Penelope and Ulysses Read Online Free Page B

come and claim this fire.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Like you, Ulysses,
    I seduce the senses of men . . .
    PENELOPE: And influence their hearts to follow me . . .
    BOTH: In preparation for their arrival and departure.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I am your love,
    and yet I am unattainable
    and absent from you.
    PENELOPE: I am from your hidden world,
    from your sunken world,
    from your lost and forgotten ideals,
    from the ashes of your youth,
    from the sparks of your passion and desire.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I am the one you love,
    the one you avoid,
    the one you hide from,
    the one you find too intense . . .
    PENELOPE: too demanding,
    too overwhelming
    and yet you will not let me swim past you.
    BOTH: Why do you keep me alive
    in the ashes of your unspoken and unfulfilled?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Do you have any idea
    the deep despair and aloneness
    I retreat into
    when I cannot hear your voice,
    see the sea in your eyes,
    feel your heat near me,
    feel your heat on me and in me?
    BOTH: I am Penelope the blesséd and curséd.
    PENELOPE: In my courtyard
    I have naked men that seek me,
    and I desire and long for the absent,
    the uncharted, the unmapped.
    BOTH: I seek the journey of the heart.
    I seek the body and seed of Ulysses.
    PENELOPE: And there is my blessing and curse.
    For twenty years I have ached for him,
    longed for him, searched in the sea for him,
    asked the sirens about the secrets of his heart.
    BOTH: All remain silent.
    All remain hidden,
    unseen and still.
    PENELOPE: Did you hear that?
    There it goes again.
    The creaking and moaning of a vessel
    that has been on the sea for too long.
    You all have come from the darkness
    to take parts of my life,
    to make it yours.
    I have travelled into the unmapped
    and uncharted worlds
    of the searching, the seeking,
    the deep longing of the heart.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: The unfilled heart.
    PENELOPE: The untouched desires.
    BOTH: The fires that burn and keep me alive.
    PENELOPE: I have waited for you to arrive.
    You have arrived at the precise moment
    of my departure.
    BOTH: Will you stay?
    PENELOPE: Will you take me with you when you leave?
    Have you been searching
    for decades or eons,
    an eternity?
    BOTH: “There is the sea and who will drink it dry?” 21
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Have you brought
    the turbulence of the sea with you,
    in you?
    PENELOPE: Do I want you to stay?
    I can see you,
    smell you, sense you,
    but something is preventing me
    from touching you.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: The physical.
    How I desire the physical.
    Even my teacher Socrates understood
    all experience comes through senses,
    the blood of the physical.
    BOTH: For I desire and know
    only what is of earth,
    sea, sky, and man.
    PENELOPE: In my tapestry I weave the mighty breakers
    that have shipwrecked me here.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: In my tapestry
    the salt of your tears
    and seed can be tasted.
    PENELOPE: Do you have the burning desire
    to be consumed by the journey of the navigator
    who seeks the hidden, the unknown?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Do you have the courage
    to swim where mermaids and sirens
    lose their glory?
    BOTH: Or is all your journey predictable
    and rewarded by the acceptance of mediocrity?
    Safety and security in the name of love.
    I am afraid to be without you, love.
    What of your Journey?
    The one you were meant to make?
    What of your Journey?
    PENELOPE: There it goes again.
    [ NOISE: something falling, breaking. ]
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Did you hear it?
    PENELOPE: Did you see it?
    [ Flickering of fire light ]
    BOTH: Did you feel it?
    ULYSSES [ offstage ]: Penelope!
    BOTH: Did you hear it?
    PENELOPE: The groaning of a ship
    that has carried too much in deep waters,
    the groaning of my life,
    the ache of the sirens
    that are driven by the tenderness of truth.
    ULYSSES [ offstage ]: [ loud ] Penelope! [ soft weeping ]
    BOTH: There it goes again.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I can hear him, in me.
    PENELOPE: I can see him in me.
    I can hear him in the darkest silence,
    the mutest world.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: He is calling for me.
    PENELOPE: He is seeking