Penelope and Ulysses Read Online Free

warrior’s clothing. Her top is leather with binding and buckles to represent her training and discipline. She refuses to forget herself in woman’s comfort and co-dependence, and her clothes reveal her as both feminine and a warrior. The bottom of her skirt is long and sheer, revealing her sensuality and femininity. Her long auburn hair and light green eyes give her the appearance of a seductress, a siren. She wears boots and Ulysses’s war bracelets.
    We find PENELOPE in her chambers, looking into her youth, bringing to life her youth, and the older Penelope in unison with her youth takes the audience through the beginning of her journey.
    Music is heard. ‘Dance for Man’ (Nikos Xylouris) is played while the audience is settling into their seats. Projected images of Penelope and Ulysses, The Tree, and the sea are seen in conjunction with the music.
    Lights slowly come on. They are soft and dark blue. The set is in soft night colours with a gentle mist.
    PENELOPE and YOUNG PENELOPE are both facing the audience, looking directly into the distance, into the audience. PENELOPE holds her sword facing downward. YOUNG PENELOPE stands beside her. She speaks the first two lines in Greek—in the language of lost and found worlds. ]
    PENELOPE: [ Moves forward and addresses the audience .]
    Exerte erthe apo to skotathi.
    Exerte erthe apo to skotathi. [ You have come from the darkness. ]
    [ YOUNG PENELOPE moves two steps forward to stand by PENELOPE .]
    YOUNG PENELOPE: You have come from darkness
    to take parts of my life, to make it yours.
    PENELOPE: You have come to recognise or retrieve
    something that you have forgotten or lost.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: You have come to see if love exists.
    PENELOPE: Oh, by that I don’t mean
    comfortable, grey , domesticated love.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I mean love that can break and shatter you
    on the rocks of solitude.
    BOTH: How much solitude can you bear?
    PENELOPE: You have arrived at the precise time of my departure.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Ulysses, Ulysses!
    Haunt me. Drive me mad with longing.
    PENELOPE: I want to leave with you the despair and joy—
    YOUNG PENELOPE: of a longing and searching,
    of this love for this man—
    PENELOPE: for no other man will do.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: This love for an ideal,
    this rebellious spark in my soul.
    PENELOPE: This love that will not compromise
    BOTH: The impossible choices of my nature and destiny.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Will you stay? Give me your hand
    or at least your little finger.
    PENELOPE: Please stay, so that I can pass on
    the sirens’ song.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Did you know that sirens are mute?
    It is their silence and solitude
    that pierce the heart of your hidden world.
    PENELOPE: You all know that the sirens’ song
    is the opening of a man’s heart
    to reveal either its fullness or emptiness.
    And how much truth can you bear?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Do I have something that belongs to you?
    Others seem to think that I have
    something that belongs to them.
    I have been kept under house arrest
    by those who think that I have
    something that belongs to them.
    PENELOPE: Those men in my courtyard are not of my desire,
    of my passion, of my deep sensuality.
    They lack the salt of the sea in them.
    They are not fish, only nets.
    Their lives, their masculinity,
    are nets used to capture the wild bird, the siren.
    They would even settle for the tail of the mermaid.
    They think I watch their nakedness,
    while all the while I look beyond them
    into the waves and turbulence
    of the forever making and breaking sea.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I look to hear Ulysses.
    PENELOPE: I search for the sirens
    BOTH: Who have escaped the net of the hunter.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I follow the sea with my heart.
    PENELOPE: Have you brought the danger
    and beauty of the sea?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Once I found a bottle with a note
    floating in the shallow waters
    of another shipwrecked and sunken world.
    BOTH: “There is the sea, and who will drink it dry?” 20
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Ulysses, when we were young
    you