Cast of Characters

Orpheus: The Thracian harper
Woman: A traveling crone
Athanasios: A youth in service to Orpheus

Scene

The top of Orpheus’s hill.

Time

Antiquity.

ACT 1

SETTING:

Orpheus’s hilltop. The wan light of a winter sun shines down on a hilltop rich with trees of many varieties. In front of a small, stone house sits ORPHEUS, in the prime of middle age, fingering his lyre and humming with divine skill. He is periodically interrupted, however, a woman’s hoarse cries and pants, coming nearer. He pays little attention.

The WOMAN enters stumbling and puffing. She is old and crooked, covered head to toe in black robes. 

WOMAN

Oh, oh, what a climb! Oh, it’s just about done these old bones in. 

(ORPHEUS stops playing.)

But here I am at last. Just look at the view! And you, you’re really him, aren’t you?

ORPHEUS

I’m really whom?

WOMAN

Why, Orpheus, of course, the harper. 

(He makes a gesture of acknowledgment.) 

See? I could tell by your playing. Now, that is music fit to charm even Persephone and Hades. Why, I bet Sisyphus sat on his rock. No wonder they gave you your wife back. 

ORPHEUS

I’d rather not talk about that. 

WOMAN

Oh, yes, sorry. Pity that didn’t work out. Best music I’ve ever heard is all I’m saying.

(ATHANIOS enters from the house.) 

ORPHEUS

I’m flattered, old mother.

ATHANIOS

I’m surprised you could hear anything at all with that racket you’ve been making. Just who do you think you are, disturbing my master’s peace?

WOMAN

Oh, well, no one really. Beg your pardon, just an old woman. I came to Thrace to visit my daughter, if you must know. 

ORPHEUS

And yet here you are, no daughter in sight. 

WOMAN

Fair point. That is to say, I’ll be visiting her for a good long while, and I thought to myself, “Well, why not?” I thought. “It’s the feast of Dionysia, after all, a time of rejoicing and music, and these old legs don’t have many more winters to make a climb like this. So why not now? Why not finally go hear the harper?”

ATHANIOS

He doesn’t play at the whim of a rambling old woman. 

ORPHEUS

Peace, Athanios. He plays because music is the breath to his life. Go. Go fetch wine for our guest. 

(Shaking his head, ATHANIOS exits to the house.) 

He’s a good lad really, just protective of me. What do you want to hear, mother?

WOMAN

Oh well, it being Dionysia, it wouldn’t go amiss to hear a harvest song. I do love them so. 

ORPHEUS

Not my fare, I’m afraid. 

(His fingers stray across his lyre. ATHANIOS enters, wine cup in hand.)

WOMAN

Oh. Well, what’s that you’re strumming now?

ATHANIOS

“Plucking,” woman. No one strums a lyre. 

(He hands the WOMAN the cup. She drinks.)

WOMAN

Oh, this is lovely. What a libation, just the thing for the wine celebrations of Dionysia. 

ORPHEUS

I don’t pay much attention to those celebrations, but I’m glad the vintage pleases you. Athanios, go down and enjoy the rites.

ATHANIOS

And leave you to manage this irreverent crone, master? 

ORPHEUS

I’m not likely to get bitten by this granddam in your absence. Go. Bring back some loaves, whatever strikes your fancy. 

(He kisses ATHANIOS, who exits off-stage, and plucks a few notes on his lyre.)

It’s Cyparissus.

WOMAN

(Examines her wine cup.)

I’ve never heard of a vintage called that.

ORPHEUS

(laughing)

The song I was plucking, mother. It tells the tale of young Cyparissus and the stag he loved. 

WOMAN

(setting aside her wine cup)

He loved a stag? That’s a little unorthodox.

ORPHEUS

Well, that’s love for you. 

(He begins to pluck his lyre.)

And love it he did. He led it around and wove flowers through its antlers and hung baubles on its forehead and pendants from its ears.

WOMAN

Sounds uncomfortable.

ORPHEUS

Till one day as the stag lay down in the grass, the boy unknowingly shot it. 

WOMAN

He should have been more careful!

ORPHEUS

Yes, he thought so too. Of course, this cut him to the heart, and Apollo, who loved the boy, did his best to console him…

(He breaks into song.)

And what did Apollo not say to give comfort, 
to persuade him to grieve just a little bit less!
But the boy groaned and begged 
but one grace and one punishment,
that he be permitted eternal lament. 
And now, the boy’s blood spent in copious weeping,
his limbs, they grow green —

WOMAN

What? He turned into a tree?

ORPHEUS

(Stops harping abruptly, obviously perturbed.)

Yes.

WOMAN

Like that one?

ORPHEUS

That is a cypress tree, yes.

WOMAN

You mean, that’s him, right there, still moping over his stag?

ORPHEUS

Well, as to that particular tree…

WOMAN

Oh, no, no. I don’t hold with that at all. I understand it must have been very upsetting, to kill his unconventional darling by mistake. But to spend eternity as a tree! I mean, there’ve been cypress trees, well, as long as I can remember, and that’s a long time. To think he’s still pining and weeping after all these years! 

ORPHEUS

I take it it’s not to your taste.

WOMAN

Oh, your singing is lovely, as all the world says. But the story, it’s just ghastly. Let’s have one where nobody asks to be turned into a vegetable. 

ORPHEUS

(Considers.)

What about Hyacinthus?

WOMAN

Sounds veggie to me. 

ORPHEUS

But he didn’t ask to be turned into a flower.

WOMAN

Well, I …

ORPHEUS

I tell you what. I’ll summarize a bit, and if you like it, you shall hear it. 

WOMAN

(sitting down before him)

Summarize away.

ORPHEUS

Hyacinthus was a lad in the bloom of youth, and Apollo was head over heels for him. 

WOMAN

Oh good. That’s much more natural than the stag thing.

ORPHEUS

They spent all their time together and one day decided to have a discus throwing competition, just for fun. Well, Apollo threw it — very well, as you might imagine. And just as Hyacinthus was running to pick it up, it bounced and clapped him in the brain and killed him. And Apollo lamented …

(The WOMAN is staring off down the hill.)

Are you with me?

WOMAN

Oh yes, sorry, I can just see the dancers starting to practice. 

(A flurry of jig music wafts over faintly and comes to discordant break as a distant voice breaks out in the authoritative tone of someone giving instructions.)

ORPHEUS

Do you want to hear about Hyacinthus or not?

(For a moment, the WOMAN seems not to hear him. She stares with grave concentration at the distant dancers.)

WOMAN

(turning back to him)

Oh yes, indeed, every scrap of me is here for a good, sad story. As long as it’s good.

ORPHEUS

It is. As I was saying, the god lamented,

(Sings)

“You’ll decay, my love, cheated of youth’s first bloom.
I see it, the wound that’s my crime.
You are my sorrow, you are my wrong. 
Your ruin is written all over my hand.
Your death, I myself am its author.”

WOMAN

Well, it’s hardly his fault the discus bounced. 

ORPHEUS

He continues …

(Sings)

“Yet how is it my fault,
Unless sport be a fault,
Unless love be a fault?
And I would I could surrender life
And die to be with you…”

(He trails off. Both look past each other, the WOMAN pensive, ORPHEUS wiping a stray tear from his face. From the distance intrude sounds of village life: distant laughter, voices, the lowing of cattle, a clatter of drums, as if in rehearsal.)

WOMAN

Well, for someone who wants to surrender his life, he’s awfully preoccupied with proving his innocence. Meaning no disrespect to the god. Grief is like that, isn’t it? 

(She pauses, contemplative.)

Makes the best of us irrational. So he turned his love into a flower?

ORPHEUS

(distracted)

What?

WOMAN

A hyacinth?

ORPHEUS

Oh. Yes. The red kind, in honor of his beloved’s blood.

WOMAN

Grisly. Still a flower’s a decent commemoration. But do you think the boy’s spirit is truly inside those flowers? Is he stuck as a flower?

ORPHEUS

I really couldn’t say. 

WOMAN

I sincerely hope not — that’d be ghastly! And as for Apollo, we can take comfort that he grieved and moved on.

ORPHEUS

(sharply)

Oh, can we?

WOMAN

I meant no offense, master. Goodness. 

(In the pause that follows, the village sounds continue. Merry music floats in fits from the distance. The WOMAN rises and looks out over the hill.)

Oh, they’re good, those ladies, aren’t they? Soon it’ll be all singing and dancing and drinking. I do so love a good Dionysia. Just the thing to ring winter out and spring in.

ORPHEUS

(composing himself)

Why don’t you go down and celebrate it? Go enjoy the singing and dancing and drinking.

WOMAN

I will, master, in my time. 

(She pauses, studying him. She stands taller now, as if younger than she had been.)

But I don’t like to leave you here, looking so melancholy.

(ORPHEUS laughs bitterly.)

Come on. Give us a happy song. A master harper such as you, you must have some happy endings in your repertoire. 

ORPHEUS

(with disdain)

Happy.

(He plucks his lyre thoughtfully.)

In my experience, happiness eludes this life. Oh, there are moments, but they soon wilt—like the hyacinth.

(He smiles bitterly.)

True happiness, well, the gods may know it, though I doubt it. But for myself, I find it only in the realm of art, for the artist can paint without the blemishes of reality. Do you know the story of Pygmalion?

WOMAN

I did. It’s just right now I forgot. 

ORPHEUS

(Sings)

Pygmalion watched for a very long time
depraved women wasting their lives.
Put off by their vices, for there were so many,

(The WOMAN chuckles.)

he lived for a long time without any wife.
Happily, in the meantime, this remarkable artist
Fashioned snow-white ivory into a form
Far lovelier than any woman born
And, thus, fell in love with …

WOMAN

His statue, yes, I remember now. It’s —

ORPHEUS

Ghastly?

WOMAN

Took the word right out of my mouth.

(She stands now straight-backed and venerable. As she speaks, she draws the edge of her headscarf back, unaffectedly, as if by chance, revealing a hint of lush, blond hair. ORPHEUS, preoccupied by his emotions, does not notice. She tucks her hair away again.)

Yes, the dear, pious man begged the gods to turn her into a real girl. Which they did—for piety and a real hatred for women have never scorned to walk hand in hand. And she fell into his arms. Or he fell on her or something.

ORPHEUS

You said you wanted a happy ending. Well, this is as happy as it gets.

WOMAN

How do you make that out?

(ORPHEUS stands and walks to the edge of the hill. Below, raucous women’s laughter is interspersed with the dancing music.)

ORPHEUS

(gesturing down the hill.)

You hear them down there? Same as in Pygmalion’s time, wild, hollering, lascivious, frivolous. What sane man wouldn’t prefer a statue?

WOMAN

Yes, indeed, gods spare him from us poor, real things.

ORPHEUS

Don’t you see? That is the zenith of art, the province of divinity: to transform the marred, the corrupt into its purified state, grief epitomized in the weeping cypress, blood becoming the hyacinth in its eternal bloom, woman apotheosized in perfection made flesh. 

WOMAN

(Takes up her wine cup and drinks to the dregs.)

Lucky for us there’s a son of a Muse to sing about it.

ORPHEUS

You think I’m vain.

WOMAN

No. Vain is not quite what I think you are.

(She hands him her wine cup. Through some graceful slight-of-hand, it is now inexplicably filled with ripe grapes. ORPHEUS takes the grapes out and holds them up, perplexed. After a moment, he sets cup and grapes aside.)

ORPHEUS

Who are you, lady? Let’s be done with disguises.

WOMAN 

(shrugging)

Does it matter? I’m no statue, that’s for sure. I love and weep and grieve and storm. I have terrible tantrums, I assure you. No doubt I’d do better as a tree or a flower. Until they die. Flowers do die. Are you aware you just said so? Trees too, a very drab, dreary business. 

ORPHEUS

I appear to have offended. That was not my intention.

(From down the hill, the music floats a little louder and more raucous. Voices shout against a brief flurry of drums.)

WOMAN

(with a caustic laugh)

Not your intention? What woman wouldn’t be offended by you, the master harper on his hilltop, loving boys he can throw off before their flower fades and scorning us depraved ones?

ORPHEUS

If you know anything of me, you know I keep myself for my wife. She is the only woman who matters to me. 

WOMAN

Tell me, is she a flower or a tree?

ORPHEUS

You’re mocking me.

WOMAN

Oh, you noticed.

ORPHEUS

(with sudden, fierce intensity)

She was pure and faithful and blameless. She is still pure and faithful, blameless. She is—

WOMAN

A statue?

ORPHEUS

She is waiting. She is waiting for me.

WOMAN

Things change.

ORPHEUS

Not her.

WOMAN

Because she’s dead?

ORPHEUS

Because she’s blameless!

WOMAN

Nothing’s blameless. Except statues — that’s what you said, I believe. Real people do all sorts of ridiculous things. They look back when they shouldn’t.

ORPHEUS

(roughly)

You think I don’t know that?

WOMAN

They keep mum when they might bloody well make some sound to show they’re following.

ORPHEUS

I never said —

WOMAN

They traipse off on their wedding day and tread on snakes. “Frivolous,” wasn’t that your word?

(ORPHEUS is plainly agitated, breath coming fast.)

ORPHEUS

She’s dead. There’s no frivolity among the dead. She has nothing to do but wait.

WOMAN

(throwing back her cowl to reveal a stream of lustrous hair as yellow as ripe grain)

Even the dead change, oh, slower maybe. But nothing stays the same forever. 

ORPHEUS

(awed, backing away)

What do you know about death? Life blazes from you like the rays of the sun. 

WOMAN

I hear stories. You’d be amazed at all the gossip my daughter tells me when she visits.

(ORPHEUS eyes her warily, until his attention is distracted by shouts from below: women’s voices punctuated by a man’s, fearful, frantic. Unconcerned, the WOMAN gazes down the hill.)

Looks like they’ve frightened off your lad. 

ORPHEUS

(hastening to join her and straining to see)

Is he all right?

WOMAN

I expect he will be, if he runs fast enough.

(ORPHEUS stares at her in distress. She laughs.)

Oh, don’t worry. He’s young. It’s not his time.

ORPHEUS

Death gives no reprieve to youth. As mother of the queen of the dead, you know that.

WOMAN

Fair enough.

ORPHEUS

What has your daughter told you about my wife?

WOMAN

Oh, nothing in particular.

ORPHEUS

You know something or you would not be here.

WOMAN

It isn’t her I’m here for.

(She takes a slow step toward him and he moves to keep distance between them. At a burst of laughter from below, he looks down the hill, back at the WOMAN.)

ORPHEUS

You’re here for them. You’re with them, aren’t you? You, a patroness of the harvest, you have always been friendly with the women of Dionysus. 

WOMAN

I said I liked a good Dionysia. It speaks to me of rebirth.

ORPHEUS

You’re here to punish me.

WOMAN

Not here to punish. No, seriously. Just to ask a question. 

(She pauses, but he does not react.)

When you die, who do you want to be reunited with?

ORPHEUS

I think the answer is obvious.

WOMAN

Yes, but who is she?

ORPHEUS

(a little stuck)

She’s …

WOMAN

Pure?

ORPHEUS

Yes …

WOMAN

Faithful?

(He does not reply.)

Blameless?

(His look of consternation deepens. From below, a drum softly begins to beat. It will gradually become louder till the end of the play.)

Flower?

(He grasps his head as if it aches.)

Statue?

ORPHEUS

She was golden in the spring.

WOMAN

And spring falls to summer. And then summer falls.

(ORPHEUS does not reply at once. The persistent drumbeat fills the silence.)

ORPHEUS

Is she no longer waiting?

WOMAN

(shrugging)

That’s not for me to say. 

(ORPHEUS sits on his bench and, shaking, takes up his lyre, but the melody he plucks does not match the tempo of the drums. He drifts into plucking low notes in time with the drumming.)

ORPHEUS

(as if to himself, still playing his lyre)

Have I loved a phantom?

WOMAN

Well, by definition, yes, but —

ORPHEUS

A statue. 

WOMAN

It did strike me that’s how you think of her —

ORPHEUS

No. 

(With a discordant jangle of notes, he casts his lyre aside.)

Me. I have been a statue. Stuck in place. That’s it, isn’t it?

(The sounds below swell ominous and impressive. The drums quicken, relentless, mixed with women’s shouts. He stands and looks over the hillside, then horrified turns away. The WOMAN holds out her hand.)

WOMAN

It’s time to leave.

ORPHEUS

Will it hurt?

WOMAN

Change always hurts.

(He considers a moment, then takes her hand.)

ORPHEUS

And afterward?

(The WOMAN smiles faintly and draws him onward. As they exit, the music and hollering swell, chaotic and harmonious.)

(END OF ACT)

[Arwen Spicer writes: My short fiction engaging with the divine has appeared in This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature and Timeless 2, a fairytale anthology. The translations of Ovid above are my own.]