Won’t take a minute: this one’s Ovid,

Roman poet. He wrote this likkle ting:

That under Midas’s long hair, the King

Had two big ol’ donkey ear, which he hid,

Right, because you would. And he truly did

It well. So well, that only his own wife

Knew it. And he trusted her with his life.

He begged her:

HUSBAND RYAN

Tell no one. Never confess

My sad, deforming, secret ugliness.

ALVITA

And she promised she never would. She flat

Out swore she would never do him like that.

No, not for the world would she drag his name

Through the streets. Honestly, she’d be ashamed.

But then the thing was: it was killing her

To have to keep this secret forever.

She was heart-sick. Like, a physical pain?

What she had to say she couldn’t contain

Inside her. And because she didn’t dare

Tell no one, she dashed down to this marsh where

Some water was – and, with her heart on fire,

Booming like pub lady at closing hour –

She put her mouth to the water and cried:

‘Water, keep my secret! What I say hide

Deep within you. But between you and me?

My man him have long ears just like donkey!

Now that’s better. I feel calm and at peace.

Couldn’t keep that secret no longer, believe.’

At some point during this retelling, RYAN raises a hand to hit ALVITA again, but she catches it by the wrist, and holds it up as a shameful object for the audience to see.

ALVITA

That’s it. We can lie and push it all down

Till we just can’t. Time’s up. Truth gets around.

The melancholy tone suddenly switches, and ALVITA’s back to her playful self.

For more Midas – if that’s your cup of tea –

Go to O, Ovid: Kilburn Library.

Back to this Maroon I was discussing:

When he understood it was not nuffing

To find out what women them love the best

Him heart sunk low in him sorrowful chest.

But it was time: he could put it off no

Longer. He had to face Nanny and go

Home. And on the way back, so sad and stressed,

He found himself in a green wilderness,

Where he saw a whole heap of young gal dem

Dancing on the forest floor, in tandem …

We see this dance, as some of the young women of the PUB CHORUS get up and do a routine: the Cameo Slide Dance. ALVITA joins them. The scene is lit so as to suggest these girls might be spirits or apparitions of some kind …

And he started walking towards the dance

Thinking

YOUNG MAROON

I’ll ask these girls: this is my chance!

ALVITA

But ’fore fi him leg reach, them up and fly.

Completely vanished! Who knows how or why …

There wasn’t a soul left in that forest

’Cept, on the grass sat an old wife. Honest,