An Iliad Read online

  No, you colossal, shameless—we all followed you,

  to please you, to fight for you, to win your honor

  back from the Trojans—Menelaus and you, you dog-face!

  POET The men all gasp!

  ACHILLES

  Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle or risk an ambush—

  You lack the courage, you can see death coming.

  Safer by far, you find, to foray all through camp,

  commandeering the prize of any man who speaks against you.

  King who devours his people!

  I have no mind to linger here, disgraced,

  brimming your cup and piling up your plunder!

  POET He starts to leave—

  AGAMEMNON

  Desert, by all means—if the spirit drives you home!

  I will never beg you to stay, not on my account.

  But let this be my warning on your way:

  I will be there in person at your tents

  To take Briseis in all her beauty, your own prize—

  So you can learn just how much greater I am than you

  and the next man up may shrink from matching words with me!

  POET And Achilles flies into a RAGE:

  He grabs the scepter—now this scepter is, is, a Greek tradition, whenever anybody wants to speak officially we take the scepter—it’s like a talking stick, the origins of democratic process and all of that—and Achilles says: “By this scepter, this mighty oak, that will never again flower, I swear, I will never fight again! Let all the Greeks die, let all the men be swept, not until, and, and let you, Agamemnon come on your knees to me, repentant, blubbering, wishing you had never said these words, you can eat your heart out, you can eat your words, I will never fight for you again. Trojan Hector will slaughter you all, you dare to humiliate, humiliate me?”—He raises his arm against Agamemnon. All the men are staring at him. What is he doing? And suddenly … his head yanks back. The men can’t see what Achilles can see: Athena has grabbed him by the hair, she whispers in his ear, “Hold back. You can’t kill Agamemnon.” … And Achilles says, “Why?” And she says, “Obey.”

  Achilles has no choice. He takes the scepter and he BSHHHH to the ground, smashes it in pieces—not really, but—Furious! “None of you in this meeting will speak for me? See how you do without me.”

  And he storms out. And all the Greek army is standing there going, (He shows us—slack-jawed.) and Agamemnon’s kinda going “Who the fuck cares about him?” And he leaves.

  This is the rage of Peleus’ son, Achilles.

  (Nodding, confirming, calling it up.)

  (THE POET pours another glass.)

  And there it is … that’s how it starts, it’s so … it’s infuriating.

  (Drinks half the glass—he’d rather not tell us this, but he does.)

  They take the girl to Agamemnon’s tent …

  And Achilles wept, and slipping away from his companions, far apart, sat down on the beach of the heaving gray sea and scanned the endless ocean.

  (Shakes his head.) So … the war rages on, but Achilles stays in his tent. Waiting, fuming, betting against his own side, the Greeks.

  (THE POET drains his glass, then pours again—a big pour … THE POET looks up, smiles.)

  PART THREE

  HECTOR

  Denis O’Hare, NYTW, 2012.

  PHOTO: JOAN MARCUS

  POET I wish I could show you a photograph of Troy. But here is what it was like:

  Walk through the Scaean Gates and the first thing you’ll see is a great plaza, a great plaza with a fountain, there’s water everywhere: little waterfalls, little pools, every house has its own pool and you hear the sound of water flowing all the time and the water is a form of music, and that music mingles with real music: flutes, lyres, singing. And then as you walk through, you begin to see how every house is both private and public. So every house has a private area and yet it spills into a common area, so as you’re walking through the city of Troy you see everybody, and everybody sees you. They’ll often have events, they like to have their concerts, they have public meetings, they have performances of all kinds and there’s a great sense of civic duty, so they get together to discuss things like: what do we do with the fig tree that’s dying? How do we save the fig tree? And they have a committee to talk about the fig tree. And of course, respect for the family, the royal family, Priam and his sons. They’ve actually brought Troy peace, they’ve actually fought off invasions, they’ve actually given them a life that’s stable. So what you feel when you walk into Troy is a great sense of calm and a great sense of serenity … this is before the war, of course.

  Now the man called Hector.

  (Struggling.) Shining Hector. Man-killing Hector. Hektoros hippodamoio. (He translates.) Hector breaker of horses—it’s always so hard to describe Hector—

  His little brother calls him a “sharp ax”—a sharp edge, always cleaving forward …

  Hector believes in—he believes in institutions, he believes in—in country, he believes in family, he believes in the army. Isn’t it funny how hard it is to describe a good man?

  He’s a brave man, but deep down, he’d rather be taming horses.

  But Hector is the eldest—first born and he’s got DOZENS, and I mean DOZENS of brothers and sisters, more than fifty, by various mothers, I can’t remember all their names now—my god—I would have to look that up, it’s all written down somewhere … (He digs through his suitcase, to no avail.) But one brother especially—Paris—every time Hector sees Paris he can’t seem to stop yelling at him. And for good reason, of course, because Paris was the kind of—(Really enjoying himself.) Paris actually figured out a way to make the case that it was better for him to stay inside, with the women, than go out and fight. And even when he did try to fight—once—Aphrodite swooped in and picked him up by the scruff of his neck, wrapped him in a blanket made of fog, and tossed him back in Helen’s bed. And he stayed there. That’s who Paris was. It, it was something like you know, “Ohhh, but if I go, and if they catch me, you know they will hold me for ransom and then you’ll be put in an awkward position. Better for me to stay here and, and, you know, live out my days knowing that I am a coward and …” You know you couldn’t argue with someone like that because he actually made the case for you and you were like … uhh … you are a coward, you know what I mean? But he had already called himself a coward—where are you going to go from there?

  (Leaning in.) Everyone always wants to hear more about Paris, “Paris! Paris! Tell us more about Paris!” But actually, Paris isn’t really that important—I know, I know, he stole Helen away from Menelaus and brought her to Troy and that started the war, and yes, he was SO HANDSOME and everything—but he’s not interesting. Not interesting to me.

  Anymore.

  (More serious now.) But Hector.

  You know, the thing about Hector is: He’s proud. He won’t let anyone else lead the charge for Troy. They’ve got allies, come in from all over, but Hector won’t let them lead their own tribes. He wants to be in charge. Complicated. Full of hubris, but also decent.

  Hector’s a good husband, and a good father. He’s a lot like … (He trails off. The Muse urges him onward.)

  One terrible day—the Trojans are struggling—because the Greek army is full of ferocious warriors—Great Ajax, Diomedes—and even though Achilles won’t fight, the Greeks are winning because Athena … oh, the gods have made a mess of things, you wouldn’t believe all the … Athena even puts on her helmet and fights for the Greeks, stabbing her own brother Ares in the stomach, and he goes crying to Zeus—no, no, it’s a mess …

  On this day the Greeks, with the help of Athena, they hack and chop and decimate the Trojans, pushing them back toward the city walls. Hector and his brothers try to hold their ground but they keep getting pushed back, pushed back, and Hector becomes afraid that the Trojan soldiers might give up and run away, or hide inside the city gates. Hector and one of his brothers—uh �
�� (Shrugs off trying to name him.)—realize that they have to get Athena on their side. So Hector runs alone back toward Troy to ask the citizens to pray to Athena.

  His mother, Hecuba, catches sight of him and runs and grabs his hand.

  HECUBA

  My child—why have you left the bitter fighting,

  why have you come home? Look how they wear you out …

  But wait, I’ll bring you some honeyed, mellow wine.

  When a man’s exhausted, wine will build his strength—

  HECTOR

  Don’t offer me mellow wine, Mother, not now—

  you’d sap my limbs, I’d lose my nerve for war.

  No—pray to the gods—ask Athena to stop helping the Greeks.

  POET And he runs on. Then “the face that launched a thousand ships,” Helen—she stops him:

  HELEN

  My dear brother,

  dear to me, bitch that I am, vicious, scheming—

  horror to freeze the heart! Oh how I wish

  that first day my mother brought me into the light

  some black whirlwind had rushed me out to the mountains!

  But since the gods ordained it all, these desperate years,

  I wish I had been the wife of a better man.

  But come in, rest on this seat with me, dear brother.

  You are the one hit hardest by the fighting, Hector,

  you more than all—and all for me, whore that I am,

  and this blind mad Paris. Oh the two of us!

  POET But Hector doesn’t have time for this, the only one he wants to see is his wife, Andromache, and his son, Astyanax, who’s just, oh, maybe six months old … he goes to his house and they’re not there, he looks for them everywhere, he can’t find them, he’s starting to panic, then someone tells him they’re up on the tower, on the walls of the city, and he runs up there, helmet flashing—still in his full armor. There they are, his wife, Andromache, and his baby boy.

  Hector smiles—that’s a rare thing.

  ANDROMACHE Oh Hector. Why are you just staring at us? Can’t you speak?

  (Hector only shakes his head at their beauty. He doesn’t know what to say.)

  What are you doing home in the middle of the day? (Smiling.) Is the war over?

  HECTOR (A little laugh.) No. It’s a bad day for us. I’ve come home to start the prayers.

  ANDROMACHE Oh.

  Hector—please listen to me. You’re all I have—Achilles killed my mother, my father, my brothers. Now I have only you—and our child. I’m begging you—stay on the ramparts. Why can’t you draw your army up by that fig tree down there, where the gate is weakest—you know they’ve attacked us three times on that very spot where the wall is low.

  HECTOR But that would make me look like a coward. I can’t retreat—even though every night I wake in a sweat, dreaming of you widowed, enslaved, and the boy—

  POET Hector reaches for the baby—but Astyanax suddenly wails—WAHHHH!

  HECTOR What? What did I do?

  ANDROMACHE (Laughing.) It’s your helmet! Take it off! Take it off!

  HECTOR (Laughing, taking off his helmet.) No, no, no, don’t be afraid—that’s only Daddy’s helmet! Here—(Lifting the child.) Some day you’ll wear a helmet like that. Some day you’ll be an even greater soldier than your father. You’ll ride a big horse, a dark one, just like mine. You’ll fly on that horse, through the air! You’ll come home wearing the bloody gear of the mortal enemy you’ve killed in battle—

  ANDROMACHE (Lightly, snatching Astyanax back.) That’s enough!

  Reckless one,

  Hector—your fiery courage will destroy you.

  Have you no pity for him, our helpless son? Or me,

  and the destiny that weighs me down, your widow,

  now so soon—

  HECTOR

  Andromache why so desperate?

  No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate.

  And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it,

  neither brave man nor coward, I tell you—

  it’s born with us the day that we are born.

  ANDROMACHE Oh Hector, but if you stay home—

  HECTOR I have to go. Give me a kiss. Now go home, love. Don’t cry. Pray.

  POET Hector puts on his heavy helmet and goes back to the front lines. (Tired from the knowledge of what’s to come.) Huhhh.

  Have you ever seen a front line? (Shakes his head.) Let’s take—I want to show you what that bloody field looked like, what Hector walked back to just then, with all those other boys scattered across it. It’s like, it’s like—I have a picture here. (He rifles through his suitcase.) It’s from another war but—oh, I can’t—(Can’t find it.)—well here. (He holds up his hand instead, using it as a map.)—you see, outside the trenches where there had been a particularly bad day—this was, oh, a hundred years ago but you get the picture—and uhhh the battlefield was just littered with bodies and when you look at it you think, “Oh, well these are a bunch of bodies,” but they’re not just bodies ’cuz this is—this is Jamie and this is Matthew and this is Brennan and this is Paul. This is Scottie, he was nineteen, (About Paul.) he was twenty-one, (About Brennan.) he was eighteen, Brennan was meant to go to Oxford—he had gotten a scholarship because of his writing—his father was a postman. He would have been the first child in his whole family ever to go to university—but he didn’t …

  Do you see?

  But this is the battle I want to tell you about now: because the women of Troy prayed, and those prayers seemed to work, and the Trojans begin to fight like never before—and still no Achilles, and that begins to take its toll on the Greeks.

  This is what the war looks like:

  (The Muse provides sound that takes us there.)

  At last the armies clashed at one strategic point,

  they slammed their shields together, pike scraped pike

  with the grappling strength of fighters armed in bronze

  and their round shields pounded, boss on welded boss,

  and the sound of struggle roared and rocked the earth.

  Screams of men and cries of triumph breaking in one breath,

  fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed blood.

  Wildly as two winter torrents raging down from the mountains,

  swirling into a valley, hurl their great waters together,

  plunging down in a gorge

  and miles away in the hills a shepherd hears the thunder—

  so from the grinding armies broke the cries and crash of war.

  … and Terror and Rout and relentless Strife stormed too,

  sister of manslaughtering Ares, Ares’ comrade-in-arms—

  Strife, only a slight thing when she first rears her head

  but her head soon hits the sky as she strides across the earth.

  Now Strife hurled down the leveler Hate amidst both sides,

  wading into the onslaught, flooding men with pain.

  PART FOUR

  PATROCLUS

  Denis O’Hare, NYTW, 2012.

  PHOTO: JOAN MARCUS

  POET (Pouring a drink.) I never could come up with the right uh … epithet for Patroclus.

  Son of Menoetius.

  Horseman.

  You know what I should call him, I suppose:

  Friend.

  Patroclus was Achilles’ friend. His only friend. They were boyhood friends. Patroclus was sent by his own father to live with Achilles’ family—he’s slightly older than Achilles, good with horses, and practical. His father said to Patroclus: “It’s your duty to take care of Achilles. You’re wiser than he is. Counsel him and he’ll listen to you.” And so Patroclus and Achilles were more than friends, they were brothers. And really they were more than brothers, they loved each other. When Achilles couldn’t sleep, Patroclus would hold him—that kind of thing. Friends. (A sip of whiskey.)

  Now Patroclus was a good fighter, but when Achilles retreats to his tent, Patroclus stops fighting too. There
’s no question, his first allegiance is to his friend. But on this day, this day when Trojans are slaughtering Greeks left and right, and the Trojans have gotten past the Greek ramparts, they’ve crashed through all the Greek defenses, and Patroclus has been running up and down the beach, watching the bodies carried—but there’s nowhere to carry them—and he sees that Agamemnon is wounded, and Odysseus is wounded, and the one medic is wounded, and he can’t take it anymore. He runs to Achilles’ tent:

  PATROCLUS (Catching his breath.) Don’t be mad at me—but your anger is making you blind! Can’t you see that Hector is destroying us? Is your heart made of iron?

  If you won’t fight, drive the Trojans back, then let me. Give me your armor—they might think I’m you. I’ll take that chance—but you are wrong, you will be remembered as a fool, if you won’t fight this day.

  ACHILLES But I swore. I won’t fight for Agamemnon, I won’t fight even if the Trojans sweep into my own tent. It’s not even my anger now, it’s the thought of breaking my word. I can’t do it.

  But you—that’s a good idea. You fight in my place.

  The whole city of Troy comes trampling down on us, daring, wild—why? They cannot see the brow of my helmet flash before their eyes—

  If you put on my armor … (Smiling now.) they’ll think I’m back … just the thought I’m back in the battle will send them running in terror. Here, take it, my breastplate, my greaves, my helmet—but promise me this—you must only fight until you drive the Trojans back from our ramparts. And no further. Do not push close to the Trojan walls—not without me.