The Story of the Iliad A Dramatic Retelling of Homer’s Epic and the Last Days of Troy SIMON ARMITAGE INTRODUCTION NOTE: The Story of the Iliad: A Dramatic Retelling of Homer’s Epic and the Last Days of Troy has been performed under the name of The Last Days of Troy at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London. The accompanying text, The Last Days of Troy, was published by Faber and Faber in May 2014. Homer’s epic poem the Iliad, written around 700 BCE, begins in the final year of the Trojan War. Led by Agamemnon, a loose alliance of Greek forces has sailed across the Aegean Sea to bring home Helen, the wife of Menelaus, abducted or seduced by Paris and now living as his wife or concubine within the walled city of Ilium, in the region of Troy. But after almost a decade, an end to the war is nowhere in sight. Infighting and personal enmity between the Greek leaders is threatening to split the coalition apart. Within the besieged city, Trojans are haunted not only by the idea of defeat but by the potential destruction of their civilisation. Even the Gods on Olympus are squabbling among themselves, their favouritism and interventions only prolonging the conflict and exacerbating the misery. Rather than chronicle the entire war, Homer chose to concentrate on a relatively short period of time – about fifty days – and to focus on relationships and interactions between leading characters on both sides. Yes, there are big battles, but essentially his is a story which takes us behind the scenes, to what goes on in the tents, corridors, halls and chambers, and beyond the clouds. After some 15,000 lines, the Iliad comes to its enigmatic and poetic conclusion, but at that point we are still no nearer finding out what happened to its leading characters, or who won the war. Some of this information comes to light subsequently through other sources, including Homer’s Odyssey, in which we are told for the first time how Greek soldiers were smuggled through the impenetrable gates in a wooden horse. But the subject of the last days of Troy is taken up most compellingly by the Roman poet Virgil, over six hundred years later. In Book II of his Aeneid, through the voice of Aeneas, a survivor from Troy, we are given a graphic and intense account of those final hours and of the bloody fates of the defeated. My aim in this dramatisation has been to span those two ancient poems, and present in theatrical form a story that follows the Trojan War through to its bitter end. The play opens in modern day Hisarlik on the tip of north-west Turkey, the archaeological site of what is widely considered to be the actual geographical location of Troy. To visit the dusty ruins and crumbling walls is to suffer a confusion of information and to experience a tug of war between the heart and the head. Legend and artefact coexist here; fact and fantasy mingle and blur, to the point where it’s impossible to say where history ends and mythology begins. In relation to the Trojan War this is as true today as it was for Homer, who was writing about events said to have taken place in the Bronze Age, four or five hundred years before he was born. Indeed, even Homer’s authorship and his very existence are by no means universally accepted. We are dealing with a mystery that has come to us in echoes and whispers from over three thousand years ago. Ancient fables endure for all kinds of reasons, but their continued relevance to the way we live now plays a major part in their survival. At the time when this play will be premiered, many countries will be marking and commemorating the centenary of the First World War, with images of atrocities and questions of military morality high in people’s minds, just as they were for Homer. Moreover, the channel or strait that runs from the Bosphorus to the Dardanelles or Hellespont continues to symbolise a political, economic, cultural, philosophical and religious fault line between east and west. In that context, the story of Troy is a blueprint for a conflict that rages to this day. Homer was also astute enough to know that although it is armies who go to war it is usually the individual psychologies of their leaders that send their people into battle. Prejudice, pigheadedness, petulance or just a momentary whim can result in the slaughter of millions. Nothing has changed. If Helen is said to be the face that launched a thousand ships, and if each Greek vessel was crewed by up to two hundred men, and if the Trojan forces were equal in number, as they must have been to ensure a reasonably fair fight, then as well as reducing ten years’ worth of backstory to two or three hours of performance, I was also faced with the task of reducing over four hundred thousand participants to a cast of about a dozen. So a whole pantheon of gods, with their various allegiances and attributes, are represented through Zeus, Hera and Athene. On the ground, minor characters, parallel narratives and self- contained episodes have been omitted, and some principal characters rolled into one. Odysseus, for example, is an amalgamation of several high-ranking nobles in the Greek encampment, though he still retains (I hope) those personal traits forever associated with him. But challenges often present unanticipated opportunities: Menelaus is an important figure in the original story, but as the play developed I found his absence to be a more useful dramatic device than his presence. His brother, Agamemnon, must do his bidding, just as the whole Greek army must sail to war on behalf of a cuckold. Other characters and scenes have grown in relation to their original status. Helen, little more than a walk-on part in Homer’s poem, is pivotal to this version. And at one point I require several thousand Trojan soldiers to surge across no-man’s-land, a problem I have left at the door of the director. The Last Days of Troy was commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, for production in spring 2014. Further performances were then scheduled at Shakespeare’s Globe in London via a full stage transfer. Ten years ago I dramatised Homer’s Odyssey for BBC radio. It had always been my intention to attempt something similar with its counterpart, a ‘prequel’ as it might be labelled and packaged these days, and I’m genuinely grateful for the opportunity. I’d like to thank Sarah Frankom, Artistic Director at the Royal Exchange, for opening up discussions, for her initial responses and ongoing ideas, and for creating the conditions under which this piece could develop. It’s oddly satisfying to remember that an ambitious dramatisation of the first work of Western literature and one of the greatest poems in the history of the world should have been plotted in the café of Hebden Bridge railway station. Thanks are also due to all other staff at the Exchange for their support and expertise, to the numerous actors who took part in workshops and read-throughs, to Dominic Dromgoole at the Globe for his expressions of enthusiasm, to Sue Roberts, to Glyn Maxwell, and to everyone else who read the script with an open mind and editorial eye during its evolution. Finally, enormous thanks to director Nick Bagnall, who was attached to the project from its abstract beginnings, and whose conversation and good company are woven into the text. Writing is essentially an antisocial occupation; it is both a relief and a privilege to collaborate and to work with people who turn matchsticks into boats, plastic stones into citadels, hot air into enormous horses and words into people. SIMON ARMITAGE THE STORY OF THE ILIAD CHARACTERS The Greeks AGAMEMNON, commander of the Greek forces ODYSSEUS, a high-ranking captain ACHILLES, a noble warrior PATROCLUS, Achilles’ compatriot and comrade SINON, a soldier HELEN, wife of Agamemnon’s brother, Menelaus, seduced by Paris The Trojans PRIAM, King of Troy HECTOR, Priam’s son, a warrior, leader of the Trojan forces ANDROMACHE, Hector’s wife ASTYANAX, Hector and Andromache’s young boy PARIS, Priam’s other son BRISEIS, a local girl captured by the Greeks, Achilles’ lover The Gods ZEUS, the Almighty, father of the skies, and a present-day pedlar HERA, his wife ATHENE, Zeus’ daughter THETIS, a sea-nymph, mother of Achilles Zeus and Hera are both gods of the ancient past and contemporary characters, and are played by the same actors. Their character names appear in small capitals (ZEUS and HERA) when speaking or appearing as ancient gods and in bold italic (Zeus and Hera) in the present day. ACT ONE SCENE ONE Present-day Troy, the archaeological and tourist site of Hisarlik, Turkey. Spray-painted in gold and impersonating a statue, Zeus stands on a wooden box with a collection tin at his feet and a sign saying ZEUS. Behind him, on his small cart, are souvenirs and trinkets from the story of the Iliad, including action figures in the shape of Achilles, Agamemnon, Priam et al. Zeus Fury. RAGE! Goddess of memory, draw from my throat the story of Achilles, son of Peleus, whose wounded pride brought suffering and misery to his own comrades, sent the souls of warriors to the land of the dead till the battlefields of Troy were scarlet with blood, and by day crows scavenged on lips and eyes, and at night dogs feasted on the limbs and innards of lifeless bodies beneath the stars, all under the watch of almighty Zeus. Conjure in my mind the moment it began, when words flew between brothers in arms, and a feud was born. Tired and unappreciated, he steps down from the box and takes a drink from a bottle of water. Once rested, he goes to the cart and picks up a few of the action figures, staring at them, considering them, then begins to arrange them on the box, like a boy playing with toy soldiers. Zeus Ten years into this most gruelling of military confrontations and we’re still no closer to any kind of resolution. A decade ago, leaders and warlords from almost every kingdom in Greece mobilised a task force of thousands of men, sailed east, pitched camp on the shore and laid siege to the walled city of Troy on the far bank of the Scamander River. Motive: vengeance. Objective: return Helen to her rightful country and lawful husband.