The Song of the Silent Prophet

Hello. Tonight is the last night of the play what I'm in; it's in The Courtyard Theatre, Shoreditch, and I'm sure you can still buy tickets on the door if you particularly want. The play tries (valiantly, I think) to make a feminist point and this poem is the basis of the lyrics to the last song of the play and tries to drive home said point. The myth on which the poem is based is that of Apollo and Cassandra and I'd like to share it with you. It goes thusly:

The Song of the Silent Prophet

Women, as I’m sure you know by now, are objects;

Objects to be bought and traded, pawed at and paraded,

Loaned and hired and at their most ideal, objects of desire.

Women have no voice – why would they need one?

They only need to stay where they’re put and when they’re called, to come.

One such object, a princess of Troy was put in a temple as decoration,

An ornament for mighty Apollo’s sordid delectation.

The petulant god wanted more than just to see her

He needed to own her – it was his right he was owed this prize

She got no say – why would she want one?

She should be honoured to have been chosen.

When she said yes, as doubtless she would,

He’d gift her with unseen sight -

A prize he knew she’d like.

Gods have very good taste.

But in his haste he failed to see

That his charms were not as sweet as he believed

And she said no.

To a god.

To a man.

And in his pique he sought to wreak

A terrible curse to bind her to tragedy

To put her in her place.

He took the gift and twisted it, made it grotesque;

Prophetic joys still filled her mind

But in place of hope-filled ecstasies

Her mind recoiled from haunting shades

There was no respite – why should she get one?

She tried to warn her kith and kin of all the nightmares she had seen

But they mocked her and ignored her and said her daydreams bored them.

Apollo in his gleeful spite had hid her truth from others’ sight

Until her own doom loomed before her

Not one man would heed her warnings.

He needn’t have bothered;

What sane man would have listened to her?

To a woman?

To a slave?

To an object?

One hopes you're well,
yours,
ADWoodward