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A Double Sorrow

Page 4

by Lavinia Greenlaw


  That her love could hold her false so lightly

  That someone would tell such a lie

  That she dared to feel joy.

  She considers all things as they stand

  And what it means to be good.

  Her heart turns cold in wonder.

  III. 799–889

  Cushions

  And then he is suddenly there

  And her words not quick

  But a kiss.

  And all that is left to their broker

  Is smoothing the silk and plumping the feathers.

  Now you can begin. I’ll be over there

  Reading something or other.

  III. 958–980

  Grain

  She gathers up the harm

  His suspicions might have done

  And seeks within this bushel the one pure grain

  Of love.

  It is enough.

  Why can feelings not bear their own name?

  He does not say this jealousy was an invention.

  III. 1023–1050

  The feeling of his sorrow

  That she is made so distraught

  By his deceit

  Turns him upon himself

  And he finds that there is nothing of himself

  He can bear to keep.

  All life in him has flown.

  Derelict – he falls down.

  III. 1065–1092

  Troilus collapses

  Wax

  The prince lies at her feet.

  She is instructed to help him onto the bed, to warm

  His palms, his wrists, his temples, to rub, to dab

  To stroke, to kiss, to reach an arm around him.

  He finds a form.

  Their friend sees that he can do no more

  And carries off the candle.

  III. 1114–1141

  Pandarus takes charge

  Aspen

  He holds her so completely that she shakes.

  This is what she’s read about in books

  But never known. The lightness

  That comes from being free of doubt.

  Willing the breeze.

  About to be let go by the tree

  Not to fall but float.

  III. 1198–1226

  Shift

  She moves away only to undress

  Discarding her garments piece by piece

  Till she stands in her shift

  And – like a bride – hesitates

  Then laughs:

  Shall I free myself of this?

  And she does.

  IF III. 31–32

  Honeysuckle

  As about a tree with many a twist

  They wind themselves into

  A thousand tendrils.

  The depth of each flower.

  The fullness of detail.

  The kiss upon kiss upon kiss

  Being met, being equal.

  III. 1230–1232

  A nightingale

  She cannot help but cry out

  Only to stop as she starts

  For fear of who’s passing

  Or what might be hidden within.

  Then she breathes

  And finding her voice

  Shows him everything.

  III. 1233–1239

  In this heaven he starts to delight

  A place of softest snow

  A place of rise and fall

  A place of open paths

  A place of long curves

  A place of pale cloud

  A place of fine feathers

  A place without walls.

  III. 1247–1302

  The slipping night

  They will not sleep

  But think themselves dreaming nonetheless

  So perfected is this.

  Minute by minute so complete

  Each brings the question of the next:

  Is this your true self?

  What of this can I possibly keep?

  III. 1338–1348, IF III. 34

  Live certain of my love

  At dawn they turn over the matter of parting

  And play at an exchange of rings.

  If he could be certain she will hold him

  In mind. If she could believe herself fixed

  In his. She takes a gold and azure brooch

  Set with a ruby heart and pins it to his shirt

  In outline.

  III. 1366–1372, 1485–1499, IF III. 49

  The idea of it

  Returning home he slinks under the covers

  Hoping for sleep but what comes is the night

  Just gone. He sees it all so brightly

  And she better lit than ever before.

  Returning home she cannot stop speaking of him

  To herself and weighs each second

  That has to pass before they meet again.

  III. 1534–1554, IF III. 54–55

  Take up the thread

  At last you’re at ease

  But do not look so triumphant.

  You will need just as many strategies

  To hold on to what you’ve won. Such joy

  Is delicately bound. This is self-evident.

  Think how hard it is to contain.

  Tighten the knot.

  III. 1615–1638

  Pandarus points out to Troilus that this is not an end

  BOOK FOUR

  Luck

  They are caught in Fortune’s brightest gaze

  And brightly lit must watch her turn away.

  Her face drawn down and darkening

  Into shadows and hollows

  Like an old story

  About the cost of beauty.

  Betrayal. Blame. Who’d be a woman?

  IV. 1–21, IF III. 94

  The long day closes

  At summer’s breaking point

  Hector gathers his best men and goes full out.

  They burst onto the broad plains resplendent

  With spears, maces, swords and axes.

  About to win, they are misled.

  The Greeks move in to kill or capture.

  Those who survive must have fled.

  IV. 30–49

  An investment

  The old king intervenes

  To propose an exchange of prisoners.

  The calculations are made: of mutual worth

  And how any surplus value might be met.

  In the Greek camp Calchas draws near

  To those doing the sums. Hoping for a cut

  He pitches his idea.

  IV. 57–68

  Priam takes command from Hector

  A changed face

  I came here with nothing more than my vision

  Relinquishing my entire estate.

  You know you’ll win.

  Do you also know I left a daughter sleeping?

  What hardness in my heart refused to wake

  Her – now defenceless and alone!

  I should have dragged her here in her nightgown . . .

  IV. 71–112

  Calchas has tears in his eyes

  Any day now

  I have seen it in the oracle of Apollo, in the stars

  In the auguries of birds, in the casting of lots.

  When the city falls you will more than recoup your costs.

  Why not give me one prisoner

  With whom I can free my daughter?

  In his cracked voice they hear a cracked heart.

  They give him Antenor.

  IV. 106–133

  Safeguards

  The king, his sons and all his lords

  Dispute the Greek terms.

  And it is said:

  For Antenor they want the lady Criseyde.

  Like the soldiers sent to guarantee passage

  For the enemy ambassadors

  Troilus demurs.

  IV. 141–158

  He turns over in himself

  He must speak but he has promised

  To tell no one of their affai
r.

  How might he protect her honour?

  How might he protect himself from the loss of her?

  He does not have her permission to decide this.

  Like a boat drifting towards a fork in a river

  He does not know he wavers.

  IV. 148–168, IF IV. 14–16

  Chaff

  The words that should come

  Come from the mouth of his brother:

  We do not sell our women.

  She’s no prisoner for barter.

  Hector! Have you fallen

  For the traitor’s daughter?

  We choose Antenor.

  IV. 176–196

  A dead image

  His mind can do nothing with this

  So carries it off. Mindless

  He makes his way home, bolts the door

  And puts out every lamp in his chamber

  As if plucking the last bright leaves

  From the blackest tree in winter.

  He is branch and bark – the barest dark.

  IV. 219–230, IF IV. 21

  Troilus alone

  A living creature

  What he feels is of such size

  And wiring

  It must kick its way out

  To survive him.

  Excessively strong

  And otherwise nothing

  It throws him wall to wall.

  IV. 239–259

  Envy

  The gods have looked upon this love

  And decided the cost.

  Could they not kill his father?

  Or snatch one of his brothers?

  Was this just to prove

  How useless it is to be human?

  How lost?

  IV. 274–287

  He prays that he might leave his body

  My spirit unnest.

  Fly to her and follow her.

  Your right place is no longer here.

  What is there to look on but her departure?

  Not even the time to grow used to it.

  I have cried myself out.

  My eyes are noughts.

  IV. 302–312

  To her father

  I wish your corrupt blood had stopped your heart

  As you hurried off. Mislived old man

  I wish the Greeks had cut your gristly throat

  When you proposed this trade.

  Your life weighs too much

  On mine. Come home

  And I will separate us.

  IV. 330–336

  He sleeps and wakes

  His friend is at a loss.

  He stands in the dark

  And folds his arms.

  Why not be satisfied with the fact

  That you’ve had what you wanted?

  This town is full of women.

  I could rustle up a dozen such . . .

  IV. 344–406

  Pandarus moves on

  An abbreviation

  New love is required to chase out the old.

  A new approach for this new world.

  Weeping won’t keep her from leaving.

  You need to put things in proportion.

  At last the prince says something:

  Your medicine, my friend,

  Is cure for a fiend.

  IV. 415–437

  Now this, now that

  As if I have been stung

  And the cure is something fresh and green.

  As if logic were an ingredient, there to add,

  And love all air.

  If that’s how you feel then take her.

  You’re the son of the king.

  Free to take what you dare.

  IV. 461–530

  All this have I thought

  What have we become these last seven years

  Because a woman was forced? I could approach my father

  But that would make known all that’s gone on.

  He would say she is not of our blood

  And that she must go for the city’s good.

  I must protect her honour

  Even as I cannot protect her.

  IV. 547–571

  Troilus looks to the past and future

  Divine not reason so deep

  Wash your face and go about your business.

  Return to court before the king starts to wonder

  Where you are. In times of crisis

  Things become a matter of rhetoric.

  It’s hardly force to withhold the one you love

  And who loves you. And what of her?

  Does she even know this deal’s been struck?

  IV. 589–656

  Pandarus urges Troilus to act

  Fact

  The story of the deal spreads

  Like a thousand birds released from a net.

  A burst of flight then a breaking up into

  Detail and innuendo.

  Every bird finds a perch

  Whether or not it deserves a place

  In what’s reported.

  IV. 659–662

  She has heard

  Her women weep and say the right things

  About being restored to her father

  And how while they will miss her this will bring

  Peace. She’s not really there.

  In her mind she’s searching for him.

  Trying to pin him down.

  She can’t find him.

  IV. 687–700

  What is Criseyde worth when from Troilus?

  Weeping is not enough

  And beating her breast is not enough

  So she tears at the brightness of her hair

  As if plucking beams from the sun.

  She wants to put out her light

  And for her spirit to stay here with him

  As she departs – in outline.

  IV. 736–780

  Criseyde alone

  Pass

  Why does he not claim her

  Through love or force?

  How can her plaint be sung

  When so out of tune?

  What voice could contain the full dimensions

  Of the noise she is making?

  Who has the words?

  IV. 799–805

  From whom nothing is ever kept

  Her uncle shoves his way into her room.

  She cannot face him

  And pulls her loosened hair across her eyes

  As if trying to find a door to close.

  He can’t stand her pain – or the prince’s –

  And wants to get out fast. He tells her

  To rise, to wash her face. It’s all he has.

  IV. 815–824

  Hurt

  How could any one person contain

  Such agony?

  So much torment there can be none left

  Beyond this body.

  All the world’s woe, complaint, distress

  Anguish, rage, dread and bitterness . . .

  I have been made to take it all in.

  IV. 841–847

  Criseyde protests

  About her eyes purple rings

  She asks what word he might bring.

  That the court has agreed the exchange.

  That her lover is beside himself

  And needs a night with her

  So they might find an answer.

  Her gaze comes from a place so dark

  He tries not to return her look.

  IV. 869–889

  Criseyde faces Pandarus

  A blade

  Shape yourself.

  To see you in such disarray

  Would pierce his heart.

  Smooth your face.

  Flatten your sharps.

  Take his line.

  Press to him.

  IV. 925–931

  Pandarus continues to instruct Criseyde

  He finds consolation in philosophy

  What makes what happen?

  Take a man in a chair. He knows he sits.

  We who see him sit can say it
’s true

  And was so meant but what if

  It had been foretold and did not happen?

  What if his life was the chair and it remained unmade

  In the realm of the tree?

  IV. 960–1078

  Troilus sits

  The consolation of his friend

  She is not all you were made for.

  Remember the years you did not know her

  And were content. I have just seen her

  And looking at you now must say

  You do not feel half her pain.

  Go when it is night

  And make of this an end.

  IV. 1093–1115, IF IV. 111

  Pandarus reminds Troilus

  They cannot speak for weeping

  All she has been made to contain

  Has forced such utterance

  That what pours forth now is silence.

  He holds a broken thing

  And after a while arranges her

  As if a mortician in search of the person.

  Then he too lies down.

  IV. 1135–1183

  Troilus and Criseyde meet that night

 

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