after troy

Taban Lo

• Publisher: Deep South
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781928476351
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Poetry
• Index: Literature

after troy, Taban lo Liyong's booklength poem, is an expansive and engaging elaboration of two classical Greek texts, Homer's Odyssey and Aeschylus's Oresteia. Its focus is the homecoming from the Trojan war of two hero-kings, Odysseus and Agamemnon. Lo Liyong recreates their thoughts and speech, adding dialogue from other characters, most of them women, who are not given a voice in the original stories. after troy is also a philosophical enquiry into retribution and justice.

book one:

the ithaca trilogy

I the penelopey

circumspect penelope regards ragged odysseus

1

this one too has come, like the rest of them carpetbaggers, to try his luck

at impersonating my husband, the unfortunate mortal who was fated

to incur ancient poseidon’s implacable wrath and run the gauntlet

i was a mere bride when i dressed him in his war gear, and through

tear-filled eyes, bade him goodbye to far-off not-to-be-mentioned

ilion, where he was to test his skill in deviously planning the death of foes

twenty years have now gone by, twenty long and weary years, in which

i had to deploy all art known to womankind to keep looking young, my

figure trim, wear the social public face well, and keep discourse high

i brought up his infant child single-handed from birth to bearded youth

i denied myself change whilst supervising his; had to be the loving caring

mother whilst also playing the suffering wife whose husband is missing in war

you cannot bathe a boy, look at art, make a shroud without thinking

anatomical or physiological: naughty thoughts passed through my mind

whilst weaving at the loom, idle thoughts; i lived, fended off, denied myself

he was my source of strength: he the pillar that supported the roof with its

joinery: to bolster my strength, i leaned on him, thus i withstood the siege

of icarius’ daughter in her husband’s hall: a greater test than helen ever knew

distasteful is his name, and so has he been, or encounters with him:

there are many in hades, dispatched by him or his tricks; there are many maimed in body or mangled in heart whose paths crossed his: we bathe in tears

but is this he?

2

look, look at him: this expanding contracting mystery man; now a foot

taller, now looking an ordinary greek; now filled with vigour, now an

exhausted worker, now looking like a god, now the despicable beggar, now fashionable

a man with parts: what does he want with me old as i am, widowed in my

eyes, a legend in the land of ithaca; surely there is more beauty with

youth, and in his talked-about conquests he would have erased the taste of our first love

a man with pasts: am i to join his collection of past loves; to be

narrated from port to port as he does with calypso and circe? as if i lack

suitors; let me ask you all: what have i got which the rest of my kind don’t?

they say he has had nymphs and goddesses for passing time; what chance did i

then have to enchant him all this while, above the gods who promised him immortality,

except that being human, he chose old age with me?

used up by other women for twenty years, now he comes all shrivelled

up and expects me to ululate for him: haven’t i got eyes; don’t i have

self-respect and a reputation to keep, did i wait this long for a beggar?

yesterday he beguiled me with many a tale which brought tears to my eyes;

but i am used to shedding them now; besides it fits my role of suffering

waiter: but what if he is weaving a trap for my lonely heart?

yesterday i quizzed him, the beggar, in clothing odysseus wore when he went

to war: his recollection was faultless, especially the description of the pin

with a hound holding/ensnaring the dappled fawn: the story of our joint destiny

is this he, though?

3

i am tired of keeping faith with a dead man’s empty bed, i might have had another

child now in this one-son-per-generation house; but my companion at night

is my wet pillow; groaning from side to side, awaiting news from passing strangers

sleep at last and immortal night have been balsam to crying and wearying day,

otherwise, stranger sitting like a statue, mine has been the life of longing for

an absent man; till i am now well-schooled in waiting and fending off.

i have prayed to artemis, goddess and queen, patron saint of mine, to take away

life from inside my heart for fear i would one day be saddled by a worse man

than odysseus who broke my hymen; i hope the goddess hears me

well, i suppose all good things never last that long; twenty years is a generation gone,

but mine were twenty years without a husband, of husbanding myself,

of growing up again, of second courting ending in this disaster

telemachus is becoming a man now: just because he has a beard he now assumes

he is boss around here and practises that disappearing act of his father’s

without a word: he needs a father to take him in hand

this killer – the hero, i suppose – has decimated antinoos and the rest:

the cream of ithaca society that paid me court is dead; for antinoos

the generous giver, a silent tear; but now that they are dead, what choice have i?

an irate god could have envied me this endless merrymaking without

being odysseus: this one is sometimes too old, at other times he’s quite a beau,

and now he sits there quietly in profile thinking what?

could it be he?

4

our old maid swears the great oath that he is who he is; telemachus urges that

i embrace him as his absent father; now popular opinion is growing in his

favour especially since there’s no rival: do i have a chance to convince myself?

yesterday i invented another game for my pets to while away the tedium of waiting:

the stringing of absent odysseus’ bow (with ease) and the shooting

of an arrow (no second) through all the twelve axes (with ease)

surely, these suitors that i know would have taken years working around that one

whilst feasting on pigs, sheep, bulls, which we have in abundance:

this place is too large, cold, silent without such a raucous group

now up comes this bastard (none of my accredited suitors), who has no spirit

of play and ruined it all by being literal and realistic: don’t you have

make-beliefs where you come begging from, you bloodthirsty man?

titans, cyclops, gods can bend and string any bow any moment and shoot

straight: beggar, i have told them i wouldn’t marry you; it wasn’t the

strength of arm that was contested: but i was pitting my wits against theirs

my life had steadied into creating conundrums for my tame pets; for holding

a salon; theirs it was to glory in my beauty, to sing my praises, to bring

the latest news and fashions whilst awaiting my never-coming final choice

when i had gone through this batch, or when some of them had retired due to

old age or lack of heart, i had looked forward to the generation of telemachus

to contribute their youthful suitors to my legendary role, hoping i remained young

perhaps my time is up?

5

perhaps my time of freedom and reverie is up: for last night i had a dream which

was more like a vision: odysseus embraced me the way he did before going to war;

i was tense, my heart constricted, then the release of distillation, and wet thighs relaxing

but i can’t just deliver myself like that: i can’t just let myself go: with a

crafty man like odysseus, how can one be his bride without acquiring a few of his

articles of trade, without subjecting him too to tests? now is my turn:

there is the scar, of course, but a lady cannot ask any passing stranger to show

her his thigh scar in public; telemachus needs a father, but he cannot satisfy

his hunger by foisting his father figure on me for a husband

eurykleia the old maid knows me too well; when she says: “your heart was always

mistrustful”, she should have addressed odysseus: for the truth holds for us

both; if it is he, then let th...