My Play: Trojan Women
Chorus/Intro: Oh talk old Gods, still burying the new, the song of humanity which certainly spills more blood than they. They trade provocations, and destroy with their ferocity, but mentally debased, they lose their own language. The Gods persuade the human to follow, and the human has firmer wits, as he is alone amongst the storms, and violence’s witnesses. Say again, what God is this, that serves man on a tray, as if his flesh is delicate, and to be desired as much as Ambrosia. Poseidon does not carry the harvest of fish, he follows the courage of the man and his small boat, slowly waiting for the daily catch. Willing to forsake his own life to bring nourishment to his village. It is the trade of men to persecute and be persecuted, spinning along their dread and frozen heads, in language it longs to speak. Lips buried carry no weight, but papyrus tells the same over and over, through the trembles of time itself. So serve that warrior, so serve what God, so serve what meaning that claims its own truth — — through brutality.
The fated Gods, utter as if power itself were all they were. Dashed goes the tolerance of the unblessed. For they on their perch, cry out like birds of carrion. They smother the retaliation and throw the body into the waves. The sound of waves releases not only sorrow but glory. In death, one has defeated something at last. Even the most pitiable of women, a slave, a nurse, giving all she has to a child not her own. Broken in old age with wrinkled hands attempting to find prayer as her beacon. So what is language but the cry of a harlot. That’s what is heard, beyond the rare nobility of a passionate cry. The liar gets by with the rage of infinity. Infinite are the curses, listen to them lament, as they crucify in their inglorious lamentations! Cry now, save yourself before you save your face, and let the weakness of you barge forward before you are destroyed. Tied to a mantle of power, you have no chance, you will starve.
The People of Troy: Oh if only ashes were the face of pure beauty, a radiant orb that sought in our young master, Paris, the future the proud woman wanted to eat not only her fill….but destroy what we have reached to be. But we, we are not going to lie purely fallen, in another host, perhaps the Latin poet will speak of our shame, that we secure in pain, but urge on we fight. This war is not over, the Athenians will melt, their mad and plentiful minds will sorrow. Their life will be turned into stone, Helen, let Helen grow old, until no man looks at her. She announces herself with the breath of youth, yet her faded clothes, her air, her mirth, all is false. Men hate her, as women hate her too. She has no friends. Yes her face is like seeing a star walking around the moon with pacing and prosperity. Let us count her golden hair, she will lose everything one day, and stink like a corpse that no one wants to see, or visit. Lie there unchaste woman, and as you forget your laws, as you forget morality itself. You silly woman, sighting Paris you swallowed him whole, your appetites are extreme, if only we could bury you alive, and have you drink of the spit of worms. You are in no way better!
Women walking to the market in Troy: Oh we do what we do, before we ourselves are bought. Our men — — executed. Beautiful son of a hero, son of Hector and Andromache, he is to be tossed like a burden into the rocks. He is not touched anymore, he is already a marked soul. His glance is dry and lean, he knows nothing now. When cattle is marked to be slaughtered, it says very little and drinks a bit of water. It seems to know, the end is near, and all they are will be wasted to themselves. Astyanax is tied to his bed, he often cries, in his imprisonment we feel his pain, we too, are tied. We are supplicant women, against our imprisoner’s lust we cannot refuse. Still we swallow our grief, and attempt to love what has brought us low. If captured, we will bear the enemy the children he seeks, from us as from a goat, he spreads his lavish touch. We would rather eat grass, than dine in merriment over the thirst of wine and the cradle of fine food. We cry out to the dead Gods, you have forsaken us, what are we to do? Perhaps in alienation, we the timid, the tired, the soon forgotten…we will curse the Lords we must serve. Eagerly awaiting his death, his ruin, the stagnation of all of Greece. The imprisonment of their proud minds–perish now their strength, for we too have strength. Perhaps in our reality, we are stronger than they, who are still sheltered in their palaces.
Young Male Students: Cursed be that we must surrender our learning to being the allurements of vice. We demonstrate our own creation, yet are slaves to male lust and female temptation. We carry Troy in our hearts, while soon to never see it again. We are wanted as slaves, for only slaves can bear such agony. May we not live long, or live as if life has long been futile. We dream of another passageway, but cannot build when the world we loved has fallen. There is nothing left, we march in chains, we sing our songs that the masters enjoy. We are empty vessels, breathe into us what is left of the Gods, and do not leave us so empty that we are below the pedestal of ants. Let our labor mean something, it must always mean something, stoicism is our attitude and we stride into the wide world. Yes, we’ll live as slaves, but in our minds we remember fragments. Fragments that tell us we will reach beyond the worries of mere chattel, and divorce our lives from the cruelty of our unearned masters who reached us only through the destruction of truth.
Agamemnon, carefully guarded and walking through the sacked city of Troy: We knew we were meant for this victory, how could we not be? We are the children of the Gods, wedded like a tree to its roots. We are a proud race, we see reason in the prism of power. Erased? No. We will be remembered, first let us carry off more of the gold and jewels, let us insult the people of Troy to give us their best and all else they have. Tell me now, when will the slaves be sorted and ready to be packed with our boxes and showers of wine? I await my new bride, Cassandra is mine, she is the princess I will marry. They say she lacks sense, but looking at her sweet face, I see only an entirety of the whole. She belongs to me, tell me, how is my new bride?
Soldier: Cassandra seems like a simple girl, she is beautiful indeed but speaks of harsh things. She is an idiot, Apollo has already brought her to madness. Let us simply pretend she speaks not at all, to chant only towards her form, her face, her innocent glory. We will trade her off, and bring her home to you–Agamemnon. As we say, it is what we must do. You honor us.
Agamemnon — Take me to my bed of rest. I am tired. Much has already been done, let us leave this wasteland and hurry home. Our families await, and all will be well! Let us show our home what we are meant to be, the conquerors, entitled and everlasting. Never to be laughed at in name or spirit. Hurry on, I ache to close my eyes!
Soldier: We will continue to count the slaves. The executions are ongoing. It is fit to rest now while you when you wear the garlands of victory!
The Chorus: Athena speaks as if she is moving from opposites, first she loves too much, then she hates too much. Her emotion is indecision, but decisions are based on the test of time and the grappling of misfortune. She feels pity does she not, the trojans impact her emotions to sympathy. The gods may not have the most rigid of laws, but alas they watch the humans like hawks. Perhaps not the shepherd as the king, it is tempting for power to feed on power, and impotence is forever ignored. What is the fate now of Agamemnon, or wise odysseus. Will the seas permit an easy trip home, or will they suffer until they can barely crawl on the sandy shores of home?
The Gods, let them scramble at their whim. The person of stature, no matter what their constancy is just as driven by whims. Who are the slaves, the trojans not breathing the end of freedom or the Greeks, who plague and prosper, giving us the art of rhetoric as if it will live for all time. Can victory and hard gotten attainments make one the victim of imposing hubris? What then, we see the victors and their cage, then the cages we are in.
Let the greeks feel power and glee for now, they seem to own the world. What will remain of them, only a group of ill-suited pretenders or the truth of fallen glory?
hecuba(Chanting): graves go to ashes, priam is long missing in this earthly world, he has moved to hades. Who do i have left, pure cassandra will be raped by a deceiver’s lust, she — — — selected by apollo to forever bear the maiden’s virginity. Fight now! How do we fight! I — silenced not nor ignored, but exist feeble as a cripple. We in fright, sorrow, and hate, we wait our destiny!
I have been long honored in my youth and middle age, now an old woman, i see the chains my proud fathers never had to wear. May i wear it well, my body melting on the ground when it is time. Deliverance is the end of this malicious horror — to conquer, oh we were conquered!
It is wretched to be like this, but life is wretched for the many and we now share in their abuse. May the gods pity us, moving from high to low. Suffering in our abandonment!
Half chorus: honest hecuba, you speak but do not mock. You stay and move when told, already you are bearing the leash of a dog who must answer to his master. What sayeth you, truly, are you doomed or does light fly to any place there is a sun. is life over, or is it merely another transformation. You with your jewels, they can no longer protect you, so linger in your lamentations and boldly say that you are not at all appeased to your new role. Slave to Odysseus, the one you hate the most. Monstrous man, he wishes to be near your brilliant arrangements of the fitful tunes of sorrow.
Hecuba: At least I am heard, at least I hear. I am not ruined so much I have forgotten music, or the sweetness of certain sounds. To be heard, to be cared for in the entirety of a response, to not be layered as if the parts expose the weakness of the whole. I have my words left, my empire is divided and in an uproar of suffering. I am no longer queen, I am waiting to go into the cage i will live in, speaking not in public but only in my privacy for now plentiful, for the future — oh too rare! Tell me not of how times can change and how one can survive the worst disaster, no matter what, we do not wish to become so cast-out that we cherish only the bleak plate of food. Mourning like an animal for better times! We humans are not humans at all, the first slave to wake is like a rooster, fit for only small roles. The slave who bathes the master is the source only of sensations to the one who owns him. We are not humans at all. We are used like objects and trampled on when useless. When will i die, i can smile sweetly when this life is no longer the stone like burden that it feels today. Change? Nothing will truly change what I have lost. Does anything make me forget dear priam, or the death of my children — -perhaps even for cassandra — her live suffering!
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Half chorus: we feel for you hecuba. Naked words clothe no one. But perhaps in words, in communication alone, we can protect you through our agonized prayers to the gods. They have not forgotten you, they ask you to speak the words of the meek and managed, the exploited and the suffering-. Sing as if you are young, your voice is still sweet.
Hecuba sings: GLORY TO WHAT I HEAR/MY HEARING IS NOT FRAGILE/MY HEART BEATS AS WELL AS ANY FREE MAN/i walk, with legs tired perhaps but tanned to see the world/i used to be carefully tended to/now i am satisfied with a mattress so thin that i almost feel the ground/sing now, hear now, speak now/I long for the world of yesterday, may i see that again/may i see that again
Half chorus: Well sung, well sung as the enchantment of any bard. Women are cursed to be said to be without talent, women are so casually used that they turn easily into slaves. The man–is feared. The woman — — -is delirious with owning nothing truly of her own!
Hecuba: I have heard a message, my youngest daughter, Polyxena, wedded to a tomb, slaughtered like she mattered not at all. Oh what sacrifices the dead call for, as if all the living were not enough! Cassandra has charmed agamemnon — he longs only for her hand in his bed. She, intended to be unchallenged, now must bear the misery of a woman loved perhaps but more accurately enjoyed. Alas! After the thief of war the victors celebrate the women who come with them to a new land. A woman-only a woman–but we are living — is that not something at least to cheer. The next spring i will see more of this, sorrow protects me but thirst for life desecrates my holy mourning.
Messenger: I have heard that Cassandra is happy in her match, she sings the tune of a soon to be bride. Her eyes are light and strangely glowing. Even in her madness, perhaps especially in her madness she does not want to be a virgin once she has the hand of a king. A mighty one even. Not out of necessity she walks into this marriage, not at all. She is pleased, ecstatic even, and speaks in her strange way, while brushing her hair, all that her heart wants to say, and longs for.
Hecuba: my daughter, we all said she was mad! But like a selfish woman she forgets everything for marriage, as if it is all she will embrace. She speaks not for her sister, dead. She speaks not of me at all! This quick bride is tired of all of this and only wants to be a woman, loved perhaps, cherished. We women of troy frail in our anguish, plague a hateful tune to Cassandra. Let her revel in a king’s attention, while we wish not to be seen! Let her play as helen plays, her youthful beauty for the scales of power. I will vow, I will let her climb, but she feels like my daughter no longer!
Cassandra Singing and Hecuba Hears her: I stay inside the palace doors, brushing my hair, brushing my hair, the earth is dark as it is light, this tragedy I share, this tragedy I Share. Let me simply know that the end is near, mother–do you hear?
Hecuba: My dear one, oh, your flesh for his dead flesh, what is it? What makes you sing at all? Perhaps we should flee, but we are always under land, perhaps we could find a small home and live simply, I love you so! My mad daughter, but chased mad. We are all mad, we do not know our shame as deeply as it burrows. We crane our necks to breathe, we are the dead souls, lying in a corner hiding from our soon to be masters. Dread — -to perform even when beaten and spat upon, much anguish we will receive as slaves–mere slaves — the ones who anyone can destroy!
Cassandra: Cry no more mother, my prophecies awake. We will be taken into an enemies land, an enemies bed, but we live for the heart of Troy. The troy we know, we are sacrificed just like the men — -but left barely living. I curse agamemnon, my words about deliverance are frugal and shallow. I am not meant to be wed, and he — he will know the tortuous truth — -I will see him at his end! Do not worry mother, we will have our revenge ten-fold, enough will survive, and we will pass the stormy shores to a new home, where we will be declared — the true victors. The war is still upheaving, the Greeks are the false pretenders. They have not won, we continue our urgent and ruthless display of ingratitude at their finery and their disguise. I spit at agamemnon, I would die beside him like a loyal wife but I carry a serpent in my heart that burns to hear his grief stricken display of his own evil.
Chorus: Andromache is singing as she is weeping, her voice carries the injustice of Paris and the grief of the trojan War! Let her sing, hecuba walks in to mutter, as andromache continues her dirge of war and societal collapse. It is said that even as a ghost, in this abandoned land, one can hear her voice rustling with the wind, the fall of water, and the last gasp of a heavy life.
Andromache: I am lost and ruined, my beauty i’d destroy, if I only could. What am i, but an object for a man i hate, or many men, oh what will they do to me? How am i expected to serve. Let me starve instead. My husband is watching — oh I know he is — i think of him all the time, he has the greatest share of all my prayers, even for my own destiny. I matter not really, but to proclaim that yes we were in love, and more in love than i ever thought i could be as a young maiden. I wish to end it now, if only to hear his voice!
Hecuba: Stay calm, we are all separately ruined in this disaster. You long for your husband, i long for my first born son. May i have not birthed my last son. A peacock with no aim in life, merely dressed in finery, envying beauty. A blight against this land, but oh, how to kill a child one’s beloved? No one can urge that onwards but those who see the future, and i do not. Nothing even noted by the God’s is always nothing, they squint to see, those guards, those wicked beings, yes even those wicked gods. Playing virtue as if it were merely chance. We are not crying out of chance, our grandeur has not changed it is only in endurance now, not in ending, that we crawl to reach our rank.
Andromache: I am not as clever as you, Hecuba. I am not a witty woman. I do not think so fast. But my loyalty lives on, for Hector I was his. Tie me to him and I will do anything to not escape. I do not know what to do, Achilles’ son wants me as his wife, how should I behave. I am a simple woman after all, risen to glories through Hector’s kiss.
Messenger: No man in power wants your son his slave. He is too much of his father, and may rise up and claim his due grandeur. He is to die!
Andromache: No! NO! How can that be, he is but a child, he will forget Troy. I will do anything to make his young lungs breathe, not chosen to be mated to a sharp rock, that pierces him and deranges him from firm breath. My child–die? How can that be?
Chorus: What shall meneleus do to helen! His brazen bride, eyes with lust for paris. Lying in sheer laziness, not mourning. All she has known has been the hedonism of her rich life. She steers her beauty only for her own sake. What–will she be pardoned, she seems to cast out words in irony, and long for nothing but to live.
Meneleus: Perhaps I was a poor king, but i loved dear Helen. Now I see she is like a rat, her beauty no pardon for her disgrace to me and my country. I despise her, she will reach argos and be executed, so all women can see what happens to a wife of adultery and slaughter and evil!
Chorus: They are sailing now, only the ship of achilles’ son remains.
Hecuba: The greeks are known for their minds, but minds of reason do justice to a sinless boy. An being of innocence, beauty and perhaps even fame. Oh, if the greeks are unjust then reason itself is unjust. The greeks are cowards who scribble long books, while they look with disdain at the victims of their miserable vice, i curse them, those men of minds, who sink like cowards in a skirmish of honor. I believe not in the gods, they laughed at troy, all our suffering! They beleived too like the greeks, all distance, all sadism, all lust. What have they after all their notations of civilization and intellectual decorum, they are powerful in their wit, with no compassion. Men of reason, i collapse your reason. You are doomed, you think of ways towards evil and power, speak no more of your fine reason. You have spilt too much blood to say it brings your towards the good. What of philosophy, when you have razed the land of Priam, and fouled the earth with your dishonesty. We leave now, and i will say no more, buttoning my mouth as if I could say little to these spiteful masters, i think not like a slave,nor as a once-Queen, i speak as a woman.
