Characters

WATCHMAN

CHORUS of Naxian Elders

AGATHON, candidate for Keeper of the Hearth

EURYKLES, Steward

CASSANDRA, scribe of the Naxian scroll

FURIES

ATHENA

Scene: The island-city of Naxos, before the Hall of Naxos. The WATCHMAN is on the roof.

WATCHMAN

Deathless gods, with bloody tears I plead: grant respite from my plight,

from Naxos’s roof, where dogwise I have crouched on ivies night by night,

to watch the fire that lights the Tower above the cloister’s garth,

and tell the island who has won the keeping of the Hearth.

Let me keep my silence yet. There are things I shall not say:

for a huge ox stands upon my tongue and bars the words their way.

This house, had it a mouth to speak, would say what I have said:

all who craved the Hearth swore they wanted something else instead.

Exit the WATCHMAN. Enter the CHORUS of Elders from the side.

CHORUS

Four winters since, with guiltless hands and hearts, we reached the Gate,

our legs a-wiggle, smiles abrim, and blind as yet to fate.

Each carved his virtue, one by one, upon the Gate’s grey stone:

I tended to the old and poor—I did it for love alone.

I gave the voiceless back their tongue. The Gate swung wide. Indeed,

some part of it was love; we’ll not disown a single deed.

But set those tablets, if you will, on Zeus’s honest scales:

a grain of gold lies hid in each, and sours the sweetest tales.

CHORUS LEADER 1

Now we are Elders, four years on; tonight the city waits

to learn whose hand will tend the Hearth that guards Naxos’s gates.

CHORUS LEADER 2

The Keeper speaks for us before the high Assembly’s seat,

holds the common purse, and rides in triumph down the street.

CHORUS LEADER 3

All citizens may drop a pebble in the Steward’s urns;

he counts them in the dark, and no one checks what he returns.

CHORUS LEADER 4

Lest rich men buy the Hearth the way a farmer buys a mule,

no man may spend past fifty obols. That’s the Naxians’ rule.

Enter AGATHON in a clean white cloak.

AGATHON

O Elders! You are out so late! I know what brings you forth.

I seek the Hearth because the Hearth is where the city draws its worth:

the field that feeds the city’s mouth, the spring that slakes its thirst;

and he who tends that sacred flame must serve the island first.

Through all the year I carried water, taught infants to read,

bound the sick with linen strips, and sat with those in need.

They say I toiled for power. Nonsense! The gods remade me just;

truly, I craved no crown but young ones’ love and elders’ trust.

CHORUS

A fine speech! Tell us about your opponent Archias.

AGATHON

The Steward disqualified him.

CHORUS

What for?

AGATHON

He broke the rules. He spent past the limit.

CHORUS

By how much?

AGATHON

Thirty obols. He hired a chariot down the Road of One

to reach the Great Market by the wall, and home when he was done.

He bought electors flowers there, and a bucket of grain.

The Steward ruled the ride, thirty-two, made to serve the campaign.

CHORUS

A man must eat. How come the ride to market is campaign spending?

AGATHON

The Steward ruled. It is not my place to question him.

CHORUS

And did you want to question him?

AGATHON

A player who leans on the umpire is no better than a briber.

CHORUS

That’s a good reason. Is it yours?

Enter EURYKLES, carrying a bronze ledger.

CHORUS

Steward, was it just, that you struck Archias’s name?

EURYKLES

If one man rides the road while one must walk its weary length,

then wealth, not worth, becomes the measure of a suitor’s strength.

And soon the whole Assembly falls to him who owns the horse.

I did not write the law. I keep it so justice runs its course.

AGATHON

Well said, my good Steward!

CHORUS (to AGATHON)

Do you say this because it helps you, or on justice’s ground?

Exit EURYKLES. Enter CASSANDRA with ink on her fingers.

CASSANDRA

Otototoi! Apollo! I have passed the Eikon Wall,

where mortals paint their passing days that none forget at all.

I saw, some fifteen breaths in length, Archias’s little scene:

his flowers, and his sack of grain, and that same ride between.

CHORUS

What else did you see?

CASSANDRA

A thousand eyes slid past the frame; one pair looked on alone.

Eurykles watched at second watch, then filed it as his own.

Some feud, I guess, ran long between the two, though I cannot swear;

the man who botched the urns gave this one fault such loving care.

AGATHON

Pure speculation!

CHORUS

But the Steward botched the urns!

AGATHON

That part is true; they had to redo the election.

CHORUS

Cassandra, what comes after?

CASSANDRA

I see what comes: Archias, his good name struck from the slate,

pacing the colonnades alone, past the fourth watch and late;

telling whoe’er will hear: the chariot, the Wall, the Hall,

repeating each detail, as if one truth explained it all.

Unsleeping, he will write th’Assembly letters without end;

Eurykles will read each one and mark the madness of his friend.

Soon kind-faced physicians will lead him through Asclepius’s door:

for your own safety, till a sober mind returns once more.

AGATHON

But the rule is real! Archias’s violation was real!

CASSANDRA

Of course they’re real! That’s the terror. Lies have seams which you can poke.

Lay a rule across reason, and truth becomes a perfect cloak.

AGATHON

Get out of here!

CHORUS

Out. We don’t believe a single word you said.

Exit CASSANDRA in tears.

WATCHMAN (above)

The fire from the Tower! Agathon has won!

Cheers offstage. AGATHON raises his arms, then slowly lowers them.

CHORUS

The beacon leaps forth, Tower to Library, Library to Hall.

Joy outruns the feet of truth and outruns justice’s call.

A field with one flower cut away—the finest—is a field still;

but something with no torch at all comes climbing up the hill.

The FURIES rise from the ground. EURYKLES stands among them, wearing a golden chain of office around his neck.

CHORUS

Steward, what’s that at your throat?

EURYKLES

The Assembly voted to set me over every vote in all the Cyclades.

CHORUS

Even though you botched the urns?

EURYKLES

The citation read: For vigilance.

FURIES

We do not hunt for lies, deceit, or fraud. They are small game.

We hunt the crooked space between the reason you proclaim

before the crowded square, among good men, beneath the sun,

and that which pulled you from your bed to see the deed was done.

AGATHON

Daughter of Zeus! Athena! Hear the whole of it in brief,

and judge between us who speaks true, and who is but a thief!

Thunder. ATHENA appears with a gavel of olivewood.

ATHENA

Eurykles first. Did Archias ride to the Market?

EURYKLES

He did. He painted it himself on the Wall.

FURIES

Ask him how many other chariots reached the Market that month.

EURYKLES (after a silence)

Hundreds. Every one uncounted but his.

ATHENA

Why do you hate Archias so?

EURYKLES

Two winters back, in Clio’s Hall, we were comrades-in-debate;

I built the case plank-wise and gave a speech I still call great.

He stood beside me, once so sure, and lost the argument outright;

I watched the crowd’s faces, one by one, go polite, then white.

And while he searched, the judges never raised their eyes but wrote.

We lost. A seed took root that night; its vine now grips my throat.

But goddess, still his fault was real, and would be real the same

had I loved him as my brother. Is the rule itself to blame?

ATHENA

Had noble motive moved you, you’d have let the picture by,

as did a hundred others; but it caught your single eye.

A frame of true timber is still a frame. I strike it from your hand.

What mortals vote by their own will, no god may countermand.

FURIES

What about Agathon now? The man who exploited Archias’s disqualification?

ATHENA (to AGATHON)

Agathon, you didn’t charge Archias. But did you doubt the ruling?

AGATHON

I held that judges must stand clear of those who seek to win;

I doubted him. I also felt my wanting stir within.

Perhaps my principle alone would not have held that night;

perhaps ambition on its own could not have made it right.

But yoked together, both prevailed, as oxen side by side

may drag a cart no mighty beast could move a single stride.

Which ox, then, bears the guilt? Which one first made the wheels to start?

And who, before he acts, can name what moved his hand and heart?

FURIES

Then say it in the square: I stayed silent out of selfishness, and on principle too.

AGATHON

I won’t say it.

ATHENA (to the audience)

Citizens, you’re the jury. White stone or black. Vote for love alone.

The jurors vote. ATHENA counts.

ATHENA

Equal. I shall cast no vote. I spare this man and indict the city

that taught him what to hide, and fear, and on whom to spend no pity.

You built a Gate whose hinges turn upon the gap between;

an Assembly that crowns the man who keeps his motive unseen;

a House that bolts the only man who named what lay below,

because he would not cease to speak what you in secret know.

At 15 you teach your children: what you want and what you say

must never share a name, though both may pull the selfsame way.

FURIES

So we’re cheated of our hunt.

ATHENA

No. I give you a house. You’ll sit where candidates shall speak,

then ask one question only: who is the most rightful Greek?

The FURIES turn their black robes inside out to show crimson.

AGATHON (to the audience)

One always wins, one always loses. I shall tend the Hearth at least.

Let’s not heed their yappings. Bring the house to order—and to feast!

AGATHON raises his arms again. EURYKLES steps to AGATHON’s side and raises his arms too.

END

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Alpha Zhang dabbles with tragedy with the Furies by his side.