Home is the Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page A

stop hovering around that door. And sit down. No— that’s your father’s chair. You know the rule.
    TELEMACHUS
    Couldn’t I sit in it once, before he gets home?
    PENELOPE
(Smiling as she shakes her head and gestures him away from ULYSSES ’ chair)
    You’re just like Clia, aren’t you?
    TELEMACHUS
(Indignant)
    Me? Like Clia?
    PENELOPE
    You are both so sure that Ulysses will come home.
    TELEMACHUS
    He will.
    PENELOPE
(Watching him carefully)
    Have you heard any news? Do you know something that I don’t know?
    TELEMACHUS
    Now, Mother, what gave you that idea?
    PENELOPE
    You’re looking so annoyingly cheerful, that’s why.
    TELEMACHUS
    Well—you see—I just thought you wanted me to be more cheerful. Last time I saw you, you tore into me because I was sulking. That’s the word you used.
    PENELOPE
    Perhaps it was. But I never “tore into you” in my whole life.
    TELEMACHUS
(Appeasingly)
    All right.
    PENELOPE
    It seems to me I’m getting my own way awfully easily, this morning.
    TELEMACHUS
    I’m just trying to please you. Oh, Jupiter!
    PENELOPE
    Now, careful! Don’t call on the gods unless you want their help. They don’t like it. Then when you really need them, you can call and call but they won’t answer. I’ve told you that before.
    TELEMACHUS
(Patiently)
    Yes, Mother.
    PENELOPE
    Oh darling, don’t make me sound as if I were a general or something. I don’t order you around: I’m just—I’m just trying to teach you the real facts of life. It’s so hard for a woman to be a father!
(She tries to laugh.)
    Where’s Eumaeus, I wonder? I sent Clia to fetch him.
    TELEMACHUS
    I bet she’s giving him a bath, first. He smells a bit high.
(He becomes suddenly worried.)
    His shack is awful. Not the kind of place you’d want to visit.
    PENELOPE
(Surprised and amused)
    I wasn’t thinking of paying old Eumaeus a visit in his shack.
(She watches TELEMACHUS ’ relief.)
    But what do you find so interesting there?
    TELEMACHUS
    Nothing. Nothing. Except Eumaeus. It’s good to have a man to talk to. There’s only women in this house—or Philetius over at the stable, and he’s dumb. It really is pretty lonely here.
    PENELOPE
    Yes, it’s lonely... But I hope all the travelling you did last year hasn’t unsettled you.
    TELEMACHUS
    But you said travelling abroad was good for my education.
    PENELOPE
    If it doesn’t make you discontented with home.
    TELEMACHUS
    When Father was here, it wasn’t lonely. Was it?
( PENELOPE shakes her head.)
    TELEMACHUS
    No, there were plenty of real men around then. All his men. They were good fighters and hunters, weren’t they?
    PENELOPE
    And good farmers, too. They could plough a straight furrow and raise a fine crop.
    TELEMACHUS
    Now, Mother, don’t start hinting again. You’re always giving double meanings to everything.
    PENELOPE
    Well, someone has got to teach you to keep a balance. You don’t want to grow up to be like those men downstairs, do you?
    TELEMACHUS
    Mother!
    PENELOPE
    Life isn’t all hunting or fighting, or trying to live at someone else’s expense. There are houses to be built, and people to be fed and clothed. There are children to be raised; and music to be made; and poetry to be sung.
    TELEMACHUS
(Fingering the knife at his belt)
    My father was a hunter. A hunter and a soldier.
    PENELOPE
    Ulysses was many things. He was the son of a prince, but he came here and settled this land and founded his own family. He was a good farmer, too. He could plough the straightest furrow—
(She pauses, looks slyly at TELEMACHUS , adds softly)
    Yes, he was ploughing, on the day the draft board came to get him.
    TELEMACHUS
    The draft board? Why, Mother, you know Father volunteered the day the Trojan War broke out. Why, he was the best fighter in the whole army!
    PENELOPE
    I think so... But he was also a very clever man.
    TELEMACHUS
    That’s why the army put him in Intelligence. I know all that! Why, he invented the Trojan Horse. He won the war!
    PENELOPE
    Yes, once he was in