An Evening on Lesbos E-Book

Walter Walter

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

CHORUS. —Farewell awhile, love gods, have a good flight! —Watch over us from your celestial spheres. —Do not collide with jets and satellites. —That could knock out the internet for years. —The whole civilization would collapse. —The Middle Ages would return. —Perhaps there'd be no theatres with snoring tiers. —Hey, wakie-wakie, here's no place for naps!

Leseprobe

Walter Walter

An Evening on Lesbos

κωμῳδικοὶ ἴαμβοι

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Dramatis Personae

SAPPHO (SA)—Charaxos’ elder sister, priestess of Aphrodite, poetess, musician and singer.

ERINNA (ER)—a young girl, one of Sappho’s pupils, betrothed to Phaon.

DORICHA (DO)—used to be Charaxos’ girlfriend and a pupil of Sappho’s.

CHARAXOS (CHA)—Sappho’s younger brother, Doricha’s ex-lover.

RHODOPIS (RHO)—Charaxos’ fiancée.

PHAON (PHA)—Erinna’s fiancé, best friend of Doricha and Charaxos.

CHORUS (CHO)—a group of girls.

APHRODITE (APH)—goddess of love.

CUPID (CU)—Aphrodite’s son and co-worker.

SCENE: Sappho’s house in Mytilene on Lesbos.

TIME: around the end of the 7th century BC.

Prolegomenon

Muses, d’you hear yon unkempt schmaltzy bloke’s

pathetic bray? Go help him! He invokes

you day and night in utter desperation.

In case you want to be of use, swing by at

his digs and fill the guy with inspiration.

As far as I’m concerned, I am inspired

more than enough by down-to-earth utensils:

a desk, a notebook, paper, pens and pencils.

Dear ladies, I’ll be frank: your interference

has ever been a nightmarish experience.

My hair’s well-trimmed; don’t tousle it, I pray.

Fly back to your blest Helicon and stay

up there with lord Apollo and his lyre.

A playwright’s meant to be a playful liar

and not some phony grind who’d grind stale water

pretending to grind spices in the mortar.

Prologue

CHORUS. —Fair Mytilene’s busy squares and streets

have calmed at last, lulled by the evening breeze.

—The half-round sun has set the west afire.

—Which means the day is going to expire.

—And soon we’ll see the moon’s bewitching visage.

—Hark, girls! —D’you hear yon roses’ throbbing twitches?

—Vague signs of some uncanny longing, which is

sometimes ascribed to these particular plants.

—Sappho, you seem immersed in a deep trance.

—Your body’s here, your spirit far abroad.

—By what sad memories is it being gnawed?

SAPPHO. I’ve had again that flash of memory:

men, kids and women at the busy wharf;

I am there, too, to see my brother off.

Are we somehow connected mentally?

That trip was my idea, to be truthful.

Now I regret it. He is way too youthful

for a top dog on a commercial ship.

Oh dear, with what a childish glee he gripped

that yearned-for chance to promptly get aboard and

leave far behind this island’s daily boredom!

A year has passed, three hundred sixty five

long days of hoping he is doing fine,

as in that frequent flashback in my mind:

Charaxos waves; his crewmen raise the sail,

and off they go with loads of wine for sale.

On the bazaars of Egypt they will trade it

as always—by erecting pyramids

of chock-full amphorae somewhere amidst

a market-place. It soon will be invaded

by thirsty gourmets; and lo and behold—

all beverages are sold and paid with gold.

Let’s hope that Staphylos won’t fill the Nile

with the befuddling juices of our isle:

the Nile would soon be dry; the trade would die.

I don’t care much about the trade and gain;

I want to see my brother here again.

No messages from him have ever reached us.

Why is he lingering thus long in Egypt?

Afraid of shylocks? I will pay his debts.

I’ll do it anyway in case he’s dead.

Maybe, the silly boy, while slightly potted,

went for a walk along the shore and spotted

a gang of crocodiles—deemed sacred there—

and called them names like “stinky ugly beasts”,

and they devoured the rowdy piece by piece?

So now he might be standing on the bare

bank of the Styx and wondering why the Nile is

so gloomy and so cold, and why the sky is

so sunless, moonless, starless and so blurred,

and all around so eerie in that world,

so lifeless too, that it gives him the creeps.

Or maybe he palmed off the rented vessel

and settled down in yonder land for keeps?

By now he is perhaps the pharaoh’s vassal,

has met a pretty lass, espoused her, too...

ERINNA. You mean, just one lass, Sappho? I’d say two,

or ten, or twenty. As a true Egyptian

he’ll be obliged to follow their tradition.

What an ordeal for him to memorize

the names of all of his exotic wives,

to not forget what he should call the honey

or honeys whom he will have spent the night with!

SA. Erinna, did you find my prologue funny?

ER. I’m sorry, Sappho, but you can’t deny that

your brother is a peplos chaser, fond

of every cute coquette, brunette or blonde

whose faces he gets but to lay his eyes on.

SA. So what? I must concede he isn’t wise and

coolheaded. But I find his tastes OK.

Young people are that way—an easy prey

for Cupid’s arrows. There is no such armour

as could protect a human heart from Amor.

ER. Ha, ha! When aiming for your brother’s heart,

that mutant always hits his private parts.

He’d better go and shoot him in the booty.

SA. Erinna, stop blaspheming, for a change!

That god is touchy, and he takes revenge

on atheists for jokes about his shooting.

ER. Excuse my frankness, Sappho, but his stupid

affair with Doricha, your former pupil,

is a good stuff for some side-splitting skits.

It makes me question both your brother’s wits

and the much-vaunted archer skills of Cupid.

He squandered his inheritance on earrings

and necklaces and emeralds and bracelets—

as showy and as overpriced as tasteless—

and that under the wicked jokes and jeering

and sneering of all gossipers of Lesbos.

SA. Yea, Lesbian chatterboxes are the best ones.

ER. When the last lepton had been spent, he pawned

his house and horses, furniture and dishes,

the geese and ducks and toads and frogs and fishes

together with the water of the pond,

the oil from olive-trees, though not yet planted,

the ghosts and sprites and poltergeists that haunted

the basement and the loft since days of old.

It’s sure as eggs he also would have sold

his dogs—no luck!—they’d headed for the hills,

thus having saved their lives, as well as his.

At length, he found himself completely busted,