1,000 Ships [extract]
[This was the script we took into the studio. I’d already cut it hugely but it was still too long, so we had to do some more cuts on the hoof. As a result some of this material is missing from the final performance]
Main Characters Helen Nurse / Hecuba Paris Farmer Priam Palace Servant
Minor Characters Butler doubled by actor playing Paris Herdsman doubled by actor playing Paris Sailor doubled by actor playing Farmer Ambassador doubled by actor playing Farmer Suitor doubled by actor playing Farmer Boxing Trainer doubled by actor playing Priam Athenian Captain doubled by actor playing Priam Theseus doubled by actor playing Palace Servant Aphrodite/Athene/Hera doubled by actor playing Nurse / Hecuba Narrator doubled by the actor playing Farmer
HelenListen… The faint slap-slap-slap of waves. I’ve fallen asleep to that sound every night for three thousand years. Even now it makes me think of leaving everything behind and starting over on the far side of the world. I am too old now and will, I suppose, remain fixed here forever, like a star. Which is, of course, why you want to hear the story everybody wants to hear. About the woman who wiped a city from the surface of the earth… How does the poem go…? (recites) A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill... Zeus raping my mother. Which is how most stories begin. A man taking a woman by force… There are people who say it is all a fairy tale. What do they know? I was born into an age of mystery.The past was always a story… Perhaps if I’d been poor or plain men would have told fewer lies about me. But I was neither. I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Nurse You could see that she were different from the start. Never shouted. Never cried. She never had to, see. She always got exactly what she wanted. Didn’t even have to ask. You wanted, more than anything, to see her happy. That was just the way things were. And she accepted it. And you accepted it. Helen I remember a window of sheer blue hanging in the darkness of a cool room. Columns covered in gold leaf. Fresh figs and warm milk. I remember the city of Sparta spread beneath my balcony like a toy. The cries of fruit sellers. Men wrestling naked in the square. I remember, every year, in spring, soldiers massing by the gates. Then the silence after the horizon swallowed them. The city holding its breath till that first sail was spotted in October. The panicked counting of the ships and this great hurt cry rising from the roofs below… Nurse I think we were all a little in love with her. The serving women. The female slaves... But with men it were something different altogether… Ambassador I came from Boeotia to ransom prisoners. Even now, when I think of her face, I feel my heart rise in my chest. Everyone talks about her eyes. But it was her hair, too. So thick, so blonde. Skin that seemed lit from inside. The curve of her belly pressing against her robe. NurseWhen she turned sixteen it were made known she were free to marry. And it were like half the world turned up. Helen Of course, you have to remember how ugly people were. Forget what you see on the vases. Club feet. Hair lips. Warts. Squints. Teeth like tree-stumps… Beauty was gold-dust. NurseMe and the other house-slaves, we was allowed to stand in the gallery to watch them queue up and tell the king why they thought they should marry his daughter… Helen But those sorry suitors? How many women of their own rank had they ever seen? And of these, how many were good-looking? Five? Ten…? I blazed through their little lives like a comet. Suitor I offer joint dominion over all the lands between the rivers Cayster and Maeander. The colonies of Samos and Icaria. The port of Ephesus… Nurse Not one of them asked her a question. Perhaps if she were wall-eyed or had a strawberry mark they might have thought to find out what she were like. But why bother listening to a woman if she looks that good with her mouth shut? Nurse She chose Menelaus. But I never understood. Oh, he were handsome, right enough. And knew it. Didn’t give a damn about anyone. Even her. (quoting Menelaus mockingly)It weren’t love. I’ll tell you that for nothing. Helen I remember his face, even now. The way he looked through me. It was the first time in my life that I had ever felt invisible. And after three days of being ogled by those dazed, brainless princes it was like a jug of cold clean water after cake. Herdsman We came into the city with cattle for the feasting. I’d not been in such crowds before. There were music everywhere. I looked through a window and there were people inside so clean and rich they seemed like gods. HelenI wasn’t a virgin. Did he notice…? Men notice very little, I’ve found. Men who have been waited on hand and foot since birth notice even less…. I do remember that the serving women who came and cleared away our bed-linen the following morning were replaced. It is possible that they were disposed of. HerdsmanThey say she were a tart from the beginning. And everyone were too blinded by her beauty to see what she were up to. We hear a group of Athenian soldiers running up stone stairs, then down a corridor. Doors are kicked open. A woman screams. This is sustained under the following. HelenI had been raped at fourteen. By Theseus. He had seen me during a visit to the court the previous year. He was a wealthy man. And wealthy men think they deserve to get their hands on everything they want. And since this world is run by wealthy men for the benefit of wealthy men they usually do. Athenian Captain (shouting) Down here… Try the doors down that side... You. Take the other side… Wait. She’s in here… You. Gag her and bring her down... Now. Set light to the tapestries… Go. Go. Nurse They said at the palace that she were ill. That she were gone to stay near the coast. But I heard them that night. The soldiers. No-one said anything. Not if you wanted to live. Beauty’s a valuable thing in a daughter. But Innocence is priceless.
The sound of a ship’s cabin at sea.
Helen I was blindfolded and taken to the harbour and thrown into a cabin. My hands were tied behind my back… Ten days at sea… I’d never been away from home before… (the sounds of the ship’s cabin fade) When my blindfold was removed on the quay at Athens the light was so bright I could not open my eyes. The following exchange occurs on the quay. Athenian Captain Here she is my lord. A little ragged, but I do not think you will be disappointed Theseus The fabled Helen… Welcome… I apologise for the unexpectedness of your departure and the primitive conditions during your journey. They will improve rapidly, I assure you… HelenEvery day I’d wait for him to come and find me after dark. TheseusAnd how is my wild animal tonight? Helen Then lay me on the bed and use me and wipe himself and leave. Nurse Some say that the story were a lie to make her seem like she were damaged goods from the beginning. Helen I saw the scene as if I was standing on the far side of the room, as if I was someone else altogether, watching this girl with the beautiful face being raped by a man old enough to be her father. Nurse Or a lie to make it appear like she were always the victim. Helen But that was how my whole life had seemed. Like something happening to someone else No-one had ever really touched me. No-one had ever really listened to me. No-one had ever really talked to me. Only to this beautiful girl that I was trapped inside… No-one understood. They say that beauty is the greatest gift. I dreamt of being ugly. Nurse She were gone for a year. Helen I became pregnant, and he stopped coming to my room. At the summer solstice I gave birth to a daughter, Iphigenia. And suddenly I was no longer alone. Nurse They say her brothers went to rescue her. Helen I loved that little girl so much. I did not care who her father was or why she had come into the world. I gazed down at her whilst she was suckling and… it was the first time I had ever been loved by someone who did not care what I looked like. We heard the sound of a ship casting off in a windy harbour under the following. Ropes. Sails. The creak of wood. Sailor (a distant shout) Cast off! Nurse They say, too, that there was a child. Helen Theseus let me go back to Sparta. But Iphigenia? She was his property. My brothers said that I should be relieved. I could simply leave behind the evidence of my disgrace. They said that I would not want reminding of what had happened. As if a lost child is something you do not notice. Nurse She seemed exactly the same. Like she’d never been away. Still beautiful, still that same quiet about her. But it scared me. Thinking what were going on inside her head for none of it to show. Thinking what that does to the heart. Helen I tell a lie. That’s not strictly true. That no-one understood. There was, of course, one person who understood completely. ParisAnd this is how I, Paris, first appear in the story. Not as a warrior. Not as a lover. But in a nightmare… The sound of flames and buildings crashing to the ground. The sound of people screaming. This is happening in Hecuba’s nightmare. The sounds of the nightmare end as Hecuba wakes from her nightmare with a scream, frightened and breathing heavily. Priam comes over to her bed. Priam Hecuba. Hecuba (cries out) No! Priam My love, open your eyes. Hecuba (confused) Where am I? Priam In our bed… Come, hold my hand. Hecuba I had a dream. Priam We all have dreams. Hecuba The child I’m bearing. His name is Paris. And when I give birth to him he must be killed. Priam You are distraught. You have just woken. Your mind is not clear. Hecuba Whilst I was sleeping a god stood beside my head and showed me pictures of things that are to come. Priam Sometimes the gods deceive us. Hecuba I saw a hundred windows alive with flames. I saw these fifty chambers crashing to the ground. I saw the heads of little children being broken on stones. I saw… I saw you being strangled on the altar in the citadel. When he is born, you must order a servant to get rid of him. FarmerI found him on the rocks above Mylon’s olives. I were chasing a ewe that had run off. It weren’t uncommon. Finding babies up there. So I took him home and told my wife that after all these years we finally had a son. He were so perfect she could not say no.… We called him Alexandros.
Helen And so the story goes that eighteen years later, at some wedding party of the gods, some fool brings out a golden apple inscribed, ‘For the most beautiful’ and rolls it onto the dance floor like a grenade… The following lines overlap as Athena, Aphrodite & Hera fight like cats.
AthenaIt’s mine…! Give that to me…! AphroditeGet your hands off that…! It’s meant for me…! HeraYou bitch…! I got hold of it first…! HelenZeus orders Athena, Aphrodite and Hera to behave and ferries them to Mount Ida so the dispute can be settled by this Paris Alexandros, the abandoned Trojan prince. On account of his being the most beautiful man in the world. FarmerSo, we’re sitting on the screefall at the head of the summer pasturewhen… A sudden rush of wind and flames. (panicked; in the scene) What in the name of…? (back in the present, narrating) This blinding light is everywhere. My skull is ringing like a bell and I can see three silhouettes walking towards us… Paris And I hear these voices… Hera, Athene and Aphrodite talk in eerie, overlapping whispers. Hera Choose me, Hera, and I will give you power over many kingdoms. Athena Choose me, Athena, and I will make you invincible in war. Aphrodite Choose me, Aphrodite, and I will give you the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris I was a farmer’s son. War was something that happened on the far side of the mountains which we thanked the gods for having kept away from us. But the most beautiful woman in the world.… Naturally, I chose Aphrodite. Helen Why being the most beautiful man in the world qualifies you to judge between three squabbling goddesses I do not know. It is ridiculous. But then most stories are. A swan raping a woman. A woman with hair of snakes whose eyes turn men to stone. A world of disembodied souls crowded beneath the surface of the earth… But imagine living in a time when your friends and family die with neither warning nor explanation. Imagine not knowing what lies behind the horizon. Imagine thunder and lightning. Imagine looking into the night sky and having no idea what those tiny lights are or where the darkness stops. Imagine that you are hungry for the truth. And imagine that all you have is stories.
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