Adam and Eve and the Marriage God play by Simpa Omoluabi

ADAM and EVE

and

the MARRIAGE GOD

ADAM and EVE and the MARRIAGE GOD. Copyright © 2015 Omoluabi S. Simpa.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

whatsoever without the permission of the Author except in cases of brief quotations

embodied in critical reviews.

      

                                       
             ADAM and EVE 
                          and 
         the MARRIAGE GOD

BY

     OMOLUABI S. SIMPA

Preface

The first edition of this work was a publishing of few copies which in a sense I will call the first draft and was put to book cover in December 2014, of which I sent some copies to likely would be interested publishers through the internet and in hard copy form, a period in which I was thinking of a sequel which a few weeks after the publishing of the first edition I changed my mind and I concluded to forgo the sequel and make it a prelude to the work. In the light of the prelude, emendations were made to the work which included the title, changed from ADAM, YEMOJA AND THE MARRIAGE GOD, to the title ADAM AND EVE AND THE MARRIAGE COD, which on following I decided to publish this work of verse drama online with poemhunter.com, before later which now is I have it published with smashwords.com.

The play or story is a mythical transposition and retelling of the Garden of Eden with the mythical characters from the Yoruba culture, but also in tandem the transposition gives a different view of certain classical characters and also gives a different perspective of Koranic or Islamic or Mohammhedean account of Satan’s rebellion against God in refusing to bow before Adam. The story interprets the very beginning in terms of Adam and Eve as an account of slavery which tells that Adam belonged to a nation of slaves who are referred to as the male nation and Eve is interpreted in a form which is keen to Pandora but with a difference in that she belonged to the slave-masters whom are the gods and referred to as the male nation and Eve was the source of their superiority and so she was instituted as a slave-god. A careful and good read of the glossary will be helpful to those whom do not have basic knowledge of the Yoruba pantheon. The work was influenced in the course of trying to write a poem which I had intended to be some form of love quest of the male lover journeying to find an unknown inamorata when in the thinking of what it would appear like the picture of Jephthah and his slaying of his daughter struck me and the concept of the OriOlokun nature rose up in my mind for OriOlokun I have perceived and appreciated personally before now as a Yoruba version of the classical medusa and this outrightly with the thought Jephthah’s daughter made me intuitively realize the gods expected Eve to honour them with her death which she did not do and as for me the Olokun presence was not farfetched from the outcome and so the play began to take shape and it ended up with me interpreting Eve as Iyemoja sea goddess as one of the gorgons which was influenced by the background of my appreciation of OriOlokun as the head of Medusa which pictures Olokun as a gorgon likewise interpreted and also Osun another sea goddess interpreted as the third of the gorgons each of them with their peculiar natures alongside the gods as a whole I consider all making up of the psychical nature of the human out of which is influenced our thought patterns and actions as human beings since they are spirit out of which humanity emerged as the story tells. In this story Adam is also shown to be the same classical Prometheus and regarded as a centaur which I interpretas a horseman although I had not referred to Adam as a centaur or horseman when I initially published the work even as at with poemhunter.com, but later I decided to make the emendation clearly stating Adam as a centaur which I translate as the horseman having expressed Adam as such in subsequent sonnets and other poems in the light of the work serving as resourceful for the writing of poetry and exploring mythical themes. The work has served as a source for poetry to the like that I written the sonnet ‘Jephthah’s daughter’ which serves here as an epitaph to the work and as well given that the Jephthah story being a part source for the intuitive inspiration which made me aware that Adam was supposed to slaughter Eve. Personally the Olokun nature has always being a ghostly presence with me, the influence of which in appreciation of the Mosaic version is pivotal in the creation of this version of the original myth of humanity.

Sonnet 66 Jephthah’s Daughter

The gods spited Eve spited Yemoja

Due to weakness for Adam the horseman

For unlike Jephthah’s only child and daughter

Eve could not honour them with her death but ran

And Adam became the horseman of death

For the great mask of death was worn by Eve.

When he unveiled her he could not believe

The beauty he saw and straight for the Earth

They took great flight, fugitive from the gods

And they were called the strange maiden love birds.

What kind of God would accept Jephthah’s sacrifice?

A manner of God so longing for ‘pure’ orifice.

Jephthah’s daughter was braver than the whole of Israel put together

And she was left nameless in the holy book like David’s mother.

CAST

FEMALE (speak queerly, with painted faces and elaborately costumed)

The gods(he &she)

The nymphsof Olokun(Spirit slaves [she])

The maidens (demigods)

Eve/Iyemoja( she[dreadlocked])

Olokun(androgynous[dreadlocked])

Messenger god(Esu)

MALE (not so queer, and behave with more of awkwardness)

Satan (androgynous [dreadlocked])

Mid-age ones (he&she)

Elderly(he &he)

Adam (he, the horseman in translation of the centaur)

Chief priest

PRELUDE

Persons all looking dreary and held in shackles wait for a brief while till when about three gods lead out an enigma which is held by the waist and limbs with chains for to keep it in control, at whose presence the dreary persons cringe. Some other gods come around and make pompous display of superiority over the dreary ones. A god or two begins to drum at which the enigma begins to dance, but still held by the leash. The other gods take to dancing too.

Messenger god (upon a high pedestal with document in hand to read from)

It has come to the final moments,

Given our plans and visions as your lord

To take you to the Earth your motherland

For it is from which you the Male nation were created.

In the expansion of our supreme status over you

We shall begin journey very soon, not long from this day

For the earthland your motherland

For to expand our greatness and in the course of things

We shall make it fit, building a towering citadel, for our mystery to dwell.

For that virgin birth of a new specie which we the gods work towards

Can only survive well in the earthland.

But only when it is fully prepared shall she be brought down.

But before we shall commence on that travel

Today we bring this mystery of ours out but not unveiled,

We bring it out for veneration and worship,

Which shall become a seasonal thing

Even when we get to the earthland it shall be so;

For a great statue shall be erected in representation of her

And seasonal this maiden veneration of the maiden head of the gods

Shall always be observed on the             Earth before the statue.

So we bring the supreme masquerade of the gods, our masquerade

That has established our nation over you, the Male nation,

The masquerade that makes us supreme, our most noble creation,

The Principle of truth, this is the Principle of truth, for it is

By which we the gods make proof of all things, confirm all things.

Our divine beauty with which lies your liberty

That is if any of you of the Male nation

Shall be able to attain our beauty in marriage,

Able to discover it by making a pathway for the self

Daring through the heartland of the gods

To our secret knowing to unveil Eve the masquerade of the gods,

To unmask Eve the masquerade of the gods, the fire of beauty,

And by that you shall be free from your bondage.

In that eventuality we shall offer her as sacrifice in covenant

To bind us, the Female and the Male nation together

Making us equal as we once were.

That who shall be able to attain her attain our mystery in marriage

Shall have to sacrifice her shall have to sacrifice Eve the fire beauty,

Sacrifice Eve the most fiery one

Then we shall return once more to our former state of equality.

We the gods your lords are the beauty of the world

And our mysterious creation Eve is the perfection of our beauty,

For this let all the males twice say; we all hail Eve!thesacred fire of beauty.

All Males

We all hail Eve!!!thesacred fire of beauty.

We all hail Eve!! thesacred fire of beauty.

Messenger god

We the Female nation your lords now command

That before our mystery,

The maiden in whose marriage lies your liberty

The most beautiful of our maidens

The maiden head of the gods, the mystery Eve,

Our principle of truth, the enigma by which we validate all things

Before her we your lords command you

To fall face and belly flat upon the ground and worship Eve

And all of you shall three times say in loud shout: We hail Eve.

(And the Male ones all fall to the ground as commanded and make hail to the veiled enigma Eve, but one remains not doing such in defiance. Everyone is consternated, at which some of the gods proceed to drag out and beat the defiant one up, while the Males rise up having done veneration)

Messenger god

It is the Satan once again in its noncooperation.

Male i (asides with three other Males)

Satan indeed!

That is how we come to recognize Osun after all for its unreasonableness?

Osun is nothing but uncommon-sensically being satanic

Unreasonably being adversarial.

Osun is nothing to us of an oracle anymore but the absolute Satan.

The gods might get aggrievedagainst us because of Osun

And double their meanness upon us because of its satanic behavior.

After all the pacification of it and its followership as the morning star

It has taken suddenly not to be humble.

Male ii

We had thought Osun’s recalcitrance had been knocked out of it;

A needless attitude, only trying to mock us that we are been subservient.(hisses)

Had it no sense that all these display amounts to nothing but more suffering

Not just for it but for us because of it;

All it has to do is to do humbly as everyone of us,

Obeying that which Esu the messenger god had spoken on behalf of the gods our lord.

Male iii

He refuses to be humble; the veritable Satan indeed is Osun

Trying to cause unrest over again

Instead of accepting fate like all of us.

We do not have any choice but to be humble.

They are now our lords, and supreme to us for their noble inventionEve,

A maiden invention for which it is called the maiden head,

An amazing flower of life, head of the maidens of the gods,

Eve by which the gods successfully held and hold us captive.

Imagine the awesome powers of Eve,

The terrifying things they the gods do with it, by it they vanish when they wish to,

Inspiring wonders by her and by her enlivening things to come alive.

And they say they shall create by Eve a specie of being

Advanced than our natures,a specie of being upright in stature,

And shall do so in parthenogenesis, just like Eleduwa our creator,

Different from our asexual nature, but of her they hope to create God

If they achieve the creation of the upright specie by parthenogenesis.

It is not for nothing we fear the gods by the force of their mystery Eve,

For by Eve we the Male are held in bondage by the Female.

Osun or Iblis, whatever we call it now, should take to humility.

Male iv

What does it cost it to behave with humility, tell me?

What does it cost Osun to go prostrate before the maiden head like us all?

It has always felt unique because of its serpentine locks

But it is time enough for it to know its days of prophecy are over.

Its days of foresight and all such are forever gone.

Its days of being the prophet that tells us what

Is to come and to be done is done and gone.

Satan (the beating is stopped, groaning for a while, then it laughs hysterically)

I am the veritable Satan! The veritable Iblis!

Yes I am, if that is what it means

To be adversarial against the evil forces of captivity.

You call me Satan, you all call me Iblis,

These names I gladly bear for fighting this accursed authority.

It is abominable that I Osun do that which Esu the Messenger god has spoken.

That I fall face flat to worship the force of evil,

That I shall till the earth the motherland of the Male my motherland, no!

(Spits at Eve’s direction, the gods pounce on it for a while. It stays sitting on the ground)

That which you the Female nation dream to fulfill,

That ultimate dream of yours,

That through parturition parthenogenetic

You shall create a specie more advanced than us,

That by your mystery you shall produce a most unique specie

In parthenogenesis in the nature of our Creator,

I tell you I see differently,

I see it take the form of a unified consummation,

I cannot tell how definitively.

Our Creator is a parthenogenetic one

And we, we are agamogenetic in our nature,

But as for this mystery of yours I foresee differently.

I have kept saying and I shall keep saying, your ultimate dream

Shall only come to fruition if you reunite with the Male nation.

To be once more united with you, married with you

In the state of love that made us and kept us one from the

Beginning.You aspire to create God. You aspire to achieve

A parthenogenetic being like our Creator.(pauses for a while)

I speak for love, for love, that original binding force

By which we are as Female and Male nation in oneness the image of our Creator.

Only a revert to love shall avoid what I foresee.(Laughs hysterically)

I foresee the debacle of your heartland in your mystery Eve.

The debacle of your heartland is in your mysterious creation.

And that which shall help to it becoming so

Is a certain group among you called the gods.

(Laughs hysterically, at which some of the gods whisper to themselves, but drumming continues and their enigma keeps to dancing)

Messenger god

(Spoken in sarcasm)Indeed Osun, or the Satan Iblis, Venus,

For all that which it is called by, has spoken well for love.

But then we your lords command once again

Command all you of the Male nation saying,

Give veneration to the maiden head

By falling face and belly to the ground

And shout aloud three times saying:

We hail the maiden head Eve.

(All the Males do as commanded but Satan remains put. They all rise, while some of the gods lead Eve away, and the others proceeds to bind Satan to some structure and begin to torture him) fade out

Lights on

(In torture Satan remains tied as it were to that same structure , and its captors, the gods, they say nothing but exchange nods and facial expressions, sneer and smirk and inflict it from time to time, and some of the Male ones are also present and observe it in derision and as well sneering)

Satan (Groans loud for a short while due to the exertion of torture)

On this ground I as Satan show I do not stand for imperialism,

I stand dysfunctional for the entire body of the Male.

My lethal will my incurable will is uncoiled from the reserve

For as I have endurably longed

I have found my keystone of vantage to spit at the gods

And empty my heart crystalized of poison

Thawing my stone-cold spirit.(spits)

Since we are of the earth and them which now are gods

The Female ones the gods whom are now lord over us,

Whom have taken to take us down

To our motherland, extend their rulership in vassalage

To expand their empire to incorporate our motherland

And by so wants us in our hardship to till the Earth our origin

To till our source to till it in long suffering for their imperious ends,

I will not agree, I will never agree to do your bidding,

For this I call the original sin,

For it means that I consummate my source in longsuffering

To the desire of my oppressor.

My source is meant to nourish me.

To toil in longsuffering upon my motherland is the original sin,

Slavery in the soil of my origin is original sin.

(The gods take to torture it for a while at which he groans)

This is the perfection of the original sin,

That one is put to slavery in the land where they are children of the soil.

I would rather suffer torture

As the odd fellow venomous against the establishment

Than succumb to the acceptance

Of the fulfillments of the abuse of freedom and truth

Without spitting at the face of supremacy

Without spitting at the face of injustice.

I vent the inward toleration of my hardship

Spitting my ill-blissed mind at my slave aggressors.(spits)

(Tortured once more)

For this I have enduringly longed,

And I have found my keystone of vantage spitting virus at the gods

And make them realize that unlike the rest inoculated

With the microorganism of humiliation to an acceptance of the original sin

That made them immune to the abused state of liberty and truth

My inner being rejects the inoculation of the virus of humiliation

So I spit the virus of my ophidian will at their face.

(spits and they proceed to torture it once more)

And as I have said

I foresee the debacle of your heartland among a faction of the gods

They shall bring your disaster.

I foresee the debacle of the heartland

I foresee the disaster of the gods (laughs hysterically)

(Three of the gods go to whisper in its ear, and then it laughs hysterically for longer than usual)

You want to know by who the debacle shall come upon your heartland?

I shall never tell you on the terms you just whispered to me.

I shall have it, I shall tell you if you agree to my terms. (Laughs shortly)

When the time is appropriate I shall tell it.

But by your principle of truth you shall swear an oath

Before all in truth that you shall release me

And I shall go forth into exile away from you the gods

And also away from my people and motherland.

Only on that shall I speak the oracle.                                                     fade out.

SCENARIO ONE  

                 

                   The Gods

Whenever the gods are together there is always drumming sometimes light drumming

God i

By the divine light of the heart of the foremost beauty

We are made irreproachable,

We tend our heart,

The divine light of our heart we tend with utmost tenderness.

By the divine light of our heart

Flame that makes our heart sacred

We defy absolute darkness…                                                                                              

All

This is the shrine of the principal beauty

The inviolate gate of truth

The heart of the gods flourishing impregnable

From age to age, this is nothing but the beautiful

Impregnable! The vinous wild-woods

The forest of untold wines…                                                                                               

God i

Shall there dare ever rise one

From among the ones of the earth,

our male counterparts

Children of the low estate

Children ridden with infirmities,

Of them shall one ever arise?

Be upright enough for the purity of our godliness?

Firm enough for the unimpeachable bloom of our godly forest?                                                     

God ii

Long this challenge has stood against they of earth,

That they present us with one, just one firm enough

For the beautiful, and if they can it is only fair that

That one leaveneth the entire lump of their infirmity

Unto uprightness, for the shrine of sacred vintage…

By that upright one marriage between we,

Their female counterparts, we the gods and them

Of earth shall be an everlasting marrying

Marked with a neck-break binding of our head,

With blood-red libation pure

Out of the shrine of the gods.to the earthly one

Who shall come upright before our mystery

It is upon to make a heart touching sacrifice

And shall drink the only pure blood-red-wine of the prize,

The most prized virtue of the gods

Chief priestess imperative in the heart of beauty,

Imperial principality enthroned in the shrine of beauty

Chief one chief-head of the Maidens, head of the gods,

For you is our greatest achievement,

Our magnificent creation,

The mysterious flower we the female one nurtured.

Out of you we shall make a new day in virgin-genesis.

O you maiden head, the cherished flower of the gods,

Because of you we stand irreproachable,

For as a single drop of oil makes pure raiment impure

In the same your singular chastity makes us all pure,

For that you are our head the head of beauty

The head of the gods,

The priceless flower that promises a new creation.                                            

All (and they do a brief frenzy dance)

Eve!!!                                                                           

The principle that makes the gods sacred hearted                                             

God iii

Shall there ever rise one from the ones made of earth,

Rise one from their infirmity, to be befitting

For marriage to the principal flower

Of the beauty of the universe?

Firm enough to come get drunk

Of pure libation of the sacred heartedness of the gods?

If that shall ever be it must be foreshadowed

By the day a bird shall begin to breastfeed.                                                             

All

Ase!!!                                                                     

God iii

Shall of these turned servants of ours, slaves of ours,

Shall of these ridden with infirmities one come

To marryEve, See our mystery and reveal it?

It shall over her dead body.                                                                                    

All

Ase!!!                                                                     

Over her dead body

Over her dead body.

Ase !!!                                                                    

Eve that fires our heart,

Eve the flower in which we hope

For partheno-birth for a new creation.

Eve that fires the center of the peacock of the universe

Priestess most amazing, Maidendeity that utters all lingua

In whom we gods and spirits of the wonderland findunity,               

Eve that enflames our passion, Eve who knows all lingua,

Eve that is our cocktail resplendence

Cocktail resplendence of the gods

The resplendent tail that makes the peacock

Rightfully nothing but cocky

Iridescent tail that makes the gods r

Rightfully nothing but haughty,

We are pompously drunk, in pompous drunkenness because

Of the cocktail of the virgin hearted forest,

The virgin wine in which our spirits are mixed…                        (Brief Ululations)                                                         

                  

God iv

By their curiosity they are doomed to want to kiss the bride,

They are doomed, for we tell them you may kiss the bride

but then we also say what you don’t want to eat

It is better you turn your nose from it,

But then in their curiosity they want to perceive their

Bride before they perform the covenant sacrifice, and they do

But who shall see our awesome mystery Eve

Eve the transfixing god who shall see you and not become an idol.                                

Eve

Shall I unveil my face?                                                                                                 

All

No, for we are gods we have no need for being idols!!!                                                  

Eve

Shall I have my eyes unveiled my eyes opened?                                                            

All

No, for we are gods, let they of the earth become idols?                                                

Eve

Shall I ever have my eyes opened unto the marriage?

God i 

Over your dead body!!!

They of the earth lack the wit to unravel the riddle.            

In the land from which they were taken

We have come to appropriate

In extension of our kingdom in a land they are heirs,

In their land we have made them servants,

Made them duty full, dutiful slaves unto us,

And to their servitude there shall be no end

Except they succeed to attain our ideal, Eve,

The principle of beauty, the true beauty of the gods                                                                                                      

Eve           

Messenger god to they of the earth

Go with the idolized message

To tell them another one of them has become an idol,

For another one of them has dared to see the bush iris

Of wonderland and they most idolize

They whom has seen the mystery of the gods,

For the spirits of such now stays among the gods

For not all who dared to mount mount-Moremi saw it

but their spirit stays with us for what they have seen.

And remember them, for they are too brutish,

That besides swordsmanship

Wittiness is a key tool to true showmanship of valour.

Though idols have become some of them,

For having beheld the unsurpassable beauty of the gods

But their servitude remains.

To the heart of the gods there is always a riddle.

It is only fair game to tell them the riddle before the final rite.                                            

Messenger god

Over your dead body shall one from the earth couple with you,

Over your dead body shall we unite with them.

But then how shall we have you dead for sacrificial covenant

When their curiosity necessitate them to kiss their prize

in prelibation before the libation is performed.

I set my feet to go announce another idol of the earth

To them of the earth and to remind them

There is always a riddle to the heart of the gods.                                                                        Curtain fall

SCENARIO TWO 

THE EARTH

Elder-he (i)

Fruitlessness overwhelms us,

The twilight of barrenness overshadows the land

Because our infirmities makes our seeds useless

Before the vintage gates,

the gate of the gods.

Beauty stands aloof the gods stand aloof,

And our faith is the breath that keeps the gods alive

Our faith is the dream that billows the hearth

Of the heart of beauty.

Shall we stop having faith to make the gods sleep in obsequies?

If we do then we shall only put nail to a coffin that stamps

Their ageless boast that in their stardom

The future ends with them,

That no tomorrow shall come after them,

That there shall not be a new day after

This darkness of our fruitlessness

The darkness that highlight their milky way.                                                      

Elder-she i

For this we dare not stop to dream

Till a new morning come to outshine their stardom,

For the fear of the gods is fear of our power to dream,

I know, this I know. Don’t ask me how.

If the night persist, so also let the dream persist.                                                

The distance of disunity between they and us

Make this fruitless darkness prevail,

And frail lights in their keep

Make them lofty in darkness and they look down

On the disgrace of our impotence…

For those of us whom have eyes to perceive the stars

For all of us they shall keep beholding in the morning star

Hope for a new morning from barren darkness…                                                              

Elder-he (ii)

They stand aloof, beauty stand aloof

And we can only aspire to them by being faithful

And only in fidelity to the end shall we reach

The savage flower of the gods, and pollinate it

To a fruition of a new day that shall enlighten our eyes

From the dreams of our walking sleep

And then shall the night of dim-lights that overshadows us

Be outshone by the sun of a new day.                                                                     

Elder-she ii

Cowardice is the infirmity before the beautiful:

We have pined almost out of time, and I ask:

Shall there be one from us who shall be firm

Before the savage beauty of the gods, with fertile kernels

To outshine the gloom of our existence?

For that who shall, for that who must,

Who must be upright, firm enough?

To be fit for the purity of the gods

With the arm of valiance must go forth

Faithful to the course make way in fidelity to the end

That the mysterious forest flower shall be conceived

With a straightforward heart to deliver the fruit of light…                                         

But what warrior of our land

Of the ones that returned having dared to mount

The mountain Moremi, seek the greener pastures, returned sane?

Though failed they failed to pluck the wild mountain tulip

But had all in the venture been rendered speechless. Ni tori won ri emi.                                                           

(All) mid-age

Won ri emi; they saw the spirit.

And you will hear them shout out on occasion:

Moremi! Moremi!

I saw the spirit! I saw the spirit!

In the mount of the gods the citadel of the gods

Moremi citadel, they saw the great Eve and returned insane

They saw the mystery of the gods and returned unspeakable.

Elder-he (ii)

None! None! None!

Yes they returned, but

None returned to tell the tale.

All returning drunkenly bewildered

Of the wines from the groves of the mountain wilderness…

As drunks, drunks they lost their way,

Until we sent searching parties

Parties not bold enough to go beyond the mountain’s outskirt

Whom after a time we found some of these who ventured

To return with the secret of the foreign land,

A strange land of a people we once knew and lived in common

But are now foreign to us for their strange powers

Which they discovered and they are now gods.

And returned from the greener land of the gods

All these of ours were all found wanderers,

And some of them spoke gibberish,

While others were found dumb

A certainty that the beauty we ascend to is unspeakable.

So therefore we say who shall see and hear the truth,

Who shall see it live and not be dumb founded?

Behold our heroes, they speak nonsense,

And no-sensible talk is good as saying nothing.

All in all for our heroes we say they are speechless,

They speak no-sense for we comprehend them not

If their manner of speaking, as some do say

Is a way of being free,

That they have gained the freedom of speech

Having drank booze with the gods,

Then being a hero is being mad from the wine of the gods                                                   

mid-age (i)

I cringe from being a hero…                                                                                               

(All)mid-age

We cringe from being heroes!!                                                                                           

mid-age (i)

Oh! Who is that, that cringes not                

But stand solitary in heroic resolve?

A centaur it is a horseman it is.                                                       

(All)mid-age

Let him remain resolved.

Our heroes lost their minds on the mount of gods

Seeking to deliver us from their bonds

They lost their minds in trying to mount beauty to the fullest

Height and now we know the dangers in the quest for salvation

From servitude. Thanks to them,

For now we know that ascending the height of the gods

Leads to a mountain climax where speech is confused.

A jeopardy of craziness.

Mid-age (i)

Look at these they are the bata ones, the bata ones

All dumb found, but beating about the lilac bushes,

They just cannot get to the spiritual point

To tell us a little of the little they glimpsed of the spirit rituals.

They made for the ear drums talking to us what their

Mouth couldn’t speak. So we call them our ear drums,

And we strain to hear why while they beat about the bush

And couldn’t enter the wine-center of the gods, and they beat wild.

Beating about the bush, being dumb they talk with drums,

Of the bush on the towering to apotheosis

They beat for our ear drums with talking drums

Of their experience on the towering to the pinnacle

Of mountain Moremi.                                                                                                 

Elder-she i

It is something of pure secrecy

Beyond the measure of mortal words,

If our heroes are gifted with immortal words,

It is the ineffable as far as they have seen

they speak in their crazy utterances.

Though they did not succeed to drink the nectar

Neither have they become eminent ones like Luangoo,

Reagit, Mekit, Melenaa, whom we all idolized, for they

Attained the status of idols with the gods but then

They remained put not returning to us with the revelation

Of the mysterious truth,

But they got to become idols and we extol them

But then our barrenness still persist, our slavery to the gods,

Our fear of the gods persist;

But then the messenger of the gods

Puts in constant reminder that only the one

Who can unravel the riddle

Shall unite the female-world with the male-world,

Unite them the gods with us of the earth.

And for now we are hoping for Apeja’s return.

Apeja is valiant and sharp, will Apeja unravel the riddle

Will Apeja return with the maiden head

Shall Apeja succeed in wedding Eve

Return to us with the head of the gods

And end this thralldom we suffer?                                

Elder-she ii

In this land from which we are made,

They have taken to dispossess us with their charms and powers

Dispossessing us for the annexing of their kingdom

Having brought us down from our once common abode above

Brought us from a once common place with them

Brought us from yonder, brought down in slave-ship

Enslaving us to establish a wing of their kingdom in a land

To which we have the claim a land which is our birthright,

And in our land we suffer servitude.                                   

Adam

I of the horsemen a centaur a horseman

My resolve is not of heroism,

I only hear a call for me,

And I answer.

Of the dream I remember the last words

Fading away repeatedly; ‘memoriam of freedom,

Memoriam of freedom…’

If to make a road to link us with the gods

Is prized on the mind going insane then I risk losing mine

I put my mind at jeopardy against an infertile gloom

For to bring de-light to all by the fruition

Whose promise is in the sacred bloom of the gods.                        

Mid-age (ii)

Shall there never be stop to this delirium of aspiring heroes

Of ones who wants to become idols all for to be worshipped?                                             

Adam

I aspire not to be an idol,

For those become idols have brought us hope

Of the attainment of the height of gods,

That there is the possibility to end our slavery.

But then we are left asking

Why the head of beauty is yet to be had by marriage.

Why the head of the gods is yet to be possessed.

What is on my mind is to ponder the riddle of the gods.                                                          

Mid-age (ii)

Your hearing was somewhat deaf to the singing we did.                                                 

Elder-she ii

No! we are the deaf ones for we do not hear them            

In that we comprehend not our heroes.

They may seem or be deaf to our voices but their ears are

Better opened for godly calls, so they hear

Their godly names and answer their calls.

Or how long shall we suffer this much

The gods look forward to our hopelessness

But those who aspire to their height sustains their disappointment

For the gods are not ones to bulge with pity to end this madness

That of their own they can recreate a new beginning as our

Nativity made us both in unalloyed naissance, virgin birth

They won’t take it that only our union can create this new dawn,

And so they have contrived against us this uppermost-hill task,

More cemented in a riddle, as they always remind us

Whenever the messenger god comes to inform us of

Another one of us having attained idol status,

For they have become idols having seen the face of true beauty.

Then he would always remind us

Of the sacrifice on both sides

Saying:                                                                                                                         

(In parody)(All)mid-age

Over her dead body shall the marriage be,

For only the pure wine blood-red of the bridal prize

Shall that of the earth make offering and drink libation

Fulfilling the covenant marrying the gods and they of the earth

By sacrificing the self-interest for the general good.                                      

Elder-she i

And in the shrine-house we have the idols of our idols

Those we idolize for they have seen the mystery of the gods

But then it means they did not solve theriddle because

The sacrifice was not performed.                                                                                        

Adam

But then I have had a dream of liberty

I have caught a vision of the truth…                                                                         

Chief-priest

He had a dream…                                                                                             

(All)mid-age

The horseman had a dream!!!               (To the chief priest)

You had a dream!!!             (To Adam)                                                                                           

Elder he i

One more dreamer,

Dreams are flowers and flowers fade.

Flowers are the bright foreshadows for fruition,

In flowering we foresee a fruitful future,

Dreams are foreshadows of the fruition of light.

If the night be long a nightmare is good dream enough

To make us find sleep intolerable, to keep us stay awake

That we must look forward to a new day.

The visions of our dreamers

Keeps the flare for the brighter life alive.

Tell us dreamer, tell us what vista vision you saw

Vista vision of the secret crest of the gods…

Chief priest

Yes, he had a dream, the centaur had a dream

A dream of the lover calling to the beloved.

Through the wilderness you must go in fast

And continence, you must till you get deep.                                                                 

Adam

How deep?                                                                                                                  

Chief priest

Deep beyond the threshold of the beautiful,

Heart deep horseman, heart deep centaur,

Heart deep you must go, having kept a steady fasting,

Steadfast to the end in your continence from all their

Offerings, temptations, then you shall break the heart of the gods.                                                                     

(All) mid-age

You shall begin for the rose in the thicket of the gods

By the first heralds of the cockerel.

You must not sow your grains upon the stairs

You shall only do so in the shrine of beauty,

For your journey for us shall be fulfilled for the fruit

When you sow in the heart of the gods, only in the heart,

And never spill taking the mountainous steps to apotheosis.

And then out of the shrine of the gods you

Drink blood-red libation of that which is pure-blood

Libation on the altar of truth as covenant of the marriage

Between the males we of the earth and the females, the gods

Though others have gone, those returned are nothing but mad,

Lots also are gone lost, and few have become our idols.

Shall you become an idol, shall you return mad

Or shall you succeed in marrying the earthly and the gods

The female with the male?                                                                                     

Elder-she ii

What sight is that if not a god’s?

The messenger god it is, the messenger god of beauty.                                                        

Chief priest

What news have you brought down from the slopes of beauty?

What tidings from the gods do you approach us with?

What bear you in your arms,

Or has the gods plan to end these wicked games of theirs?                                                  

Messenger god

I emissary god of the gods brings down the tiding of a new idol,

Apeja has become an idol, receive the idol from me,

Have and idolize the idol Apeja for Apeja has seen the face of the beautiful.

Have the idol stand in your shrine-house.

See how the idol stands.                             

Chief priest

Indeed this is the idol of Apeja, so grave looking,

But then Eve remains unattainable. Our servitude remains.                                     

Messenger god

I have not many words to share,

But to leave you with my parting words, the riddle,

For a reminder unto those now and in the future

Who shall take to be hunters of the secret of the gods,

Hunters of the mystery of the beauty of the universe,

A path Apeja, Luangoo, Melenaa has taken and are now idols,

That who shall hunt like them must combine valiance and wittiness.

But then they have become idols but not witty enough

To possess the pride and head of the gods, Eve!!

But then always remember:

Over her dead body shall the marriage be,

For only the pure wine blood-red of the bridal prize

Shall that of the earth make offering and drink libation

Fulfilling the covenant marrying the gods and they of the earth

By sacrificing the self-interest for the greater good

And we the gods doing the greater part

By proving how brave hearted we are,

We sacrifice the principle of our shrine.

But then there is always a riddle to the heart of the gods,

That who comes before the shrine of beauty must ponder well

on the words of the immortals…                                                                                          

Elder he (i)

We shall certainly come to this marriage

And those words shall lose their immortality.                                                                

Messenger god

So you say and for ages none of you have been firm enough

For the shrine of the gods to marry us,

And certainly we shall deliver a Sun of virgin birth…                                                                                                     

Elder-she ii

Obsessed with virgin-birth

As it was with us from the

Beginning.

Since you came up with your novelty, your secret, Eve,

Your maiden head who you made the head of the gods

You disunited with us, because you will not

Share your secret with us. And since then we have always been curious

To find your mysteriousness out

And later in wickedness you the gods subordinated us with it.

But then the ages it has taken us in our strive for this wedding

It is the same it has taken the gods yet to fulfill

The birth of a new day, fulfill the new creation!                                                                                   

Reveal to us the secret passage

And let’s be over with the damned thing

For only in our union shall we bring this new creation.                                                       

Messenger god

Oh how the fruitlessness of the land

Fruitlessness of the male nation presses the virago…

When this land is fully prepared,

The task to which we the gods have put you under supervision

Then the new creation shall be ready

For they shall dwell here with Eve coming down.                                

Elder-she i

Immortals indeed;

What is immortality but never growing old.

Immortality is the gods never growing up.

Tell the gods that is our message to them.                                                               

Messenger god

O virago, I shall have no dispute,

But then it’s upon you, the male, to achieve the true uprightness,

A feat that is so very impossible for you.                                                                 

Elder-she i

Like to achieve the new creature is not impossible for you.

Messenger god

But at least, so far, we surpass the male nation

In creative achievement. Ponder on the riddle

If you must marry, if you must end your servitude

If you shall know the truth for the truth is a secret,

For the truth is the secret, the vintage mystery.

I hope you do not take my leniency for granted,

That I deign to hold talks with you this way.

Hope this little break we have given you from

The gigantic-monumental construction

Of the tower in the likeness of beauty is not turning you

To lazy things and talkatives? So from here I go back,

Swiftly departing to my abode, the grape vine of beauty,

Lest I die of thirst of the drought that seizes the male country

The barren land from which you are made,

Which by the powers of the cocktail we shall come

To make fruitful, but that is after you have properly laid

The magnificent tectonics fit for Eve the Principle of the gods,

And of course we shall remain your lords,

But if you don’t want that seek us in marriage.

For now I depart to quench my thirst.                (departs)

Chief priest

As we all exeunt for our night beds

Let us pray for this dream-hunter,

Whom had proven his mettle on this land as one of those

Whom have taken the hunt and returned with the sabretooth-heart.

But son that show of huntsman-ship

is a foretaste of the journey you are about to embark.

On your course to the venture yonder

We would pray to the spirits of those whom have made it

Beyond this land, those whom are now our idols,

That they reveal to you in your dreams the nature of the truth,

Why they had become idols and still could not attain the ultimate,

They could not make the way leading to the gods

To marry the male people to the female people.                                                                

Elder he i

Even as we speak who is to say some of them are not among us

Invisibly or mingling with us as spies monitoring our every word.                                         

Elder-she i

Let them be! I shall pray for you

that you break the heart of the gods.                                                                                   

Elder-she ii

We all shall pray that you return with their head,

That as you have once done here on this land

With the sabretooth, shouting ori-reoo!!!

You shall come back with the spirit’s maiden head,

Eve and you and us shall shout the victory cry

Ori-reoo!!!Dancing triumphant with the trophy.                                                                  

Elder-he ii

You seem to have been saying so much, keep

Your mouth close lest an unseen blow land on it

To shut it for you.                                                                                                  

Elder she ii

Let it land, let it land.

We keep building and building until when?

When will they decide it is fit for Eve

To come down with them to come and start residing?

They attained the height of their powers

And it ended the commonwealth we shared

And with theirstrange powers the enslaved

And say they would turn our portion of heritage

To a fruitful land but would not even have it with us

In commonwealth, but to be our lords.

But then if that finally happens

Without any of us attaining Eve in the marriage,

It is the sealing of our fate forever as slaves.

One has attained the height of an idol today,

Another will do tomorrow

But to what end if not their personal glory

For the slavery persist except we see the secret of the gods,

Except we know the secret of the gods. 

You shall return well to shout  orireeoooo!!!    

Exeunt    curtain fall

SCENARIO THREE

ADAM DEPARTS

Adam

They appear and disappear at will to torment us.

What is the use of the break from this labour

We suffer as slaves, it is unending.

Subjugated us to an unending project,

Monitoring us with unseen eyes. If we slack

They would surprise us with sudden whips on our backs,

Whips made from lightning.

This tower is nothing but an endless toil

They have contrived for us.

They come today to approve

A certain progress in an aspect

Only to come tomorrow

To that same aspect

To say the foundation of that part is not

Well perfected to the nature of the model of beauty,

The nature of the ideal, Eve.    

Then we destroy and start it all over again.                                                        

Now I hear the cockcrows, though it is still twilight dark,

But then the cockcrows in foreseeing the light unrevealed.

I have heard the summons of the wildest tulip

I have heeded the call of utmost beauty

A maiden of the virgin forest called my name,

Heart deep I must go, I must break the heart of the gods

Fetch the foremost flower of the world,

Wear the garland of truth when innermost deep I go.Curtain fall

SCENARIOFOUR

THE UNFORETOLD ARRIVAL

(Maidens (demigods) &the gods, some sitting, some dance, some with drums)

Maiden i

Of the children of the earth

Ever ridden with infirmities and their weaknesses

Will there ever be one with the courage steep in endurance

That shall come and stand firm

Before our wine hearted beauty

To perform the heartfelt rite

Upon the crest of hope of our heart…                                                               

All

Never!!! Never!!!

Never shall there be!                                                                

Maiden i

Never shall there come to pass one of akindred

Of brutish, hasty, blind courage.

Like it shall ever come to pass

That birds one day shall come to breastfeed.

Blind courage is that eye that is healed to open

Only for the presence of fear to be revealed to the healed.

For blind courage is not aware of fear…                                                                                     

Maiden ii

All warriors of the Male that has braved

To pass forging a path to the shrine of Life

Passing through our hands their vitality we milked

And sucked, rendered their fatnesses crest fallen,

Deflated of life force before they come to the fiery crest of hope.

And of these of the Male, save the few who became idols

And those that escaped in madness as the Males perceive it,

We have made sacrifices

Upon the altar of truth by the beautiful oracle.  

Maiden i

On the altar of truth

Every life is spent…                                                                                                            

Maiden ii

None of them of the earth who braved beauty’s forest

Before the purity of its heart,

Before the stark truth stood upright,

They all fell prostrate due to their infirmity…                                                          

All Maidens

Cowards!! Cowards!! Cowards!!

Before our godliness…                                                                   

Maiden i

The brave is that with the heart that admits the truth.                                                          

Maiden ii

Cowards are they that fear the truth.                                     

Maiden iii

Cowardice is lacking the initiative

before the challenge.                                                          

Maiden iv

Cowards are they unable to initiate beauty.                                                 

Maiden v

Cowardice is the failure to admit the truth.                                                 

Maiden vi

The brave are those that arise to fulfill the truth.           

Maiden iii

And courage is opposing corruption

With the beautiful …                                                   

Maiden i

Behold the beautiful,

The beautiful is the oracle

In the heart of beauty …                                                                       

Maiden ii

The beautiful

Is the imperative principality

In the shrine of the gods …                                                                   

Maiden iii

The ineffable is the innermost secret

That makes truth

The divine flower of life …                                                                                                       

Maiden iv

The beautiful, the ineffable,

Is the blossom that makes sacred

The heart of truth…                                                                                                                 

Maiden v

O the ineffable

O the iris of covenant

To bind earth-onesand the gods …                                                                                           

Maiden vi

The rose of beauty

Is the ineffable that makes brave-heartened

The heart of the gods …

Maiden i &ii

We dance for the shrine of the beautiful

Innate with the mystery

Of the godly…                                                                                   

Maiden iii &iv

Beautiful is the incarnate of beauty

Pure sacrifice on the altar

Of truth…                                                                     

                 

Maiden v &vi

O imago the inmost dream,

The dream beyond the dreamer’s touch

the dream in beaut’s shrine …                                                                                

(All) Maidens

The-vine-centered forest,

Liberty fire in the heart,

This inward beauty of beauty.                                                                                 

God i

See who comes see who comes

Another one of they of the earth

One who had endured through the dark waves of the slave nymphs

The dark waves of the demigod of the loom,

Maybe this one shall be like the select few turned idols

After seeing beauty or maybe he too shall reach his melting

Pointing outside the shrine of our mystery

In the hands of the maidens of the maiden head,

And shall make another sacrifice for Eve!!!                                                              

Maiden i

Let the gods go aside

And watch the demi-gods do their thing …        

Maiden ii

The Male one approaches, behold how he approaches

To come marry the bride enshrined in our heart

To unveil the maiden head that has undone

Those before him, he comes to marry

The gods and the earthly…                                                                                                       

Maiden iii    

Shall he cross the threshold

To be enshrined with the maiden head,

Turning the heart of the gods

To the heart of love?                                                                                                   

Maiden i

Listen ! He sings !

Hush hush hush …                                                                                                       

Adam

If this be the preludes of death

I sing for you mysterious tulip of this forest

That may the last song on my mouth

Before I die be for you.

I am the moth drawn from afar

To the flame of hope,

You are the flame

You are the unspeakable vision of truth.

I carry and I bring with trembling hands,

I still in faithful fast and continence,

A nest of my eggs to incubate them

On the heart of your shrine…

                   Maiden iv

                         Perfidy! Perfidy!

An outcome that we gods have

Precludedly made impossible …                                                                             

             

Maiden v

Let the fellow be

Soon he shall learn… in the lamp of truth

We have never met one this upright …                                                      

             

                   Adam

In our wedding

Is the marriage of ones of the earth and the gods

By you and I entwined in the savage flower

The heart of beauty shall become the shrine of love…                                                         

                                     

                                      Maidens vi

                      Perfidy Perfidy,

Let us out, out of the shades of our secret

And put him to the final test …                                                                              

                 

                              (All)Maidens

Ah!! Ah!! Ah!! …                                                                                        

             

              Adam

What are you?!

O you twilight of bizarres…                                                                                                 

                                               

                                                (All)Maidens

O we twilight of bizarres,

We maiden chorus to the shrine of truth,

The forest flower that forever flourish

Behold our fruits, behold our palms and grapes,

This is the wine-hearted forest,

You from the barren land, land of hunger,

Put out your fiery thirst and end your hunger …                                        

Adam(sudden dizziness)

They tower above me before my eyes

They turn to paw-paw breasted trees,

They whet my appetite, they remind me of virago ripeness,

They dizzy me with aromas of their wine press,

Shake my resolve with aroma of palmoil soup,

Ah! I have journeyed so far,I have fasted so far,

I must be steadfast to the end.                                                                                      

Maiden i

Shall this earth-one make the first impression that last longer,

Shall this earth-one put Eve the Maiden head,

Head of the maidens to sword?..                                                                                   

Maiden ii

Is it a sword or a cross you carry? …                                                                                          

Adam

It is both to me …

My sword is my cross.                                                                           

Maiden iii

Let us carry your sword you child of earth …                                                    

Adam

Only I bear my cross

My back is hunched from it,

I am responsible as the hunchback

Who shall not let-down what is mine to carry,

That which is my mine to bear,

I shall forbear to the end …                                                                                    

Maideniv

Don’t be a fool! Everyone needs a hand.

We shall handle your sword with care,

Handle and lead you to the truth …                                                                        

(Rushes in)Olokun

We do this in memoriam of freedom! …                                                    

Adam

You clad in indigo

Did you whisper something?  …                                                                                         

Maiden v

He is taken to a slave, Olokun,

The nymph head the head of the nymph slaves

The chosen nymph to the chief priestess,

Chief priestess Eve, our head …   (all maidens guffaw)                                                                                 

Adam

You are the face in my dream …                                                                             

Olokun

‘In memoriam of freedom’ …                                                                                 

Adam

Carry for me …                                                                                                            

Olokun

I gladly bear your sword

Unto the memoriam of freedom …                                                                               

Maiden vi

You give a slave to bear for you,

This is the nymph head of the nymph slaves,

This is Olokun the chief-slave to Eve

The chosen nymph to the imago of the heart of the gods

Slave to Eve the chief priestess you pick

Slave to the maiden head slave to the head of the gods

All the same a slave, nymph to imago of the heart of truth.                                            

Adam

Nymph head of the nymph slaves

I trust you to lead me to the gods

And I risk not alloying my sword in your hands.

O ye ones of the milky way

I fear you would handle the sword

And present me with it before the truth

After making it a milksop, for you are the milky ones.

You would render it melt

Molten cast outside the matrix of beauty.

And then I am undone by infirmity,

For then the sword shall not be firm to be thrustworthy

To cross the gods, Female, with the earth ones, Male,

Making me not thrustworthy and trustworthy of the truth,

The true secret of the gods …                                                                                                   

Maiden i

Another strange one has come

Into the palmvine nucleus,

The chief priestess is once again at peril,

Tell us your name you of the earth?                                                                                   

Adam

Adam it is.

At last the heart of trust

The shrine of the gods is coming close

To be the heart of love …                                                                                       

Maiden ii

Come aside with me my fellow Maidens

Demigods free born of the gods lets share a few whispers:

‘In mock show for the fool we shall go to prepare

And loudly bewail the foremost Maiden, Eve.’

Adam you be led away by the nymph head

The slave Olokun, to the assembly of the gods

Where they shall tell you a sweet riddle

For you to unriddle.

Fellow maidens come with me

To go prepare your Chief priestess for the rite of love

That shall unite the gods and the earthly ones.

We go to prepare Eve, we go we go…

For now the gods are come out followed by the nymphs with wines

To welcome and merry with you, you shall taste wines untold on earth,

And certainly a riddle surely they have for you before the rite.

We go we go to prepare Eve.                                 

(Slave nymphs set down wine kegs, the gods sit maidens exeunt)

Olokun

You must ponder well on the riddle the gods shall give.

Apeja and others did not listen to me, they shoved me aside,

That risen this far by their valiance, it was beneath them

To listen to a slave.

I really do not know what the gods

Did exactly with them.                                                             

                       

Adam

And why would you connive against your land?                                                             

Olokun

Is it not enough that I and my kind are slaves?

Which once upon a time was not.

Although I am different because I was not doomed like them

For that I serve the imago

But then the gods call me a nymph.                                                                              

Adam

Apeja and the others did not listen to you

But then they ended up been worshiped by we the earthly

On the report of the messenger god to us.                                                                                

Olokun          

You fool, to what end are they been worshiped?

Has it taken the barrenness of the earthland?                                                                           

Adam             

And the Messenger god told us

Their spirits are here with the gods.                                                      

Olokun

I know nothing about that. You listen and do as I say.   

Once the gods give you the riddle demand immediately

That you want to be done with the sacrificial performance.

I shall take leave of my mistress,

Meet you at the waiting room of the shrine where you shall be left alone

Till she is fully prepared for the sacrifice you shall perform,

And whatsoever the riddle is I shall help you with it.

God iii

What words whisper Olokun, the chief of the slaves,

To that of the earth?                                  

Olokun

Nothing of importance o giant of the gods,

I only make comments concerning his sword.

Have your sword Adam, for now I take leave,

Leaving you to merry with the gods this great marriage night

Between they of the earth and the gods.                                                                  

Eve must be wondering for me. So I run fast.                       Curtain fall

SCENARIO FIVE

Drumming in a falling and rising tempo is played, by one of them. While one speaks the others dance

THE NYMPHS OF OLOKUN

RECOLLECT IN OLOKHAE

Nymph i

By the one from the earth the great love ritual

Shall be performed,

And they of the earth and the gods shall be married.

Their longtime division shall be mended tonight,

And the vision of freedom from bondage

Longed for by they of the earth shall come to fruition … 

But the gods would rather keep their separate independence.

What say you my nymphs, my fellow spirit slaves?

Shall this foreseen one of the earth heed Olokun?

Or shall this one of the earth go ahead with the libation?

Shall the ploy we have crafted not come to be?                                                             

O you of earth, such foolish foolish foolish one,

Shall you not have your prize?                                                                                     

Nymph ii

What is the essence of truth?                                                                                       

Nymphs

The essence of truth is liberty;

For it is in the heart of truth

We shall find liberty …                                                                                                            

Nymph ii

The chosen to whom the truth is revealed

For fulfillment, must be the oblated wine,

Must make blood-drunk the one of the earth                                                               

Nymph i

The truth demands an initial sacrifice

For the essence to be fulfilled

Nymphs

The gods must not suspect the hope of our heart

For what we hope for is what they have forbidden

That they have sworn

That it is over the dead body of the maiden head

The earthly ones shall be married to them,

For they forbid that this most noble creation

Shall be a prize relished by a soiled Male.

But we have hope for this one

The one that shall initiate our dream for liberty …                                                              

Nymph iii

The gods dare not sense the fire of hope

That the beautiful is pregnable,

They shall do all to kill it,

Commanding a flood over a flint-flame.

For that plenty many years ago upon the emergence of Eve

The noble creation of the gods, the perfection of beauty

That caused the split that caused division the fission from the Male ones,

A frightening oracle was uttered by Osun the gorgon head of the Male,

A gorgon counterpart of Olokun our head,

Osun whom became Satan for being restive against the gods

Said to the gods that of our side of all things deity

That of the side of its counterpart gorgon among the gods

That of our side of the Female ones, the gods,

Does exist hope that the earthly shall attain godhood,

That they the Male shall discover the secret of our mysteriousness

Discover the Mystery of the Female,

And the other gods on a certain unforgettable night in our absence

Met secretly, planned and deliberated against us

And we were ambushed and having ambushed us

They stripped us of our charms, o!how charming we were.

They took our arms, broke our arms, made us weak,

Made us harmless and charmless,

Then they charmed us by a black curse on our lot

And then they dedicated us to the slave god, and a god took

Charge duty bound to see we were foredoomed slaves among our fellow gods.

Nymph iv

Slaves now we are, we were once known

As Amazons among the gods

But having divested us of our respective being,

They named us nymphs.

Since then they called us nymphs and not Amazons.

They said the nymphs are a curse

They said the nymph must never be a mile close

To the yard of the shrine of beauty

They said the gods shall have any nymph for merrying

At will and if any nymph bears progeny in our agamic nature

The nymph has made a slave sacrifice for the gods.

They said if we bear a he-nymph that he is foredoomed

To be a sacrifice to the slave-god

Before they live beyond the infancy of godhood.

From our great estate we are brought to the low estate of things.

Eve is the fiery thing that makes the gods irreproachable

The fire of their heart and they dared they of the earth

To present one to standout for them to make them all justified

As upright enough for the standard of the beauty of the gods,

For Eve their noble creation,

Eve that was made the maiden head

Eve their head is the only one undefiled the unalloyed fire

In the entire universe of Male and Female.

But dare we open our mouths to say the gods are wrong,

Knowing what we know among ourselves

We dare not speak it …                                    

Nymph v

The eyes whose sole purpose is to see

Of its own shall shut itself into oblivion.

Like them all Eve the chief priestess of beauty beauty’s perfection

Instituted as a slave god by the gods whom are the beauty of the world

The undefiled Eve also took for herself a slave

And for her only an undefiled slave will do

And lo she has an undefiled one,

For only an undefiled nymph will do

And lo she has an undefiled nymph…

Our Amazon Olokun a gorgon headed is the one Eve chose

And wrongly they call Olokun a nymph

Our maiden Olokun is the nymph for Eve

Olokun has risen to a higher responsibility among the nymphs,

Yes a higher responsibility for Olokun is still an amazon.

The gods call Olokun the slave head the nymph head,

Olokun are you a nymph? Olokun are you a nymph?

Olokun has risen to a higher responsibility,

Today we hope the Amazons in us shall be redeemed…                                                      

Nymph i

Eve said only an undefiled nymph will do

Eve said only an undefiled one will do

Only an undefiled one would be a slave to her

And Olokun is the one undefiled,;

But then is Olokun a nymph?

The gods say Eve is the only undefiled in the universe

Olokun of the nymphs, the Amazon, but nymph head of the nymphs,

Dare we open our mouths to say the gods are wrong?

And the gods say; where do the dreamers

Of the earth manage to see the flame of hope …                                                     

The gods term the aspiring to beauty by they of the earth

A hopeless aspiration.

If the gods call them hopeless then we are also hopeless.

Our hope is the hope of them of earth.

But then if our hope is fulfilled

Then the marriage shall not be fulfilled.

In the divine heart of beauty is the secret of hope,

Hope is the secret the gods must never know

The gods say Eve the maiden head is the only undefiled,

Olokun, o nymphs, we must not say they are wrong…                                                   

Nymph ii

Our hope is that the time shall come

The bleeding heart of beauty shall be healed.

An undefiled blood on the altar of truth

Shall give us the heart to turn around

Our situation. To turn around, make a revolution,

In the uprising for liberty,

The wine of truth shall wet your thirst.

When the secret of the gods is exposed to the husbandman the horseman

The Amazon must make drunk the upright one of earth …             

The heart of the gods shall bleed,

The laurels of liberty must be offered

Out of the secret of truth by that chosen one,

Hope is the secret of truth.

Liberty is the thing that makes beautiful

The heart of beauty,

Only in the truth we have hope

Hope makes the truth sacred,

Where liberty is the enshrined is epicenter of unadulterated wine.

The shrine of the gods shall be dispossessed

Nymph iii

But by the gods the truth has been made unspeakable

Although the truth has lips

But some other lips must utter the truth

Of the nexus sacrament concocted by the gods

On the altar of beauty, the lab of the gods

The altar of truth where all experiments undergo proof.

The original lips cannot speak the truth

For they are made speechless, divested of tongues,

The gods has ensured their secret …

The lips that shall speak out

For the truth is the head of the beauty,

But this lip the gods has pre-invested with tongues

A wine mixture of languages for this is the wine-spirited forest

A spirit mixture of language, to mix-up the facts of truth,

All these invested into the cocktail of the gods.

The essence of the beautiful is to give deliverance

To a new sunrise,

For the beautiful way is the way of liberty.

Only the spirited wine of hope shall give us heart

Unto a revolution of the situation, a turn around for liberation.

Our hope is in truth; our hope is in the heart of beauty.

Olokun, the gods must not suspect the fire of hope in their shrine

The gods must not know that hope is in the truth.                                                  

Nymphs

They musn’t they musn’t. They must not know of our hope.

That hope for liberty is situated in the truth the gods have the

Truth under their control.

Like certain few have done before its arrival

Certain few who did not return to the earth

Shall this one of earth accept compromise of the gods

By sacrificing the prize of the admittance to truth

In exchange for a place to be among the gods?

Shall the one of the earth do such?

Shall the one from the earth do such?

Nymph i

When they the oppressive authority

Are dispossessed of the suppressed truth

Nymph ii

When they are dispossessed of the very secret

Whose disclosure shall reveal their craftiness

And the veritable secret is in the adamant hand…

Nymph iii

The heart of the gods shall be touched beyond measure…

Nymph  iv

For the evidence that show the non-ingenuousness of the crafty gods

But render them guilty is brought to light.

Nymph v

For then the gods are proved not to be innocent.           (They all keep to dancing)          Curtain fall

                         SCENARIO SIX

EXPOSITION IN THE VESTIBULE

Olokun

Is it the riddle of the gods that occupies you

As such you hear not my stepping in?                                                                           

Adam

The point is that I don’t find anything hidden within it.

It all seems plain enough. It even holds the promise of

I becoming an idollike Apeja, Luangoo, Baal Peor and others.                                      

Olokun

You damn fool. You mean they are all idols on earth.

Now I understand how they ended.

Tell the riddle to my hearing.                                                                     

Adam

Before the covenant libation is performed

In prelibation you may kiss the bride on the lips

Who shall seek the face of beauty see it and not be idolized

Only they to whom beauty is unveiled shall become idols.                                                        

Olokun

All expression carries every possible meaning with the gods.

But then I shall make you understand the little matrix at play.

The altar of truth demand pure libation

Pure blood to achieve a covenant …

I am a slave, so the gods say,

But unlike the nymphs I am left

For that I serve as the nymph of the imago .

It was agreed that the hand that shall serve Eve

Must be of one pure, though that of a slave.

They allowed me and I have remained untouched, and it is to this end

For the gods foresaw by an oracle that it is through the amazons

You earthly ones shall cause a debacle in the forest

And with a curse combined of all their portents they maimed

Every one of the amazons into nymphs except me.

But then it is only clear that if they had not done

That which they did to the Owu amazons

This situation would not present itself. Not only Eve

is pure-blooded! I Olokun also possess the blood pure

Fit for the altar of truth, the altar upon which apotheosis is gained.

The altar of truth is where the sacrifice of redemption is attained.                                        

Adam

How does your narration solve the riddle,

Besides the maidens would soon be done with the preparations.                                         

Olokun

If you heed my voice ….

If you heed my voice …                                                                  

Adam

If I intend not

I will be not here listening to you

But be steeped in the wine of the gods.                                                                              

Olokun

Repeat the riddle.                                                                                                  

Adam

Before the covenant libation is performed

In prelibation you may kiss the bride on the lips

Who shall seek the face of beauty see it and not be idolized

Only they to whom beauty is unveiled shall become idols.

Olokun

Who shall see those darksome sorcerous eyes

And not turn into an idol? Not even the gods.  

Luangoo, Melenaa, and the others are now idols and you worship them.

Indeed they are idols, or are they not?                                                                          

Adam

Hold on a while.

Are you meaning the idols we worship

In their image representation is what the messenger god

Meant by them having become idols?                                                               

Those of us in the earth are undone.

What darksome eyes of sorcery does she possess?                                                                   

Olokun

Eve is the most mysterious one,

Noblest creation of the gods.

There is none who stares at Eve

That be not turned to some graven image.        

Apeja and the others had turned stoned idols;

For as the riddle says; ‘You may kiss the bride…’,

For which if to do you must lift the veil,

And there you have of the riddle

‘Only those to whom beauty is unveiled shall become idols’,

And of course they have become idols. The gods did not lie.                

Adam

Indeed Luangoo, Belphem, Apeja, Melenaa,

they all are idolized.                                                                                

Olokun

Eve wears a veil to prevent us from turning to stone,

Eve shall lose the evil genius of those eyes

If that which is forbidden for Eve is done;

That she renders herself pregnable,

And then her eyes shall be opened                         

She is your bride prize, a right you have earned,

For she is the bride prize.                          

Adam

But then how shall I have Eve allow me that

Which is forbidden?

And how shall I escape the wrath of the gods

If I do as you have ployed?                                                                                     

Olokun

All the altar needs is a sacrifice of virgo blood

Which runs in me as well as Eve,

It shall produce a tremble on all the grounds

Once spilled on the altar,

And the gods shall think it is Eve that’s been sacrificed

And they shall mourn greatly for it’s a great loss

Though they hope against it.

But then you shall go to tell them you need not be disturbed,         

For you intend to mourn by her side all through the night and

That on the morrow you shall bring out the corpse.            

After which on Eve’s back you shall make flight.                             

Adam

My people in the earth hope I shall chose

For the greater good.                                                                                                          

Olokun

That which the gods have taunted the earth with shall

Allbe yours.You shall reveal the secret of the gods to them,

What the gods discovered is death, it is the thing that can end

The long suffering of yours on the earth, or else ye all shall

Remain in everlasting deathlessness but one of suffering,

This is what will come to you if you sacrifice Eve, albeit

If you possess Eve that which the gods have not being able

To achieve through virgin birth is in your potential to make happen

If you pregnably implant Eve, youshall make a new creation

Different from the look of the Males and Females for it is a crossbreed

Of both, you shall begin a new creation and you shall be remembered

For generations.  This creation is the very dream the gods hope

To achieve by virgin birth through Eve. And they would rather

Sacrifice Eve to give you death, and not a new life.

She brings the earth both if you take her with you.

And I by my sacrifice empower the nymphs back to Amazons,

And by dawn on the morrow it shall be a new day

For the gods shall be taken unawares

For by tomorrow they shall secede in revolt

And they shall have an independent dwelling

Of separate waters from the gods…

The trick you shall employ

To have Eve is in the riddle, and I shall tell you how;

All expression carries every possible meaning with the gods.                                          

Adam

How Olokun?                                                                                                             

Olokun

Your trick shall be on the lips, which shall receive the kisses.

You shall play cunningly,

For an open heart deserves only the straight forward.                             

You of the earth know nothing of your ophis nature.

Adam

You are only speaking riddles to my ears.

Olokun

Yes yes; I shall enlighten you           about your reptilian fertility.

You are not meant to spill those seeds on the shrine ground

Like the planting of corns.  You are to plant them in Eve.

Adam

Then I better know how.

Olokun

Yes yes; I shall enlighten you…                Curtain fall

SCENARIO SEVEN

IIE-IFE

Eve

That the gods have said no one is worthy of me,

To prove the brave-heart of our savage beauty

That the words of the gods do not return to them void

They must have it that I die in purity before I am married

By the one of earth that their secret shall die with their secret.

But then how witty shall Adam

Prove to be; and here comes the brave of the earth,

For the blood wine …

You Adam you who have cleared the way up

To the kingdom of the gods a way that shall become open,

An accessible time gap for they of the earth to visit us at will

Only when the pure blood wine libation is shed on truthful altar,

Albeit tonight you shall become an idol, immortalized like a god

And be worshiped like one, for the godMessenger god shall go to tell

Your people that the gods have idolized you for you shall be

Worshiped like the other idols before you worshiped like a god,

As you your self have worshiped some of them.                 

Adam

Then you mean to tell me I shall not succeed in bringing

The great marriage of the female nation of you the gods

With the male nation of my people to pass.                  

Eve

Do I mean so?

Then may I know how well you know the riddle the gods gave you?

I shall recant it for you if you please. Shall I?

Then I take your silence for a yes:

Before the covenant libation is performed

In prelibation you may kiss the bride on the lips

Who shall seek the face of the beautiful see it and not be idolized

Only they to whom beauty is unveiled shall become idols.                                      

Adam

What does it say more than that I may kiss the bride

In prelibation before I lay the sword? But it is only

A mere foretaste of I shall what I shall not have.                                                      

Eve

But Messenger god have recounted it to you before hand

Whenever he pays the earth visits with messages.

I am what you shall forgo, that from which you must abstain,

The self-sacrifice you must make for the sake of your people

To make a way of harmony between they and us

That they on the earth can go beyond time to come and be with us.

Won’t you want to be immortalized like the gods

Be idolized like and worshipped as Apeja and the rest of them?                                          

Adam

Since that it is I may kiss the bride,

I shall kiss you kisses on the lips, as so above so below,

But I shall commence from below in all reverence and humility to you.                              

Eve

Though not my will, but the will of the gods

I go ready, prepared to prove brave the heart of the gods,

So I go to lay me on the altar of truth

And then you shall have the heart of the gods opened up for sacrifice

But then you may kiss your bride as they have said

And which you’ve chose to, so do come

To unveil and kiss your bride upon the altar

A pre-libation of the great covenant libation…          Curtain fall

SCENARIO EIGHT

BREACHING THE TRUST

(Enraged )Eve

Upon the gods’ slab of proof

In their lab of proof the altar of truth

What have we done?

What have you done?  …                                                                                             

Adam

What have I done? …                                                                                                  

(Enraged and grips Adam)Eve

You have made impure the wine of the gods

You have ruined the heart the shrine of the gods

You have ruined.

You gave me a prolonged kiss, you gave me too long a kiss,

Upon the lips below you in cunning linger and did not let go.

You played cunning upon an open heart,

And you took advantage of my open heartedness

And inflamed the embers of my heart,

And now my blood far from pure is maddened

For I have felt the spearhead of oneness in my heart.                            

Adam

Your hands are like steel

Or have you chosen to rip my hands off my shoulders.                                                  

Eve

You must see the face of the beautiful

The face of the beautiful must be unveiled to you

Enraged I am and enraged

And my veil I off from my face, I reveal myself,

See my face see the face of the beautiful.

Adam(begins to shiver frightfully}

You are dreadful than anything I have ever seen.

Instead of hair you have serpents on your head like Olokun.

You are electrifying my senses electrifying my being, this is unbelievable.

(goes into saying babbles)   

(Lets Adam go, though he keeps babbling)Eve

No! no! You are supposed to turn into an idol,

What is happening? As the gods said, it has happened.

What is forbidden me we have done

And now my eyes are opened, they need not the veil anymore,

For I have revealed myself unto you. I am doomed. 

Adam(having stopped babbling begins to behave affectedly mad)

But then who is to blame?

Is it not the gods who say:

The bushmeat stew one is forbidden one should not smell;

It was they who said I may kiss the bride,

A foretaste of what I shouldn’t eat

Prelibation to the libation

So who is to blame, the gods or we? …                                                                               

Eve

Now that I have betrayed the gods

What shall we do?

Now that you despoiled the gods,

Where is the way out? …                                                                                                    

Adam

My dear have no fear …

Let that in the shadows of beauty

Spring fast that we put this plot to finish …                                                                          

Olokun

Without fail, this day I shall have your birthright,

To save my kindred from they who enslave them

For also of my heart runs out incorrupt blood,

And there shall be no slave among the gods …                                                              

Eve

What treachery is this?!                                                                                                

Adam

This treachery is the escape line,

For Olokun shall offer her neck

For the neck breaking sacrifice on the altar of Ile-Ife

For the shrine of the gods by our conspirate triumviracy

Have become the house of love the shrine of love, Ile-ife.                                            

Olokun

O dark tower, ebony beauty, I usurp your birthright.

Of me shall the crimson outflow from the heart of the gods,

That shall testify to their seeing

That they have made a brave-hearted sacrifice …   

Eve, I Olokun do this for the freedom of the nymphs,

I do this to restore the powers the gods divested from them,

To empower them back to amazons.

A great insurrection shall come surprisingly upon the gods.

The waters of the gods shall be divided with us

As from tomorrow when a new day shall dawn hot

To defrost all that are frozen, captives, imprisoned in ice,

And we shall have independence of our part of the waters.

Heart deep the arrow has been buried and now

Out of both of you shall materialize the spirit

Of the indivisible dual, the spirit of individuality

Shall come to fruition, the individual

I shall lie dark on the altar of truth like the maiden head,

The libation of my heart is pure,

O Adam, O one of earth be fast with the sword,

And having severed the head, you go out and brandish it,

Brandish ori-Olokun before the drunken eyes of the gods.

In their drunkenness believing it to be ori-Eve’s

For the night shadeth many things, and tell them as

I have told you to tell

As to you wanting to mourn your bride prize.                                                         

Eve

For that you have stolen the mystery of beauty

From today you are fugitive from the gods …

And for that I with you have ignited

A duplicate flame of hope

I am a run away from home …

Hope is the mystery of beauty,

Hope is the lamp of truth,

For that you have tasted

And taken the nectar and flower of the gods,

We both are exiles from the shrine of love …                                                                     

Adam

Though the first true lovers of the universe,

Our love the gods shall say

Is the abuse of the heart of beauty …

This is a flight of lovers

From the house of love,

Fugitives of love,

This is a flight away from Ile-Ife …

Eve

And they shall say the gods shall say;

You took out the lamp

And in their memory left the dark,

You took out the flame

And left in their heart cinders of the fire.                                                                                  

Adam

Towering over me, O tower of beauty,

Eve cocktail of the gods, of your wine heartedness I drank,

And heard your immeasurable boundless gift of tongues,

You are a cocktail of languages; and now I know

What you mean for those of us of the earth.

You possess the freedom of speech

For you are the embodiment of the freedom of expression…                                                    

Eve

Eve is gifted with tongues, Eve is deadly and dreadful

As you can see from the serpentine locks

But then the evil genius of her eyes is lost

And the gods shall go mad when they discover our deed,

That you have rendered them, the peacock, to a cuckold,

And the cock can no longer be cocky,

For it has been emasculated to a hen,

The gods divested of their tail,

The iridescence of the peacock divested, the cocktail, Eve,

The one in whom they invested all their spirits,

Their source of pride.

And tonight we flee from the shrine of love.                             

Olokun

Abscond!  from the woods of Ile-ife,

And there is no turning back,

For you’ve exposed and alloyed the generative stigma of the gods

Not even in remorse shall you turn back

For if you do you shall be frozen,

And unforgivably arrested by the gods.

Adam! Take the sword and let’s be done with the offering of libation.                                 

Adam

This is the debacle of the rituals of love,

Hence we shall make the indivisible duality of ourselves

To be called the individual, one who is a crossbreed of ourselves

Consummated by the embracing of our duality …                                       

Eve

And if this is love, if this is love, it means;

Love has demystified the mask of death

Love shall deliver me from the unknown

Love has unveiled me from facelessness

It means love shall take me from darkness to light

It means love shall reveal me not be the monster

I am believed I am and I am who I am for the reason of liberty.

Love removes that which blinds my eyes from seeing clearly.                                   

Curtain fall

SCENARIO NINE

THE GODS LAMENT

God i

The unveiling of Eve

Is the sacred truth irreverently disclosed.

A male has disheartened the gods

By the irreverent revelation of our masquerade.

We are no longer sacred in heart,

An earthly one has ended the age of innocence.

The Males are now the wiser, they have found us out.

How shall we lift our heads

When a Male whom has had insight of our beautiful shrine

Leaved and live to tell of it.

How shall we lift our heads

When a Male whom has had insight of our beautiful shrine

From beneath the earth unearthed our true secret,

And out of the forest of shadows brought out our head

Shouting: Ori-reooo!! Ori-reoo!! (sighing and sighing loudly)

How shall we, how shall we lift up our heads? Ah!                                                        

God ii

We no longer have a head to bother about that.

What head have we? We are good as beheaded.

A headless body has no head to think of lifting a head;

For that which is our head, the head of the gods,

Is taken off, Eve the supreme maiden head, our head,

Has been taken off, an earthly one has taken off with our head,

The maiden head of the gods, the head of the gods.                                                     

God iii

The masquerade of the gods is no longer a mystery,

And for that we have set our great shrine ablaze

We have razed our great shrine to ashes

And drunk with wormwood we bathe in the ashes of our glory.

The beautiful secret has been discovered,

The one that breathes fire out of its mouth has been discovered.

And the gods bleed, the gods bleed deeper than the eye can see,

And our eyes have melted to tears dropping on the ashes of our heart.                                            

Godiv

Alas, at long last an earthly one entered the grave

Saw the land of the dead and returned from the grave alive

Back to the earth with our secret

And began shouting; Ori-reooo!! Ori-reooo!!

But when the Male people ran out to welcome this earthly one home,

They were awed by Eve, so dreadful, breathing fire.

And when Adam kept shouting ori-reooo!!

The earth kindred, the Male kindred, responded: Iku-reoo!!.

Ori-reoo!                                                                                                                           

The other gods

Iku-reooo!!!                                                                                                                       

Godiv

Ori-reoo!                                                                                                                           

The other gods

Iku-reooo!!!                                                                       

And they shouted more and more;

You have found trouble,

Adam has found trouble,

You have found the trouble of the gods.                                                                             

God v

Our secret death the source of the new life

The mystery that makes the gods unseen has come into the earth,

The mystery of the grave gateway to a new life.

Eve the grave that absolves us from guilt

Eve the dreadful full of locks of snakes,

The dreadful head upon whose basket hairdo we heaped our ills,

Eve has treaded the earth

And the earth shall know the ills from the grave beyond

They shall know the ills and evils of the gods

For that hey have taken our immunity.                                                                                     

God vi

The masquerade of the gods has been unmasked,

The violation of the beauteous is the violation of being.

This is the violation of the Principle of truth.

By the act of one, all of the earth,

All males are charged for the disheartening of the beauteous.                                                    

Curtain fall

SCENARIO TEN

THE TUMULTOUS REVOLT

IN THE UNFINISHED

COLOSSAL TOWER OF BABEL

A scenario of helter-skeltering)

Adam (In monologue off the Scenario)

And everyone was present at the tower

The sight of it was beyond amazing

They all began speaking in diverse tongues

In numerous languages strange, never heard before,

We who spoke one language

And had learnt to keep to our thoughts

Not daring to speak out but always in whisperings

For fear of the consternating nature of the gods.

We began speaking in madness all what not,

We began expressing ourselves in the madness that

Captured those who returned from the expenditure

Whom we certified mad for their strange talk,

Strange dances, and absurd drumming trying at best

To communicate what they saw in the land of the gods

And the gods

When they appear would have them restrained

Certifying their madness and the gods would say

They are ominous signs to those

Dreaming to discover their power.

But what they saw is now revealed to all and all now

Is confounded into confusion,

For until now the male world had not seen

Anything more confounding,

It was more confounding than all the disappearing

And wicked antics of the gods by which they enslaved us

To keep building the unending tower of their ideal.

Eve surpassed the imagination of the males

And suddenly with unbelievable strength everyone chained

Found the strength to break free and everyone spoke volubly

And it was as if everyone tried to name this strange thing,

Eve, and no one could comprehend the other,

The imagination of all we that were slaves

The males was disoriented, and we were free,

There was confusion; it was absolute chaos in the tower

We have found the freedom of expression;

This is the great helter-skelter,

Eve has given us the freedom of expression,

Eve was the most unaccustomed presence,

Eve enlivened our spirits,

We went out of control, we became beyond control,

The gods could not master us anymore,

They lost control of us, for suddenly

Those gods who were present in the tower

But had stayed unseen

They were all revealed they were no longer invisible,

They were naked to our eyes, exposed,

Our eyes were opened, for we have found we have seen

Their secret and we massacred the gods as much

As we could, we destroyed the tower in confused madness,

What we had built with our hands

We brought down in destruction,

For the action of Adam,

Has brought a turnaround of the situation,

For the action of one

Has brought fulfillment to the tower of beauty.

And quickly the gods salvaged very little of their charms

Which had always been in the tower

Which for fear we dared not to touch them,

And neglecting lots of their charms at this chaotic moments

Lots of us began to possess them,

But then this was because the gods

Were all running towards one direction

And lots of them died to protect those

Trying to secure whatever they kept there lest we go for it,

And then we realized it was the power of immortality,

It had been in the tower all the time

And we did not recognize it! Ah!

Then they took hold of the power of immortality

Since death has been discovered

And quickly they disappeared with it,

For it was that which could make the male world

Transcend space and time at will between both worlds,

They ran away with the original gift of ogbanje. Curtain falls

ELEGY OF NOAH

(Monologue off the Scenario)

The injury of the gods is forever red

With an issue of blood on their mind.

An openhearted wound whose relentless bleeding

Can only be appeased by an altar of Christian sacrifice

Can only be placated by an earthly messianic sacrifice

For they with an unlimited ill-will look on our world

That we have committed an ineradicable iniquity,

That the Male had fiddled with the principle of truth.

When they saw the ultimate fruit of great-grandfather Adam

And the Wild Turtle, great-grandmother Eve, Iyemoja,

When they saw their children upright in standing

The future they the gods dreamt of

To be fulfilled by virgin-birth in great-grandmother Iyemoja

They felt wronged, feeling the fruits of their labour

Had been wrongfully harvested,

And in their anger they descended with plagues upon earth,

And the neighbours of my great-grand ones,

Their kinsmen all jealous of the strangeness of their children,

They said that by the oracle of the land sacrifice

Must be made of the children by sending one of the children

Away into the wilderness to carry the curse.

The curse of the land on his back,

And one of the children by casting a lot, was chosen,

And they offered one of their children to appease the gods

One of their children to offer as sacrifice to the angry gods

Gods angry and broken in heart.

After they found out by the lot who it should be,

They told the one brother that the gods has chosen him,

That the gods disfavoured the younger.

It was such that he would have to bear his lot,

He was told that those whom the gods love they take

And so he has to leave the land.

The older one was Ogun and the younger was Adonis.

Ogun was mad that how can he find favour with the gods

And it becomes his lot to suffer in the wilderness,

Ogun my grandfather, who retorted

‘Those whom the gods love they take?!’

That he is chosen of the gods is not a blessing but a curse.

He was told no one has a choice in the matter.

But great-grandmother Ivie the Sacred Fire of the gods later confessed to me

That she told grandfather Ogun

That if he can strike Adonis,

He would have made a true offering,

For that is how the gods practice sacrifice.

For on the evening Ogun tricked Adonis

For one last hunt together into the woods

And later he returned and said that

Adonis has died bleeding in the woods.

How?! Everyone demanded.

And Ogun said, a wild boar had gored through Adonis.

No one had ever died as such

And the kins men of great-grandfather were scared

And some of them came forth saying

They witnessed the murder. Ogun denied.

For the first time death came upon the land by murder

And that night Ogun ran away as was already his lot,

Separated from the clan. Later he also started his family.

But then after sometime the gods returned again

Unappeased ,

With an issue of blood on their mind,

But this time those of us of the new creation

Of the lineage of Adam and Eve ran into hiding,

For even our kins men had become murderous like Ogun,

Saying we must give another up, or they kill us all,

But we did not yield and there was a little fight,

Which later settled but not the plague of the gods.

Few suggested if there was the possibility of killing Eve,

The majority disagreed because she had brought them freedom

By she Adam set them free from the captivity of the gods

So they said:

She must be left to die her own death and not by their hands.

So it happened,

It was we their children the kinsmen demanded,

But then great-grandfather Adam was among the first

To go with the plague.

And the gods insisted raining down with plague on the earth,

Plaguing the Male plaguing them to death for they were dying

Worse than when the first time a sacrifice of

Iye’schildren was made.

Some said that whatever it is, it most have spread through Eve, Iye our mother,

For it was clear the kinsmen of Adam were dying fast

And we the descendants of Adam and Eve were sort of immune.

The gods did not relent in raining down on us with their anger

Wiping almost every one, until this morning things began to change,

For with my eyes I saw sudden recovery

Among the final few of the kindred of great-grandfather Adam

With whom I spent the night trying to console them

Since we are to blame for the ill fortune, the trouble of the gods.

I ran back to see the children, they were still alive,

They had not been harvested by the gods with death not one of them,

I came out and outside this morning displayed another miracle,

A miracle of colours cast like an arch across the sky,

But then Iyemoja was nowhere to be seen, Ivie was nowhere to be seen.

So I searched everywhere,

Calling for her by the various names I had invented for her:

Wild Turtle of great-grandfather,

Shrilling pigeon of night,

Divine mother…Iyemoja, Izemoya, Ivie.

And then I found her and then I knew the reason

For the miracle of colours cast like an arch across the sky,

Eve was the resplendent tail,

The many coloured tail of the gods,

The pride of the peacock that great-grandfather had plucked away

There by emasculating the cock.

I say now I know the reason for the miracle of colours

Cast across the sky, for I have seen great-grandmother Iyemoja,

(comes on stage)I found Eve great-grandfather’s widow,

The gods lost hope for a new day

Dangling from a tree, great-grandmother Izemoya,

A black widow dangling and dangling from a tree

Enticing the anger of the gods from man.Curtain falls

SCENARIO ELEVEN

                        ESU THE EMISSARY

BECOMES MARRIAGE GOD

                  God i

Abhorrently the serpent we abhor laid its eggs in our shrine

And left leaving us hopeless, having ran away with our hope

And the fruits of our fiery hope they have reaped.

What we fear finally has befallen us;

All our labour has become a fruition harvest by another.

See the fruits of our hope, the children of that which was our hope,

Eve, see them how they stand uprightly and firm.

God ii (stands)

The snake despoiled the sacred heart

And the blood of the gods,

The blood of the female is heavy with poison.

But why shouldn’t it be? Why?! Why?!

It only should be heavy with poison, our blood,

Since the sacred snake has envenomed our heart,

And the poison is yet to be sucked out from the snake wound.                

     

                God iii

This is not done! It should never have been,

But for the treachery of Olokun! A serpent spirit that influenced

The fiasco in the shrine of beauty.

In our drunkenness we perceived ori-Olokun because of its serpentine locks

For Eve’s head.No! no! no!

The gorgons Osun the Satan, Olokun the frenzy

And Eve or Iyemoja as her children call her,

All that the tri-aphid dreaded heads have done

All that the gorgons have done is cause us a debacle.

See the first child that came of our labour of our troubles

The first child of our hope, the first human-child,

The first child from Eve, the human-child Cain;

See him a son child the first of our hope

A fruit wrongfully harvested wrongfully reaped

For Cain is ours and not theirs

Cain is not of the efforts of Adam.

Or what contradictory thoughts of it is it running through 

The face of the messenger god?

                  

                   Messenger god 

Who is to say it is not Adam’s?

                  

                   God iv

Don’t you raise that argument.

Our hope was full before stolen.

                            

                   Messenger god

We were not certain of that before Eve fled with Adam,

It all coincided with the fiasco in the shrine house of love.

God v

House of love (hisses) the debacle of love. You talk nonsense!

Messenger god

How nonsense?

Has the union of Eve with the Males not been fruitful?

Has it not produced more children?

God v

Yes it has! For she is the fruitful one.

But what sort of children has she had with them

But human-daughters; all different from the first fruit Cain,

Cain who is a human-son.

God vi

It only indicates Cain is ours! and nothing else.

We want the first fruit of Eve if you are hoping

To see our hatefulness against the males quelled,

Only the first fruit, the human-son Cain

Can quench the thirst of our vengeful fire.

Messenger god

And so the first one we took is not a son.

God vii

An offering of deception. Do your call a daughterlike-son a son.

Cain is our through heir. Cain is the first fruit,

We actually demanded for a son and not a daughterlike-son.

Messenger god

I opt and suggest we embrace them, in this our hurt shall find healing.

God i

As for me, if you say Cain is theirs then if we take Cain

They should be able to produce more son-heirs through Eve,

For they have hope with them.

Messenger god

I still object to forcing their hands to killing of Cain.

Cain is the first human creature, let’s not demand his blood.

God viii(enters but stands)

I demand blood! Those whom the gods love they take.

We love the first fruit. We were tricked by Adam with the first sacrifice.

Messenger god

Vengeance is not going to be satiated,

Because tomorrow we would find another regrettable reason

To be vengeful after we have taken Cain.

God ii

He speaks unpopular to the opinion of the gods.

Messenger god

Our vengeance shall always long for the pools of blood.

I suggest we do a proper wedding with the males

For this will help to heal our hurt as I have earlier said.

God viii

What is this god saying? What is Esu the messenger god saying?

How proper will the marriage be? A marriage

After a lethal initiation had taken place. Think of it all.

In the earth they worship the snake sacredly as Olokun spirit

And Adam is the priest of it.

God iii

And why shouldn’t they? We can call it sacrilege because of

The violation of our principle, but then they attained godhood by it.

God iv

By the death of Cain we would even the wound,

Because that would be the sloughing of their serpent nature,

Then they would be circumcised and deemed fit as worthy of our nature.

Messenger god

The anguish we suffer by a singular action

They had also suffered slavery for years in our game of imperialism.

The marriage is unto the healing of both worlds.

What whispers my fellow god in the ears of some of the gods

That is not good for all the ears present on spot.

God viii

I am making whispers of why we should concur to your reason.

Now it has appeared you not only want to bear

The name meaning the messenger god

You as well have proven to bear the name the marriage god.

Messenger god

I mean not to but my perspective behooves it.

God v

Now you bear both, bear it well,

Bearing as the messenger god and the marriage god

For we have concurred to your argument,

Go tell the males and our own, our daughter Eve whom her children call Iyemoja,

Reveal yourself to her and tell her to tell the males to lift

Their charms of fortification against our appearing

In flesh before them. Tell them that we shall come

To visit them for reconciliation.

Bear the message well and cogently, as we know you for.

God vi

Make them understand we bear against them no more ill-will

For it is time for healing, and for that despite all odds

We shall prepare and on the fortnight from now

We shall come to them to have a proper wedding.

Messenger god

With haste I take my leave to see to it,

To make the Males prepare for a proper marriage,

A reconciliation of both nations

Unto a fulfillment of healing for both nations

That things be like as it was from the

Beginning                                       (exit)

God vii

It is a pity… it is great pity

                   That Eve called by her human children Iyemoja,

                   The perfection beauty,

That which we dared not look at in the face

We can now behold without fear.                                        Curtain fall

         

                        SCENARIO TWELVE

THE GREAT PASSOVER

Adam (drunk and holding a gourd)

My heart is merrier than merry.

You do not appear to be enjoying the feast,

I haven’t seen you take a sip all day.

After all you have done to go invite the scattered clans

To the wedding feast. Drink some…

Eve

If you need to know I am having a fast for the whole of today.

Adam

A fast on a day as this?

There is no day that has been that has witnessed such feasting,

And you fast when you should be the merrier.

Eve

How sincere can all this be?

The gods coming down to us with feast for reconciliation.

Adam having ran away with I their sacred fire,

After all that I have done, these gods that I know.

I hope I would be proved wrong of my suspicion.

Adam

What suspicions?

Eve

Because I had to be sure, so I took to fast

And committed some of our human children to fast

Telling them that if the messenger and marriage god

Could go to the length of having us bore holes to his feathered legs

Vouching its life in other to assure us that the gods are true

That if there be any duplicity on the part of the gods he wouldn’t

Be able to make quick flight, I committed them to fast with me

Throughout for today to ensure the wedding feast go smoothly

But of truth I actually did so peradventure the gods have

Inimical plans to execute that there will be those

Who shall survive it.

Adam

The gods are merrying as well with us…

Eve

Do not be deceived, if they intend evil

They must have devised immunity for themselves.

Adam(throws the gourd away)

What happens to me if your suspicions were just?

Eve

If you die I shall die with you.

Those whom I committed to fast shall live on.

I can as well have a drink (squats and picks the gourd to drink)

Human-great-grand-child (rushes in and seizes the gourd from Eve)

Everydrop that this gourd holds is corrupt. (Throws it down)

IyemojaMother divine the gods are disappearing fast without announcement

And the clans are holding their sides and are dying fast.

The messenger god, marriage god, whom we call Adonai our lord

For his lofty music must have tricked us.

Father Cain has spat on the oath of brotherhood they had

And Cain leads the other partakers of the fast

To go hold the marriage god fast. Along with his lyre

We shall put him to a gruesome death.

Adam

 If it is as you have said my child,

Then Eve your suspicions are true.

The divine mother put you to fast to ensure she outwits the gods

If it happens they planned as you have reported is happening.

Eve

And how are you feeling Adam?

The gods has visited us with a venomous heart

In repayment of the serpent that empoisoned them.

                                   

                                                Adam

Feeling nothing. But then could Adonai be involved having sworn

Brotherhood with us and had his leg gamed? Ah!! (falls and keeps groaning)

                        Eve( sits aground and lifts him to her thighs)

No my Adam…

                            

                                       Human-great-grand-child

Great-grand-one, is this it? Great-grand-mother is this it?

The marriage god, whom we praised as Adonai, must be suffered and then slain.

The gods have used Esu as bait in a new role as the marriage god

For to wipe us. Esu the messenger god cannot be exculpated

For it is renowned for it is tricksiness and this is certainly one of it.

Give me a while and I shall be back to be with you. (rushes out)

                        Adam

Is this death that grips by the belly…? Gripping me excruciatingly… (groans)

I die to continue my fight against them on the other side.

                                  Eve

(She shuts his dead eyes, and still sitting on the floor, picks the gourdanddrinks)

I shall join you on the other divide tonight on this great pass-over.

In that depth where I was kept hidden and suppressed

If that which occurred, happenedbetween us is Ife

And we refer to that vault as Ile-Ife it means love has made you

A freedom fighter for revealing the secret facts of your oppressors and exploiters

For by your action love has revealed

That I am the stigma I am for the purpose of freedom. You are the best homo,

You are you are. The gods didn’t invent me they merely discovered me,

I had belonged to the Males but the Males ignored me

Because of their ignorance of me, they ignored me

And the gods discovered me and they enhanced me…

(Lies on Adamand some were afar off some gods come on slowly making passage, and Satan comes watching all cynically from another end)

                                   

                             God i

It wouldn’t be easy but we shall try;

We must take her we must take Eve or call her Iyemoja

Or Iye or Izemoya as her children do

We must take Iyemoja back with us

And shut up the fiery beast in the depths.

Even if we couldn’t take Cain the first human fruit with us,

Adam’s death is good retaliation.

See how she laments for Adam;

She that who was the perfection of beauty with one of the soil

Who was a slave of ours… so ignominious to behold.

                  

                             God ii

But then Iyemoja’s children shouldn’t kill the light of peace,

                        They should not kill the light of peace,

The messenger-marriage god is the peacemaker.

The marriagegod is innocent of it all.

Our lord they called the messenger god,

For the elevating songs of the messenger god’s lyre…

                                   

                                    God iii

Adonai! They shouted for the marriage taught them the true art of wine,

Adonai!they shouted and the messenger-marriage god

Took an oath in brotherhood with the human ones

Through the first fruit Cain.

They had the marriage god’s leg gamed,

The marriage god staked the life,

And still they deny the marriage god’s innocence.

                            

                             God iv

We did not think the messenger god could vouch for us with life.

Now the messenger god dies as marriage god

Instead of the human first fruit we craved.

                             Gods

O the messenger god

On being the marriage god

Died sucking the poison out of our hearts,

Died sucking and healing the venom in us,

Died as the Principality of peace,

In peacemaking died a Christ

Died in the messianism of the peacemaker and healer.                                                 

                   (Standing apart) Satan

As the one they call Satan, now shall I begin to vent my hatred on the offspring of the evil one.

Though gorgon she is gorgon Eve is or as children call her Yemoja,

Gorgon Iyemoja be like me Osun and Olokun, such sentimentality appeals not to me.

The world can call it a misguided grievance

That I begin to vent my hatred on the offspring of the evil one,

The evil one the one by whom all were held captive

The one who was made to be worshipped as a god of slavery.                                         Curtain fall

APPENDIX

Adam: The biblical name of God’s first human creation, whose characterization in this work interprets him as the Prometheus of the classics.

Adonai: Lord, the Hebrew name for God.

Cain: First son of Adam and Eve in Judeo-Biblical accounts.

Eleduwa: God as the creator

Esu: It is the messenger god in Yoruba pantheon, but in the advent of Christianity given the deity’s nature and attributes which are similar to those of Hermes the classic variant as a trickster and one always lurking at the roads, among others, it was interpreted as the counterpart of the Christian devil or Satan in the nature of a deceiver. Given this play I present a different view.

Eve: First woman in the account of biblical creation.

Iblis: Devil in the Koran, whom refused to bow before Adam on God’s orders and was banished and hence became God’s adversary and deceiver of human race. In this work I present a different picture of this likelihood of event.

Ife: This means love in the Yoruba language.

Ile-Ife:It is regarded as the ancient origin and spiritual capital of the Yoruba people. Ile-Ife literarily translates as ‘house of love’ which can be viewed as a counterpart to a pictorial idea of Eden. Ile-Ife also called Ife is a contiguous city to Osogbo the capital city of Osun state Nigeria.

Iku-re: Iku means death, and iku-re means ‘here is death’ or ‘this is death’ or ‘this is murder’. The ‘ooo’ is for colloquial emphasis.

Ni tori won ri emi: For the reason that they have seen the spirit

Noah: One of the early patriarchs of the Hebrews as accounted in the Bible, whom was the major figure during the apocalyptic experience of a flood in the Biblical record of the old-testament.

Ogun: The god of war in Yoruba myth.

Olokhae: This is a word-form variance by me of the expression Bacchae given that Olokun is the deity concerned.  The celebrants of Olokun in Edo where I come from are majorly women but the head-priest could either be a female or male.

Olokun: Regarded as a deity of the oceans and a deity who gives wealth and regarded as the patron deity of those who suffered in the trans-Atlantic slavery.

Ori-re: A call for celebration in Yoruba language. An expression whose formation I believe has something to do with the hunt, in that ‘Ori’ means head and ‘re’ means ‘here’ the ‘ooo’ is for colloquial emphasis but the expression ‘ori-re’ is more likely to come from the expression ‘Ori-ire’ were ‘ire’ means play and as well means game and game in the sense of  hunting, making ‘ori-ire’ mean the head of the game and ‘ori-re’ meaning ‘here is a head’ which further translates as a trophy which symbolizes victory and therefore the call for celebration expressed in Yoruba as ‘Ori-re’.

Osun: A river deity who is regarded as the goddess of love, beauty and of the sweet waters, whose festival is annually celebrated as Osun-Osogbo festival and co-sponsored by UNESCO and the Osun state government  of Nigeria. The river Osun is situated in Osogbo the capital city of Osun state, and the expression Osun-Osogbo literally translates as ‘Osun the wizard of the forest.’ Osun also is celebrated as a religion, whose worshippers had for a time an Austrian artist as their head-priest in the person of Susanne Wenger till she passed on at the age of 94 in 2009.

Satan: The archfiend of God in Judeo-Christian-Islamic teachings.

Venus: The Classic(Roman) mythological counterpart of Osun, theYoruba goddess of love and beauty, and also {Venus) regarded as goddess of the fields corresponds with the meaning of Osun-Osogbo i.e‘…the wizard of the forest’, and Venus being called the morning star aligns with the person of Lucifer who is regarded as Satan Judeo-biblically and recorded as the most beautiful creation of God situated in Eden which aligns with Osun and Venus in the mythicality of beauty.

Iyemoja: A sea deity of the Yoruba pantheon, and regarded as the goddess of motherhood, which in transposition I have expressed as the counterpart of Eve or Pandora.

Izemoya, Ivie, Iye: They are Edo (Benin) names which came from Iyemoja, for example ‘Iye’ in Benin language means grandmother. The city of Benin is the capital city of Edo state Nigeria.

Apeja, Belphem, Luangoo, Mekit, Melenaa, Reagit: These are made up names.