus: Take me back the way you came.

Eurylochus: Not back there, O my lord! Oh, leave me here!

Odysseus: By heaven, Eurylochus, rest here then, but let me go; I see nothing for it but to go.

(Eurylochus runs off. Hermes enters from above.)

I turned and left him to find the subtle witch, but Hermes met me, with his golden wand.

Hermes: Odysseus, what do you think you’re doing? Wandering all alone on this strange island? Your friends are turned to pigs in Circe’s house and you will be too if you don’t listen.

Odysseus: What should I do?

Hermes: Her charm is in her golden Pramian wine. Take this; it’s an antidote.

(Hermes departs Odysseus drinks the antidote, then continues on his journey.)

Odysseus: Through the island trees I sought out Circe, my heart high with excitement, beating hard.  (He is surrounded by pleading inarticulate pigs.)

Circe: (entering with wine.)  Welcome, dear stranger. Welcome to my home! Come in, come in, don’t mind the swine.

Odysseus: Why thank you.

Circe: May I offer you some golden Pramian wine? (Pigs squeal in warning)

Odysseus: Thank you very kindly.

Circe: Drink up.

Odysseus: I will.

(Odysseus drinks the wine)

Circe: Down in the sty and snore among the rest! (Nothing happens.)

Circe: I said, Down in the sty and snore among the rest!

(Nothing happens. Circe turns to run. Odyssues grabs her and pulls his dagger to her throat.)

Odysseus: Release my men this instant from your charms or I will cut this fair throat of yours!

Circe: How did you resist my spell? You can’t be mortal! Zeus will not approve of one god behaving this way to another!

Odysseus: I assure you, lady, I am human as my men, or as they will be when you release them-

Circe: Odysseus? (Odysseus is startled to be called by name.) I was told one day you’d come to visit me; Hermes said your black ship would bring you here. Put up your sword, put your weapon in its sheath. Son of Laertes, master mariner, enough of weeping fits! Your cruel wandering is all you think of, never of joy, after so many blows. Stay here and rest, Odysseus.

Odysseus: I could not help consenting. So day-by-day we lingered, until a year grew fat. But in the pause of summer, my shipmates summoned me and said:

Sailor: (entering) Captain shake off this trance and think of home.

(The sailor exits. Odysseus takes Circe by the knees.)

Circe: Son of Lartres, you shall not stay against your will, but listen to me now: you will never come to see your hall on Ithaca unless you take a strange way around.

Odysseus: What way is that?

Circe: Come along: listen to what I say. Square in your ship’s path are Sirens, singing to bewitch men coasting by- woe to the innocent who hears that sound! - He will never see his home or lady again; the Sirens will lure his mind away. Bones of dead men are rotting in a pile beside them.

Odysseus: Might I not contrive a way to hear that song, and yet escape the danger?

Circe: Plug your oarsmen’s ears with beeswax, and have them bind you to the mast. Shout as you will to be untied your crew must only twist more line around you until the singer’s voices fade.

Odysseus: What then?

Circe: One of two courses you must take, and you yourself must weigh them. You will pass between Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a monster with twelve arms and six heads. She takes from every ship that passes her one man for each mouth. Yet if you steer wide of her, you’ll meet the whirlpool, Charybdis. She can take your whole-ship down.

Odysseus: Only instruct me, Goddess, how I may pass Charybdis, or fight off Scylla when she tries to raid my crew?

Circe: There is no fighting her. Give in to her! Better to mourn six men than lose your whole ship.

Odysseus: O goddess—

Circe: Enough!

SCENE NINE:  SIRENS

Odysseus: I made straight for the ship and roused the men. They scrambled to their places by the rowlocks. We pulled away from Circe’s island, but soon enough the wind fell, and a calm came over all the sea. Plug up your ears and tie me down! The sirens have begun!

The sirens enter; a nurse, a girl scout, businesswoman, teacher, bride, and nun, all clothed entirely in red. They bring chairs with them and sit down. One Siren gives a note on a pitch pipe, but the text is spoken in unison, not sung

Sirens: (in unison, seductively with pauses between each phrase) Everything, You do. Is so. Important.

(Together, but variously.)

Oh, you big, big sad poor tired, tired men. You big, sad poor tired, tired men! Oh you big, big sad poor tired, tired men, you big sad poor tired, tired men! (Together again) Everything. You say. Just fills. Me up. My face, my face is nothing but a mirror, my arms, my arms are nothing but a cradle, my self, my self is nothing.

One siren: This way, oh, turn your bows, Glory of Achea, as all the world allows—moor and be merry.

Other sirens: My face, my face is nothing but a mirror.

One siren: Sweet coupled airs we sing. No lonely seafarer holds clear entering our green mirror.

Other sirens: My arms, my arms, are nothing but a cradle.

One siren: Pleased by each purring note like honey twining from her throat and my throat, who lies a-pining?

Sirens: all in unison My face, my face is nothing but a mirror, my arms, my arms are nothing but a cradle. My self, my self, is nothing.

Teacher siren :(reading from a thesaurus) Woman: definition: noun, woman, she, female, petticoat, skirt, moll, broad,

Other sirens: Your life. Is bigger. Than mine.

Teacher siren: (continuing) femininity, femininity, feminine, womanhood, etc., feminism; gynecology, gyniatrics, gynics.

Other sirens: You’re perfect the way you are. Don’t change.

Teacher sirens: Womankind; the fair sex, softer sex, the distaff side, weaker vessel, dame, madam, madame, mistress,

Other sirens: I love it when you ignore me.

Teacher Siren: Mrs, lady, memsahib, Frau, senora, Donna, belle, matron, dowager, goody gammer, good-woman, Goodwife, squaw, wife, etc., matronhood, matronage,

The sirens all begin to speak in unison. They leave their chairs, move provocatively, use their chairs provocatively, although their tone may be straightforward, almost businesslike.

Sirens: Venus, nymph, wench, grisette, little bit of fluff, girl, etc., inamorata, love, etc., courtesan, etc., spinster, virgin, bachelor girl, new woman, Amazon; see also girl. Girl, noun 1 a young married female person, i.e.: “hired a girl to baby-sit” synonyms: damsel, gal, lass, lassie, maid, maiden, miss, missy, quail, wench, tomboy, deb, debutante, subdeb, subdebutante, bobbysoxer, schoolgirl, gamin 2 synonyms; see maid 2, 3, syn; see girlfriend.

(The sirens pick up their chairs and leave, speaking casually over their shoulders as they go.)

No, don’t get up; I’ll take care of it.

No, don’t get up; I’ll take care if it.

No, don’t get up; I’ll take care if it.

Sirens fade away

SCENE TEN:  SCYLLA

Odysseus: My faithful company rowed past the Sirens until they dropped under the rim of the sea, and their singing dwindled away. The crew rested on their oars, peeling off the wax that I had laid thick on their ears, then set me free.

But scarcely had that island faded in blue air than I saw smoke and white water, with a sound of waves in tumult—a sound the men heard, and it terrified them. I knew we were now upon the strait between the terrible whirlpool of Charybdis and the sea monster Scylla.

Sailor one: What now, Captain?

Sailor two: What did Circe tell you?

Sailor three: What lies ahead?

Odysseus: Heads up, lads! We must obey the orders as I give them. Get the oar shafts in your hands and lay back hard on your benches; hit these breaking seas. Drive far away from the whirlpool head toward the cliff on the other side.

Sailor two: Is that what Circe said to do?

Sailor four: Is that all she said?

Odysseus: Yes, yes, my friends, that’s all she said.

I told them nothing, as they could do nothing. They would have dropped their oars in panic to roll for cover under the decking, and we all would have been lost.

Row hard, men, toward the cliff!

Scylla slowly rises up behind the boat

Perimedes (a sailor); Captain, speak to me; tell me something now to calm me down. My heart is clamoring, I don’t know why. Captain, help me. Speak to me.

(Scylla is creeping behind Perimedes. Odysseus sees this.)

Odysseus: Look at me, Perimedes, look here, my friend. Have we never been in danger before this? (Perimedes starts to turn around.) Look at me—is this worse than when the Cyclops penned us in his cave? What power he had! How huge he was—but didn’t I keep my nerve and use my wits to save you then? Look here. Look at me. Look at me—

Scylla overtakes and devours Perimedes.  Six men were borne aloft in spasms toward the cliff, still reaching for me. Deathly pity ran through me at the sight of that—the worst I ever suffered questing the strange passages of the sea.

SCENE ELEVEN: ITHACA  

(MUSIC plays and Odysseus and the rest of his crew are finally home.)

Odysseus: I had not thought to see you ever again

Athena: (urgently) Odysseus, not everything here is right. There is a crowd of brazen men playing master in your house, courting your lovely wife.

Odysseus: And she?

Athena: Forever grieving for you; she has allowed her suitors to hope, but her true thoughts are fixed on you.

Odysseus: I might have bleed to death in my own hall, like Agamemnon, had you not told me this. Stay by my side.

 Athena: I shall never leave it; you’ll go forward under my arm when the moment comes and I foresee your vast floor stained with blood. – Now for a while I shall transform you. [Athena transforms him into an old beggar while speaking] not a soul will know you, this clear skin of your arms and legs all shriveled, your chestnut hair all gone, your body dressed in rags, and the two eyes, that were so brilliant, dirtied—contemptible you shall seem to everyone.[she takes his box of treasure] for now we’ll hide your treasure. Seek out your old swineherd first—stay with him and question him.

Odysseus: But—

Athena: Farewell, son of Laertes.

           

SCENE TWELVE: REUNION

Eumaeus: Good morning, friend.

Odysseus: Good morning, Eumaeus. Eumaeus, I would be grateful if you’d show me the way to town. If I go as far as the great hall of King Odysseus I might tell Queen Penelope my news. Or I can drift inside among the suitors to see what alms they give, rich as they are—

Eumaeus: Friend, friend, how could this fantasy take hold of you? You’re playing with life and nothing less if you feel drawn to mingle in that company—reckless, violent, and famous for it out to the rim of heaven.

Odysseus: May you be dear to Zeus for this, Eumaeus, even as you are to me. – But come now, tell me: What of your lord Odysseus’s father? After twenty years, is he still alive?

Eumaeus: Old Laertes lives out in the country, away from town. Alone and heartbroken for a son long gone, and for his wife. Sorrow enfeebled him when she died.

[Telemachus enters]

Telemachus: (Off Stage to his men.) Take the ship around the point to town, but leave me here to walk inland as Lord Mentor advised. Later this evening, after looking at my farms, I’ll join you in the city, Farewell.

Odysseus: Eumaeus, I hear footsteps—some friend, for the dogs are snuffling belly down; not one has even growled.

Eumaeus [seeing Telemachus and then leaving hut]: Light of my days, Telemachus, you made it back! Come in dear child, and let me feast my eyes! How rarely you come to visit me and your woods and pastures!

Telemachus: I am with you now, Eumaeus. See, I have come because I wanted to see you first, to hear from you if Mother stayed at home—or is she married and Odysseus’s bed left empty for some gloomy spider’s weaving?

Eumaeus: Telemachus, you know your mother is not married. She will never marry again. Now come inside.

[Odysseus begins to rise, to offer his seat to Telemachus]

Telemachus: Keep your seat, friend, I’m sure I can sit on the ground. –So Eumaeus, what’s your friend’s home port? How did he come? I doubt he came walking on the sea.

Eumaeus: His home is Crete, but he has knocked about the world. Just now he broke away from a ship hold of Thesprotians to reach my hut. I place him in your hands. He desires your protection.

Telemachus: My protection? The idea cuts me to the heart. It’s impossible to let him stay among suitors. They might injure—and how could I bear that?

Odysseus: Kind prince, it may be fitting for me to speak a word. These fellows riding roughshod over you in your own house, admirable, as you are, how is it possible? Are you resigned to being bled? Are the townsmen stirred up against you? What of your brothers?

Telemachus: No, no, there is no rancor in the town against me, but the suitors are too many, too powerful and united in their cause. As to brothers—single sons are the rule in our family; Laertes had but one, and he had me. Eumaeus, can you go down at once and tell the Lady Penelope that I am back? But don’t let any of the suitors hear it; they have a mind to do me harm.

Eumaeus: Should I not call on your grandfather, Laertes, and tell him the news?

Telemachus: Have Mother send Eurycleia on the quiet out to tell him.

Odysseus [astonished]: Eurycleia?

Telemachus: My father’s nurse—mine as well.

Odysseus: She’s still alive?

Telemachus: Oh, yes. [To Eumaeus] They hurry back.

Eumaeus: I’ll be back before nightfall

[Eumaeus exits. Athena enters and signals Odysseus to join her outside the hut]

Odysseus: Excuse me, prince Telemachus, I have something, I forgot to tell our friend.

Telemachus: Please, go on.

[Odysseus leaves the hut. Telemachus lies down to rest]

Athena: Odysseus, the time has come. Dissemble to your son no longer. Tell him how you two together will bring doom on the suitors in the town. I will make you lithe and young restore your bright eyes and your hair.

[Athena unveils him and Odysseus is rejuvenated]

Telemachus: Stranger, you are no longer what you were just now! Your cloak is new, even your skin! You are one of the gods who rule the sweep of heaven! Have mercy on us!

Odysseus: No god. Why take me for a god? No, no. Telemachus, it is only I, your father, I am Odysseus, come back.

Telemachus: Odysseus? You? You cannot be my father! Meddling spirits have conceived this trick to twist the knife in me! No man of woman born could work these wonders. I swear, you were in rags and old—

Odysseus: This is not like a prince—to be swept away in wonder in his father’s presence.

Telemachus: Go away!

Odysseus[approaching slowly]: No other Odysseus will ever come, for he and I are one, the same; his bitter fortune and his wandering are mine—

Telemachus: No, no!

Odysseus[taking his son in his arms]: Believe me, dear Telemachus: I am that which you lacked in childhood and suffered pain for lack of. I am your father. Twenty years are gone and I am back home on my own island.

Telemachus: Dear father, tell me what kind of vessel put you here ashore on Ithaca? I doubt you made it walking on the sea.

Odysseus: Only plain truth shall tell you, child. But we’ll have to wait. The goddess Athena herself has directed me to plot with you how we should kill the suitors.

Telemachus: Father, all my life your fame as a fighting man has echoed in my ears, but what you speak of is a staggering thing, beyond imagining. How can the two of us defeat a house full of men in their prime?

Odysseus: It’s true, we only have two allies, but their names are Zeus and Athena. Here’s your part: at daybreak go on home, go mingle with our princes. The swineherd later will bring me there—a beggar by my looks. If they make fun of me or injure me, do nothing; let your ribs cage up your springing heart, no matter what I suffer. Then, at night, round up all our weapons and armor—leave them no arms in the great hall. Now, one more thing. If you are my son and blood, let no one hear I am about. Not my father Laertes, nor the swineherd here, nor Penelope herself.

[Odysseus and Telemachus exit]

SCENE THIRTEEN: ARGOS

[Next morning outside the walls of Odysseus’s palace. Argos the dog lies on the ground at a distance]

Eumaeus: My friend, here is Odysseus’s hall. I’ve brought you here as my prince commanded—the gods alone know why. But I must ask you one more time: Wouldn’t you rather go back into the country and let me make a farmhand of you?

Odysseus: Thank you Eumaeus. But I am curious to see the place. Please lead the way.

[Two suitors enter from inside the palace]

First suitor: look at that! One scurvy type leading another. The gods pair them off every time. Hey swineherd! Where are you taking your new pig?

Second suitor: how many doorsteps has he rubbed his back on, whining for garbage?

Eumaeus: What courtly ways you have! What manners! Let our true lord come back, he’ll teach you how to speak!

Second suitor: Look how the dog can snap! Odysseus is dead. He died at sea.

Odysseus: Calm yourself, Eumaeus, I am used to it. Lead the way.

[Odysseus and Eumaeus enter the hall. The suitors catch sight of them]

Antinous: oh look the breeder of the pigs! Eumaeus, why have you brought your swine inside? Are we not plagued enough with beggars, foragers, and rats? You find company too slow at eating up your lord’s estate—so you bring this scarecrow in?

[Suitors laugh]

Eumaeus: Antinous, you are well born, but that was not well said. You are a hard man, and you always were, more so than others of this company—hard on all Odysseus’s people and on me. But—

Telemachus: Be still Eumaeus, don’t answer this man. Antinous, I appreciate your fatherly concern on my behalf, and your anxiety that I should order a poor stranger from my house. God forbid such a thing! No, I call on you to give. And spare your qualms as to my mother’s loss, and mine—but there is no such idea in your head.

Antinous: Telemachus, you let your tongue and temper run away with you. If everyman gave as much as I should like to, this man would be kept for months—kept out of sight!

[The suitors laugh. Athena enters, invisible]

Odysseus: Spare me a little, sir. I take you for the richest here, you look like a king. Let me speak well of you as I pass on over the boundless earth. I too, had fortune once, lived well, stood well with men, and gave alms often to poor wanderers like the one you see before you. But Zeus the son of Chronos brought me down—

Antinous: God! What evil wind blew in this pest! Nudge at my table; will you, you nosing rat? [he knocks the alms bowl from Odysseus’s hand]

Suitor one [alarmed]: Antinous—

Odysseus: its is a pity, sir, that you have no heart. You sit here, fat on another man’s meat, and you cannot bring yourself to rummage out a crust of bread for me. I was wrong to— [he starts to go]

Antinous: Now! You think you’ll shuffle off and get away after that, you bundle of rags and lice? Oh no you don’t! [he picks up a stool and throws it at Odysseus, but Athena knocks it aside at the last moment. Eumaeus runs off]

Suitor one: Antinous, you were wrong to strike this famished tramp. What if he happened to be a god? You know they go in foreign guise, looking like stranger—

Suitor two [interceding]: Here we are, almost at blows about a beggar man, and our pleasure in an evening’s entertainment about to be spoiled—

[everyone settles down. Telemachus and Odysseus in separate parts of the room. Eumaeus and Penelope enter above and look down at the hall]

Eumaeus[to Penelope]: There, my queen, there is the unfortunate tramp come wandering through the house. The suitors are mistreating him, Antinous most of all.

Penelope: Go tell him on my behalf, Eumaeus, tell him I wish to greet and question him. Abroad in the great world, he may have heard rumors about Odysseus—

Eumaeus: Indeed, he claims he has, but I say—

[Telemachus sneezes loudly]

Penelope: Did you hear that Eumaeus? My son has sneezed a blessing on what I have said. Go call the stranger straight to me.

[Penelope and Eumaeus exit]

Telemachus: Come now gentlemen. You’ve dined well. It’s growing dark and time for you to go on home. Soon enough, tomorrow, you can begin again.

[The suitors trail out]

SCENE FOURTEEN:  INTERVIEW

[Eumaeus reenters. The maids are straightening up the hall]

Eumaeus[to Odysseus]: Friend, our queen would like to hear your tale, if you will wait in the hall. She’ll shelter you tonight. [Now to Telemachus] Dear prince, I must go home to look at my affairs. Both of you, consider your own safety first, take care not to get hurt.

[Eurycleia enters]

Telemachus: Your wish is mine, Eumaeus.

[Eumaeus exits]

Telemachus: Nurse, go shut the women in their quarters while I shift Father’s armor back to the inner rooms. I want them shielded from the draft and smoke.

Eurycleia: It is time, child, you took an interest in such things. [Now to Odysseus, kindly] good evening sir. [Now to the maids] Go on, now, go on!

[Eurycleia and maids exit. Athena enters and holds still, one arm raised above her head holding a lantern.]

Telemachus: Oh, Father, one of the gods of heaven is in this place. The walls and roofs beams are all glowing, as though lit by a fire blazing near.

Odysseus: Be still: keep still about it—but remember it. Now clear the hall of all our arms—then off to bed. Your mother will be down soon.

Telemachus: Until tomorrow, then.

[Telemachus exits with of the arms. Melantho, one of the maids, enters, Athena withdraws.]

Melantho: Ah, stranger, are you still here, so creepy, hanging around late at night, looking the women over? You old goat, go outside—get out of here!

Odysseus: Little devil, why set on me like this? Because I go unwashed and wear these rags, and make the rounds? But so I must—

Melantho: Go on, I’ll set the dogs on you!

Penelope[entering]: Oh shameless through and through! And do you think me blind, blind to your conduct? You knew I waited—you heard me say it—waited to see this man and question him about my lord. Go on with you! [Melantho exits. Penelope calls off]. Alcippe! Please bring a rug here for our guest. I wish to have his whole story. [To Odysseus] Sir, do you tell fortunes?

Odysseus: I’m afraid, kind lady, that I do not have that art.

Penelope: Do you tell lies?

Odysseus: If I have, in my life, sometimes made up stories, I would not do so now to you.

[Alcippe, a maid, enters with a small rug and unrolls it. Odysseus and Penelope sit. Athena sits, unseen, in the shadows. Alcippe exits]

Penelope: Will I offend you if I make so bold as to ask you directly who you are and where you come from? Of what country and what parents were you born?

Odysseus: My lady, never a man in the wide world should have a fault to find with you. Your name has gone out under heaven like the sweet honor of some god-fearing king, who rules so wisely that his black lands bear both wheat and barley, the trees are heavy with bright fruit, and the deep sea gives up great hauls of fish by his good strategy, so all his folk fare well.  This being so, let it suffice to ask me of other matters—not my blood, my homeland. My heart is sore; but I must not be found sitting in tears here, in another’s house.

Penelope: Stranger, as to your praise of me, my looks, my face, my carriage, were destroyed when my husband crossed the sea to Troy. If he returned, if he were here to care for me—I might be what you claim! But heaven sent me grief instead. These suitors that you see around the hall consume this house, all the while pressing me to marry.

Odysseus: But how have you kept them off?

Penelope: At first, tricks served my turn to draw the time out. I had the happy thought to set up weaving a close-grained web on my big loom in the hall. I said, that day: “Young men—my suitors—now my lord is dead, let me finish my weaving before I marry, or else my thread will have spun in vain. It is a shroud I should weave for Lord Laertes—Odysseus’s father—for when cold Death comes to lay his hands on him. The country wives would hold me in dishonor if he with all his fortune, be enshrouded.” I reached their hearts that way, and they agreed. So every day I wove on the great loom, but every night by torchlight I unwove it; and so for the seasons brought a fourth year on, one of my slinking maids caught on to me. I had no choice but to finish it. And now, as matters stand at last, I have no strength left to evade a marriage, I can’t find any further way; my parents urge it upon me, and my son cannot stand by while they eat up his property.—But now, I insist, confide in me. Tell me your ancestry. You weren’t born out of an oak or a stone.

Odysseus: Honorable lady, will you not be satisfied until I give you my pedigree?

Penelope: No.

Odysseus: Well then, I will tell you. One of the great islands of the world in midsea, in the wine-dark sea, is Crete—

Athena: As the night wore on, the stranger spoke of far-off lands, of the storms the brought him low, and finally of—

Odysseus: Odysseus. I saw him with my own eyes once at Knossos. Gales had caught him off Cape Malea—

Athena: Now all these lies he made appear so truthful that, as she listened, Penelope began to weep. The skin of her pale face grew moist the pay pure snow softens and glistens on the mountains, thawed by the south wind after powdering from the west, and, as the snow melts, mountain streams run full: so her white cheeks were wetted by these tears shed for her lord Odysseus—sitting by her side.

Penelope: I think that I shall say, friend, give me some proof. If you saw my lord, tell me how he looked, give me some particular.

Odysseus: Lady, so long a time has passed—

Penelope: Give me some particular.

Odysseus: He wore a broach with a work of art on its face: a hunting dog pinning a spotted fawn between his forepaws—wonderful to see how it seemed the deer convulsed, with wild hooves flying, though she was made of gold, and nothing more.

Penelope: With my own hands I pinned that broach on him. Now, I suppose, it lies beneath the sea.

Odysseus: Dear lady, that may be, it may. But know that if it does, he still holds its image in his mind. It is not lost.

Penelope: My lord is dead.

Odysseus: Listen. Weep no more and listen: I have a thing to tell you, something true. I heard but lately of your lord’s return, heard that he is alive, among Thesprotians in their green land amassing fortune to bring home. His company went down is a shipwreck, but he was spared. You see, he is alive and well, and headed homeward now. Indeed he is very close.

Penelope: Ah, stranger, if what you say could ever happen! But my heart tells me what must be. Odysseus will not come to me; no ship will be prepared for you. We have no master quick to receive and furnish out a guest as Lord Odysseus was. Or did I dream him? Come, friend, we will prepare a bath for you—

Odysseus: No, no. I have no longing for a footbath. I would not like any of your young maids to touch me. But if there is an old one, old and wise, who has lived through suffering as I have, I would not mind being touched by her.

Penelope: There is such a one. [Calling off stage] Eurycleia! Please prepare a footbath for our friend. Dear guest, no foreign man so sympathetic ever came to my house, no guest more likeable, so wry and humble are the things you say.

[Eurycleia and Alcippe enter with a chair, a pitcher of water, and a bowl. Alcippe sets down her things and leaves]

            Here is an old maidservant who nursed my lord. She took him into her arms the hour he was born.

[Penelope moves aside]

Eurycleia: The queen Penelope, Icario’s daughter, bids me: so let me bathe your feet to serve my lady—to serve you too. [She begins to bathe Odysseus’s feet]. I must tell you my heart within me stirs. Strangers have come here, many through the years, but no one ever came, I swear, who seemed so like Odysseus—body, voice, and limbs—as you do.

Odysseus: That is what they say. All who have seen the two of us remark how like we are, as you yourself have said—

[Athena sees that Eurycleia is about to uncover Odysseus’s scar. She runs forward, covers Penelope’s eyes and turns her face away. Only Odysseus sees and hears her.]

Athena: Odysseus, watch out! The scar! Your scar!

Eurycleia[seeing the scar]: What’s this?

Odysseus: Nurse—

Eurycleia: Odysseus—its you! Oh, yes! It’s y—

[Odysseus leaps up and holds Eurycleia around the throat. Penelope sees none of it.]

Odysseus: Will you destroy me, Nurse? You found me out—keep it from the others, else I warn you, and I mean it too, I’ll kill you, nurse or not, I’ll kill you!

Eurycleia [breaking free and scolding]: Child, whom do you think you’re talking to? I’ll be as silent as a stone. Now sit you down! Be quiet. Before she notices.

[Odysseus sits. Athena uncovers Penelope’s eyes]

Penelope: Friend, I know the time for sleep is coming soon, but let me ask you this—you seem so wise;            Shall I stay beside my son and honor my lord’s bed? Or had I best join fortunes with a suitor? Is it time for that?

Odysseus: Dear lady—

Penelope: No. Here is what I shall do.  Tomorrow I shall decree a contest for the day. We have twelve ax heads. In his time, my lord could line them up, all twelve, at intervals, like a ship’s ribbing; then he’d back away a long way off and whip an arrow through. Now I’ll impose this trial on the suitors. The one who easily handles and strings the bow and shoots through all twelve axes I shall marry, whoever he may be—then look at my last on this my first love’s beautiful brimming house. But I’ll remember, though I dream it only.

Odysseus: This is an excellent plan. Let there be no postponement of the trial. Odysseus, who knows the shifts of combat, will be here long before any of those boys can stretch or string that bow.

Penelope: If you were willing to sit with me and comfort me, my friend no tide of sleep would ever close my eyes. But morals cannot go forever sleepless. Upstairs I go, then to my single bed, my sighing bed. You can stretch out on the bare floor, or else command a bed.

Athena: So she went up to her chamber, softly lit, accompanied by Eurycleia, and the house grew quiet. [Penelope and Eurycleia exit. Odysseus lies down. Athena goes to stand over him.] But Odysseus could not sleep. He rocked himself, rolling from side to side, as a cook turns a sausage, casting about to see how he could defeat his enemies. [To Odysseus] Why so wakeful? Here is your home, there lies your lady, and your son is here as fine as one could wish!

Odysseus [sitting up]: Goddess, I am one man, how can I defeat so many? There are always here in force. And if I can kill them, where could I go for safety? Their brothers and fathers will rise up against me!

Athena: What touching faith! Another man would trust some villainous mortal with no brains more than you trust me!

Odysseus: Goddess, how can I—

Athena: Sleep, Odysseus! [Athena waves her hand in anger and impatience, and Odysseus faints dead away. She exits]

SCENE FIFTEEN:  THE CONTEST

[Maids run into palace, following closely by the suitors. Odysseus wakes and scoots off to a corner. Eumaeus, the blind singer Phemios, and Athena(invisible) also enter. Telemachus interrupts dancing maids and suitors]

Telemachus: Gentlemen! This is not a public house, but the palace of Odysseus—my inheritance! Today you will treat my home and my friends well. If not—

Eurymachus: Of course, we will, Telemachus. Here let me give your guests a bath! [He throws his drink in the faces of Odysseus and Eumaeus]

Telemachus: Do that again, Eurymachus, and your father will have a funeral here instead of a wedding. You others, I will suffer no more viciousness against a guest.  I know what is honorable and what is not.  My childhood is over.

Athena: At this, Pallas Athena touched off in the suitors an uncontrollable fit of laughter. [The suitors begin to laugh slowly, silently. Their faces are distorted and they fall to the ground] She drove them into a nightmare; they laughed with jaws that were no longer theirs, while blood splattered their meat and blurring tears flooded their eyes.

Phemios: O lost sad men, what terror is this you suffer? Night shrouds you to the knees, your heads, your faces; death runs round you, the entryway is thick with shades—

[Penelope enters carrying Odysseus’s old bow. The spell is broken—the suitors laugh out loud, in their usual nasty way]

Penelope: My lords, hear me: Suitors indeed, you’ve commandeered this house to feast and drink in, day and night. You have no justification for yourselves—none except your lust to marry me. Very well, then. Here I am. Come forward, gentlemen. I now declare a contest for the prize: here is my lord Odysseus’s hunting bow. Whoever can bend and string it, then send it through the sockets of twelve iron ax heads, I will marry, and leave this place forever.           Eumaeus, give my lord’s bow to the suitors.

Eumaeus [upset]: Lord Odysseus’s bow?

Penelope: Take it dear Eumaeus.

[He can’t. the maids have set the ax heads. Telemachus steps up and takes the bow, feigning a kind of hysterical despair]

Telemachus: Step up, my lords, contend now for your prize! There is no woman like her in Achea, nor in Pylos, nor in Mycenae, neither in Ithaca nor on all the mainland! Come on, no hanging back!

Antinous: Now one man at a time go foreword and try the bow. Leodes?

[the suitor Leodes takes the bow. He tries three times to string it but Athena prevents him with a light tough of her finger on his hand. He gives up]

Leodes: Friends, I cannot. Let the next man handle it. Here is a bow to break the heart and spirit of many strong men. Aye, death is less bitter than to—

Antinous: What a preposterous speech! You can’t string the weapon, so you say “Here is a bow to break your hearts!” Crushing thought! You were not born—you never had it in you—to pull that bow or let an arrow fly. Who is next?

[Another suitor steps forward. Odysseus pulls Eumaeus aside. The suitor tries the bow and Athena, once again puts her finger on his hand.]

Odysseus: Eumaeus, would you be man enough to stand by Odysseus if he came back? Suppose he dropped out of a clear sky, as I did; suppose some god should bring him home—would you bear arms for him?

Eumaeus: Ah, let my master come! Then judge what stuff is in me, and how I manage arms!

Odysseys: Do you believe a goddess can change a man’s appearance any way she wills?

Eumaeus: I am certain of it.

[The suitor gives up, and another tries the bow, he suffers same fate as the others.]

Odysseus: Then know, Eumaeus, Odysseus is home, for I am he. I am ashore in my own land—helped by Athena and other men. Look, here is the scar from the tusk wound of that old boar, the day we hunted onParnassus—do you remember?

Eumaeus: Odysseus? Can it—?

Odysseus; Hush now. Go on and drift outside. Bolt the outer gate, then drift back in—and bolt these doors behind you. Do you hear?

Eumaeus: Yes Odysseus. But how—?

[Another suitor tries]

Odysseus: No time now, Eumaeus. Hurry! Go on!

Suitor [failing at the bow]: Curse the day! We cannot even string the bow! How will we be spoken of in times too come?

Antinous: Come to yourself. You know, this is a holy day, no day to sweat over a bowstring.  Keep your head. Postpone the bow. Let us celebrate now, keep the bow safe overnight and try again tomorrow—

[Antinous takes the bow, and the suitors prepare to leave with it]

Odysseus: My lords, contend for the queen, permit me: let me test my fingers and my pull to see if I have strength left at all, or if my roving life has robbed me of it.

Antinous: You bleary drunken vagabond, are you insane? Aren’t you coddled here enough, at table taking meat with gentlemen, your betters, and listening to our talk as no other tramp has done? Don’t touch that bow, I warn you—

Penelope: Antinous, discourtesy is never handsome. What are you afraid of? Suppose this exile put his back into it and managed to string the bow. Couldn’t he then take me home to be his bride? He can’t imagine that, so how can you? Don’t let the thought spoil your dinner, Antinous, give the man a try.

Antinous: Penelope, daughter of Icarious, we are not given to fantasy. But think of it, a beggar, out of nowhere, competing with us? What of our reputation?

Penelope: You have no reputation left in this realm, Antinous, nor the faintest hope of ever gaining it again. Why hang your heads over this, after abusing another man’s house for years? This stranger is a big man, well compacted, and claim to be of noble blood. Ah! Give him the bow, let’s have it out!

Telemachus: Mother, as to the bow and who may handle it, no man here has more authority than I. Return to your room, Mother.

Penelope: Telemachus—

Telemachus[speaking slowly]: Return to your own room, Mother, and lock the door. Tend your spindle. Tend your loom. [Penelope understands that Telemachus is trying to tell her something, and although she doesn’t know what it is, she exits. Eumaeus slyly closes the doors behind him]. Eumaeus, give this man Odysseus’s bow. And here, for his bravery, I give him my old cloak. They say it was my father’s, but now I know he is never coming back.

[Telemachus takes off his cloak and puts it on Odysseus. Eumaeus brings the bow]

Suitor one [to Eumaeus]: Ho! Where do you think you’re taking that, you smutty slave?

Suitor two: We’ll toss you back among the pigs, for your own dogs to eat!

[Odysseus takes the bow and weighs it in his hands]

Suitor three: Oh look, a lover of bows!

Suitor four: Maybe he has one like it at home, in his own palace!

Suitor five: Maybe he wants to make one himself!

Suitor three: May his fortune grow an inch for every inch he bends it!

Athena: But the man skilled in all the ways contending, satisfied by the great bow’s look and heft, like a musician who with a quiet hand draws between his thumb and forefinger a sweet new string upon a peg: so effortlessly Odysseus in one motion strung the bow.

[He fires his arrows, with Athena’s help, straight through the ax heads.]

Suitors[variously]: Our arms! Where are the arms? The door is bolted! Our arms! Our arms!

Odysseus: You yellow dogs! You thought I’d never made it home from Troy! You dared bid for my wife while I was still alive? Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven. Contempt was all you had for what men would say of you.

Athena: Odysseus stood at one end of the hall, Athena at the other, and the slaughter began.

[New music. One by one the suitors are slaughtered by Odysseus, Telemachus, Athena, and Eumaeus. Three maids are also killed. All dead are led away by Hermes.]

SCENE SIXTEEN:  PENELOPE AND ODYSSEUS

Eurycleia: Wake! Wake up, dear child! Penelope, come down, see with your own eyes what all these years you longed for! Odysseus is here! Oh, in the end, he came! And he has killed your suitors, killed them all!

Penelope: Dear Nurse, the gods have touched you. You always had good sense; but now they’ve touched you.

Eurycleia; It is true, true, as I tell you! He has come! That stranger they were baiting was Odysseus. Telemachus knew it days ago—

Penelope: Dear Nurse, dear Nurse, listen to me—if he came home in secret, as you say, how could he engage them, single-handed? How? They were all down there, every one.

Eurycleia: I didn’t see it; I only heard the groans of dying men—until Telemachus came to my door. Then I came out and found Odysseus erect, with the dead men littering the floor this way and that. Here is your prayer, your passion, granted! Your own lord lives, he is at home, he found you safe, he found his son—

Penelope: Do not lose yourself in this rejoicing, wait; you knew how splendid that return would be—but it isn’t possible. If the suitors are dead as you say, then some god has killed them, a god, sick of their arrogance. But the true person of Odysseus? He lost his home, he died far from Ithaca.

Eurycleia: Child, he’s downstairs by the fire! Come down! I stake my life on it, he’s here! Let me die in agony if I lie!

[Athena enters, Penelope leaves her room and comes down the hall. Odysseus is sitting quietly at the far side of the room]

Athena: Penelope turned to descend the stairs, her heart in tumult. Had she better keep her distance and question him, her husband? Should she run up to him, take his hands, and kiss him? Crossing the door sill she sat down against the wall, across the room from the lord Odysseus. There sat the man and never lifted up his eyes.

Odysseus: Never pressed himself on her.

[Telemachus enters]

Telemachus: Mother, cruel Mother, do you feel nothing? How can you keep yourself apart this way from Father?

Penelope: I am stunned, child, I cannot speak to him. I cannot question him. I cannot keep my eyes upon his face. If he really is Odysseus, truly home, beyond all doubt we two shall know each other better than you or anyone. There are secret signs we know, we two.

Telemachus: Mother, this is—

Odysseus: Leave us, Telemachus. [Telemachus exits. Penelope sits at the far end of the hall from Odysseus]. Strange woman, the immortals of Olympus made you hard, harder than any. Who else in the world would keep aloof as you do from your husband after twenty years?

Penelope: Strange man, if man you are…This is no pride on my part nor scorn for you—not even wonder. I know so well how you—how he—appeared boarding the ship for Troy. But all the same… [she stands and makes as though to leave]. I’ll have Eurycleia make up your bed, but place it in the hall, outside the bedchamber—

Odysseus: Woman! By heaven have you betrayed me? Who dared uproot my bed? I made that bed from an olive tree that grew like a pillar on the building plot. I built the room around it. Inlaid it with gold and silver and shaped it into a bedpost, then made three others like it. My bed cannot be moved into a hall! No one has ever seen that room—

Penelope: Odysseus, Odysseus, Odysseus, what sign could be so clear? You know you bed; our secret bed. Odysseus, it’s you. It’s you. Do not rage me. I could not welcome you with love on sight! I armed myself long ago against the fraud of men, imposters who might come. But you make my hard heart know that I am yours.

[Odysseus and Penelope embrace. Athena slowly unties and removes her golden sandals as she speaks]

Athena: Now from his breast into his eyes ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sun warmed earth is longed for by a swimmer spent rough water where his ship went down under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds, and tons of sea.