I just finished reading Derek Walcott's stage adaptation of Odysseus, that he wrote back in 1990. Here are some highlights.
EURYLOCHUS
Her [Circe] music's pounding with the odours of rutting.
ODYSSEUS
Perfumes won't dispel it.
EURYLOCHUS
Her rooms are grunting pens.
ODYSSEUS
Still, give it to our enchantress, she knows one thing.
EURYLOCHUS
What?
ODYSSEUS
That brothels aren't just sailors' dreams, but all men's.
EURYLOCHUS
Not mine.
ODYSSEUS
All.
EURYLOCHUS
Don't yield, sir, you have a wife and son.
ODYSSEUS----
At the back of all men's minds is a rented room.
EUMAEUS
Look at these puddles lying like shield in the sun
ODYSSEUS
Reflecting clouds and phantoms. Our passing travail.
EUMAEUS
Aye. Our shadows slide over them, and then we're gone.
ODYSSEUS
The earth is still swaying.
----
ODYSSEUS
For one glimpse of her [Penelope] my heart might lose all reason.
DEMODOCUS
But why her, man? Is her patience now a legend?
ODYSSEUS
Because I once held such a woman. And our son.
DEMODOCUS
There is only one thing that I can compare her to:
She is like a green pine that never sways on its hill,
Whole leaves repeat the swaying of burly water
Rooted in its cleft, not sea-grape or forked myrtle
Is as steadfast. Twenty years after Troy's slaughter,
As a green pine will make a castle of herself
This pine will feed no man's fire with crackling boughs
Or nestle his vows, as other branches, swallows,
But on her height, in a meadow of cold flowers,----
She has weathered a siege even longer than Troy's.
ODYSSEUS
O when this racked body slid down astounding seas...
PENELOPE
When I'd kneel down like an olive, rooted in prayer...
ODYSSEUS
When the spray blinded me, till I lost faith in tears...
PENELOPE
When no sail startled the olive tree, year by year.
ODYSSEUS
The sea still shakes in my body, can you hear it?
PENELOPE
The sea is quiet and all you trials are done.
ODYSSEUS
Keep me embayed in your arms, your harboring heart.
PENELOPE
Take root my pine, my shade, my patience's pardon.
_DZ
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