TROY WOMEN
CASSANDRA
Fire song!
Fuck song!
Take torches everyone because this is going to be good.
I’m getting married. Me! Cassandra! Married!
Can you believe it?
They grow up so fast.
It seems like a minute ago that the ships were arriving
and she was starting to bleed.
I always get so sentimental at these events.
Thank Hymen for a torch to dry my tears.
Let’s all share happy memories of the bride.
Let’s have a women’s ritual.
We will pass a torch and a water bowl with petals and we will
pat each other’s hands dry.
Dance sexually non-specific dances.
Eat sweets.
Share wine.
Cry.
Maybe have a little talk with me Mother about whisper?
Because I’m kind of starting to blush
Just thinking
about loving
such a big, big, hero.
I’m kind of starting to shiver.
Just imagine
what will happen
when he rolls over me
if I don’t love him right.
What if I gag
or scream in a way he finds unappealing?
What if I bleed too much
or not enough?
What if I fart?
There has to be a way to control these things.
There has to be a women’s system.
Now’s the time to hand over that kind of information.
Mom?
Remember how you were sort of sad about me being a priestess
because I’d never feel a man inside
and you’d never dance at my wedding?
Well look!
I’m bride!
You’re mother-of!
Take up a torch and spin me away.
Let’s all share our first warm memories of Cassandra.
Perhaps she wrote a poem in childhood which now seems
particularly fitting.
Perhaps as an adolescent she told you about her ideal guy
And Agamemnon is just like him!
Wouldn’t that be a stitch?
Maybe there’s even some embarrassing story
that we can all laugh at
now that we’re grown-ups.
Fire dance!
Fuck dance!
Who wants to share first?
Crown me! King me!
Ask me why.
Why?
Because Cassandra is a deadlier bride than Helen.
Why tell you about the hatchet
that will hack first me then Agamemnon
the hatchet in the hands of his wife?
Or the son who slaughters his mother
who slaughtered her king
over me?
Or the collapse of a mighty and corrupt world power
due to a series of scandals
over me?
I have a god’s gift for prophecy,
but if you don’t believe that
believe this:
Troy will look good next to Greece.
If Helen wanted Menelaus, she would have stayed home.
Don’t spit.
We fought for our country.
They invaded, desecrated, destroyed and died
to make her love him
which no army can do.
Agamemnon killed his daughter
(To a bystander girl)
innocent as you
for Helen.
What happened when a Greek fell?
Did his widow come to wrap him,
did children sing lamentations
make offerings
close his life in grace?
Corpses fester on our ground.
Unburied, forgotten, rotting.
While back in Greece, wives die in wait.
Fathers who hoped for heroes grow old alone
longing for sons.
The men of Troy fought to protect us
and what we love.
When one failed, his woman lay healing hands upon the wound.
When that failed, she dressed his body for burial
deep in the earth of Troy.
Our survivors returned each day
to the Greeks’ most distant dream,
to eat with children
to sleep holding a woman’s belly
to come home.
Unlucky Hector?
He was born a prince.
Growing up we bickered over games and sweets.
He found something larger before he died.
Without the Greeks he might have remained
petty and soft
like the rest of us.
Even Paris had Helen all those years
Zeus’s daughter
the most ravishing woman in the world.
There is a kind of fame in that.
Nobody wants a war.
But that’s how you make
a war hero.
So keep your tears, Mother.
This marriage means revenge.
(She addresses the soldier sent to seize her)
Who are you?
I’m looking at you in that suit and thinking about your dick.
I imagine you’ve got a lot of layers going on.
There’s your outside garment
Tailored I’m sure to maximize comfort
without pinching power.
Then some kind of hard cupping device,
Maybe a strap to bind that on, maybe special pants,
a support,
and right against the big guy himself something soft.
Am I right?
You say my mother will be slave to Odysseus.
Apollo told me she dies in Troy.
What about that?
Hecuba will drop to all fours and howl
till you flee.
I see what you leave of Troy.
Nothing could live on those scraps but a dog
so that’s what my mother becomes.
When you get hard what happens to your clothes?
I bet not much.
I bet they keep you low.
You’ve seen a lot of thighs lately
in many different positions.
If we could tell what gets you hot
who know what we would try?
You are so mighty.
What’s been your most tempting offer?
Too bad the boys are dead.
How’s Odysseus?
Doomed.
That’s not a curse, it’s a fact.
I only bring the news.
You know how it is.
We don’t personally cause disaster,
but then we get all the blame.
Sucks.
I wonder if I could eat you without using my throat,
if it would just reach the back of my mouth.
I know about guys like you.
I’m a prophet.
But size doesn’t matter.
Did you learn that in school?
Odysseus thinks he’s going home.
By the time he gets there, I’ll look lucky.
Shipwreck, cannibals, one-eyed beasts,
witches who make men pigs,
lethal singing ladies,
a vacation in death.
Then he arrives and the trouble starts.
My king is waiting.
Lots of blood on the way.
Mine is just the beginning.
After she hacks us
they lay me out naked on his grave
above ground
for dogs and rats to eat.
You should check me out, Harold, if you get that far.
What I’m wondering is,
how can size not matter?
Do they mean it doesn’t matter like
the girl can’t tell the difference?
You believe that?
Or it doesn’t matter like
something can do anything
anything can do something
and what the ladies really want
is love.
To think I rejected Apollo to stay a virgin.
We were very young before the war.
I strip off my priestess clothes
Each ornament
Everything holy
So you won’t have the thrill of tearing them.
Just tear me.
Where’s the ship?
Watch for wind.
Stop crying, Mother.
Brothers in the ground,
our father Priam
all the old bones of Troy.
You won’t wait long for me.
This prisoner leaves Troy a girl
arrives in Greece a fury.
Fire song!
Fuck song!
Take torches everyone because this is going to be good.
I’m getting married. Me! Cassandra! Married!
Can you believe it?
They grow up so fast.
It seems like a minute ago that the ships were arriving
and she was starting to bleed.
I always get so sentimental at these events.
Thank Hymen for a torch to dry my tears.
Let’s all share happy memories of the bride.
Let’s have a women’s ritual.
We will pass a torch and a water bowl with petals and we will
pat each other’s hands dry.
Dance sexually non-specific dances.
Eat sweets.
Share wine.
Cry.
Maybe have a little talk with me Mother about whisper?
Because I’m kind of starting to blush
Just thinking
about loving
such a big, big, hero.
I’m kind of starting to shiver.
Just imagine
what will happen
when he rolls over me
if I don’t love him right.
What if I gag
or scream in a way he finds unappealing?
What if I bleed too much
or not enough?
What if I fart?
There has to be a way to control these things.
There has to be a women’s system.
Now’s the time to hand over that kind of information.
Mom?
Remember how you were sort of sad about me being a priestess
because I’d never feel a man inside
and you’d never dance at my wedding?
Well look!
I’m bride!
You’re mother-of!
Take up a torch and spin me away.
Let’s all share our first warm memories of Cassandra.
Perhaps she wrote a poem in childhood which now seems
particularly fitting.
Perhaps as an adolescent she told you about her ideal guy
And Agamemnon is just like him!
Wouldn’t that be a stitch?
Maybe there’s even some embarrassing story
that we can all laugh at
now that we’re grown-ups.
Fire dance!
Fuck dance!
Who wants to share first?
Crown me! King me!
Ask me why.
Why?
Because Cassandra is a deadlier bride than Helen.
Why tell you about the hatchet
that will hack first me then Agamemnon
the hatchet in the hands of his wife?
Or the son who slaughters his mother
who slaughtered her king
over me?
Or the collapse of a mighty and corrupt world power
due to a series of scandals
over me?
I have a god’s gift for prophecy,
but if you don’t believe that
believe this:
Troy will look good next to Greece.
If Helen wanted Menelaus, she would have stayed home.
Don’t spit.
We fought for our country.
They invaded, desecrated, destroyed and died
to make her love him
which no army can do.
Agamemnon killed his daughter
(To a bystander girl)
innocent as you
for Helen.
What happened when a Greek fell?
Did his widow come to wrap him,
did children sing lamentations
make offerings
close his life in grace?
Corpses fester on our ground.
Unburied, forgotten, rotting.
While back in Greece, wives die in wait.
Fathers who hoped for heroes grow old alone
longing for sons.
The men of Troy fought to protect us
and what we love.
When one failed, his woman lay healing hands upon the wound.
When that failed, she dressed his body for burial
deep in the earth of Troy.
Our survivors returned each day
to the Greeks’ most distant dream,
to eat with children
to sleep holding a woman’s belly
to come home.
Unlucky Hector?
He was born a prince.
Growing up we bickered over games and sweets.
He found something larger before he died.
Without the Greeks he might have remained
petty and soft
like the rest of us.
Even Paris had Helen all those years
Zeus’s daughter
the most ravishing woman in the world.
There is a kind of fame in that.
Nobody wants a war.
But that’s how you make
a war hero.
So keep your tears, Mother.
This marriage means revenge.
(She addresses the soldier sent to seize her)
Who are you?
I’m looking at you in that suit and thinking about your dick.
I imagine you’ve got a lot of layers going on.
There’s your outside garment
Tailored I’m sure to maximize comfort
without pinching power.
Then some kind of hard cupping device,
Maybe a strap to bind that on, maybe special pants,
a support,
and right against the big guy himself something soft.
Am I right?
You say my mother will be slave to Odysseus.
Apollo told me she dies in Troy.
What about that?
Hecuba will drop to all fours and howl
till you flee.
I see what you leave of Troy.
Nothing could live on those scraps but a dog
so that’s what my mother becomes.
When you get hard what happens to your clothes?
I bet not much.
I bet they keep you low.
You’ve seen a lot of thighs lately
in many different positions.
If we could tell what gets you hot
who know what we would try?
You are so mighty.
What’s been your most tempting offer?
Too bad the boys are dead.
How’s Odysseus?
Doomed.
That’s not a curse, it’s a fact.
I only bring the news.
You know how it is.
We don’t personally cause disaster,
but then we get all the blame.
Sucks.
I wonder if I could eat you without using my throat,
if it would just reach the back of my mouth.
I know about guys like you.
I’m a prophet.
But size doesn’t matter.
Did you learn that in school?
Odysseus thinks he’s going home.
By the time he gets there, I’ll look lucky.
Shipwreck, cannibals, one-eyed beasts,
witches who make men pigs,
lethal singing ladies,
a vacation in death.
Then he arrives and the trouble starts.
My king is waiting.
Lots of blood on the way.
Mine is just the beginning.
After she hacks us
they lay me out naked on his grave
above ground
for dogs and rats to eat.
You should check me out, Harold, if you get that far.
What I’m wondering is,
how can size not matter?
Do they mean it doesn’t matter like
the girl can’t tell the difference?
You believe that?
Or it doesn’t matter like
something can do anything
anything can do something
and what the ladies really want
is love.
To think I rejected Apollo to stay a virgin.
We were very young before the war.
I strip off my priestess clothes
Each ornament
Everything holy
So you won’t have the thrill of tearing them.
Just tear me.
Where’s the ship?
Watch for wind.
Stop crying, Mother.
Brothers in the ground,
our father Priam
all the old bones of Troy.
You won’t wait long for me.
This prisoner leaves Troy a girl
arrives in Greece a fury.