Penelope and Ulysses (18 page)

beautiful in your wisdom and strength.

My beautiful wife, my passionate lover,

I have returned to you.

I am now complete.

You may strike with your sword or love me in our bed.

[
PENELOPE
places
the
sword
besides
ULYSSES
and
drops
to
her
knees
with
him
.]

Act VIII
Whispers
 

Colours of Sunset

“This
only
is
denied
to
God:
the
ability
to
undo
the
past.”
39

[
The
haunting
and
death
of
Ulysses,
the
whispers
of
the
dead.
PENELOPE
and
ULYSSES
are
together.
The
other
voices
are
heard
as
a
reaction
to
their
conversation.
It
is
a
haunting.
It
is
the
decisions
that
ULYSSES
has
made
in
the
past.
They
actually
have
an
entity
and
voices
of
the
different
people
from
the
past
that
move
between,
in
and
out
of
their
thoughts
and
conversation
with
each
other.
These
are
the
signs
that
ULYSSES
is
in
the
transition
of
his
physical
death.

ASTYNAX:
Hector’s
murdered
young
son.
Ulysses
had
an
influence
in
the
final
decision
to
throw
the
boy
from
the
Trojan
walls
to
his
death.

ANDROMACHE:
Mother
of
Astynax

SIREN:
Ulysses
was
the
only
one
that
heard
the
song
of
the
sirens.
He
never
spoke
about
it
to
anyone,
but
the
song
of
the
sirens
has
never
left
him,
and
it
returns
with
the
other
phantoms
of
his
life.
He
never
told
anyone
what
she
sounded
like
or
what
she
told
him.

DESTINY
has
Ulysses’s
face
and
voice.
In
the
classical
literature
and
philosophies
it
was
believed
that
all
the
decisions
we
make
eventually
become
our
destiny;
therefore,
destiny
has
the
face
of
the
core
of
our
very
nature:
it
has
our
face
because
it
is
us
that
have
made
all
our
decisions
and
arrived
at
our
destination.
This
occurs
at
the
end
of
man’s
life,
and
there
is
nothing
he
can
do
to
change
his
past
actions,
simply
because
he
has
no
more
energy
or
time
in
his
life,
and
simply
because
you
cannot
bring
the
dead
back,
or
the
past
to
change
it.

It
is
clear
that
Ulysses,
even
though
he
is
a
tragic
character,
has
made
decisions
that
have
caused
destruction
and
the
death
of
a
young
child.
In
this
part
of
his
life
and
death
all
meet
up,
and
all
voice
their
grief
and
pain.
Ulysses
cannot
escape
this
on
his
death
bed,
nor
does
he
want
to
escape
it.
40

The
SIREN
approaches
him:
a
beautiful
woman,
similar
to
Penelope
as
the
sirens
took
on
the
image
of
the
one
we
love
the
most.
]

SIREN: Ulysses, I am the siren who opened your heart

and saw all your secrets,

all the deep longing,

and all the dark ambitions.

You thought you were safe from my song,

like your men whose ears were stuffed with wax.

You were tied to the rails of your vessel.

I found you and I have travelled with you

and will travel with you.

You and you alone have made me yours.

Why have you not spoken about me to Penelope?

Is this the one infidelity that you have not shared with her?

I know you love me

and that is why you have never spoken about me to anyone.

Why did you not stay on the sea with me?

Why did you not stay with me?

You love me enough

to have brought me to your bed with Penelope.

And when you have made love to her,

who do you see: her or me?

Who do you long for: her or me?

For I am the image and substance

of the young Penelope before life

and the weight of years and suffering

aged the Penelope that shares your bed now.

You might say you love her more

because of her loyal character,

but you still lust for me.

Don’t feel torn, Ulysses:

we are the same woman.

You should not have tried to outwit the laws

that are not written by man,

the laws that govern man,

the laws that hold everything

in suspension and in balance.

I am here with you now,

in the birth of your death.

[
DESTINY
enters.
He
looks
and
is
the
young
ULYSSES.
He
comes
close
to
ULYSSES
and
there
ULYSSES
stares
deeply
into
the
eyes
of
his
DESTINY,
the
DESTINY
he
made
with
his
decisions,
the
DESTINY
that
has
his
face,
his
teeth,
his
fingerprints.
The
man
looks
deeply
into
ULYSSES
.]

DESTINY: You can call me Destiny, Ulysses.

I am your destiny.

You moulded me to fit you.

I am from the core of your nature,

what you took from the world,

what you shaped in the world,

what you killed in the world,

what you gave to the world.

I am all your life on this earth;

I am all your actions.

Have you remained faithful to your path,

to your journey?

Did you risk yourself on the journey of life,

or did you cut deep into your heart,

or the heart of another?

Did your choices follow you through your life?

Did you make your choices on vanity and arrogance?

Did they become your yoke of necessity?

Did you bury the truth and invent your own?

Did you choose to conquer?

Did you want fame and wealth?

Did you stop to think

that for every privilege you took for yourself,

someone else had to go without?

Do you remember your wars

and how many men you killed and why?

Was it really self-survival, or was it something more?

Lands? Armies? Wealth? Honour? Fame?

Do you remember Troy?

[
ASTYNAX,
a
young
child
of
about
ten,
enters
Ulysses’s
room:
a
beautiful,
blond-haired
boy,
glowing
with
the
promise
of
a
full
life.
He
goes
to
ULYSSES
and
takes
his
hand.
ULYSSES
recognises
this
child
and
trembles.
]

DESTINY: Do you remember this child, Ulysses?

ULYSSES: It is Hector’s son, Astynax.

ASTYNAX: I can see you, Ulysses, crossing the river,

but this time you do not have a boat

and there are so many unnamed creatures

swimming in the river.

I have waited for you, Ulysses.

You, who dashed and broke my young life.

You, who returned me to darkness.

I have waited for you

to return you to the other shore,

the other life, the unseen one,

where men do not kill children

and they do not conquer to accumulate,

for they are not lacking in anything in the other life.

They watch the actions of the living

and shake their heads in disbelief

and say, “If only some had told me not to do that.”

Is that how you feel now, Ulysses?

In this world there are layers of different people.

Some are under the earth

and lick the human blood that man spills without thought.

We call them furies.

There are those that sit quietly in the shadows

and suffer great sadness