SCENE ONE

IN THE MARKET PLACE AT THE END OF THE DAY, ELESIN OBA, THE
KING’S HORSEMAN PREPARES FOR HIS LAST DAY IN THIS LIFE.
TONIGHT HE MUST TAKE HIS OWN LIFE TO JOIN HIS KING WHO DIED
30 DAYS AGO. AS HIS HORSEMAN, HE MUST LEAD HIS KING TO THE
AFTERLIFE. THIS IS YORUBA BELIEF.

READ THE SUMMARY ON P. XI

 SETTING - STAGING

• Note that there is a sort of sense of an ‘ending’ from the very start of the play as the
market-place (so beloved by Elesin Oba), is packing up as Elesin and his entourage
enters. Symbolically, it’s the close of his time on earth:
A passage through a market in its closing stages. The stalls are being emptied, mats folded.
A few women pass on their way home, loaded with baskets. On a cloth-stand, bolts of cloth
are taken down, display pieces folded and piled on a tray. Elesin Oba enters along a
passage before the market, pursued by his drummers and praise-singers…..
 PROVERBIAL LANGUAGE

• Elesin and the Praise-Singer use proverbial language from the start, showing that Elesin must go to the
next place of being today (beyond this life):
Praise-Singer: Elesin o! Elesin Oba! Howu! (how, why) What tryst is this the cockerel goes to keep
with such haste that he must leave his tail behind?
Eesin: (slows down a bit, laughing) A tryst where the cockerel needs no adornment.
In the next life, we do not need the “adornment” of this one.
“tryst” is a meeting between lovers (hence, Elesin then says his Praise-Singer is acting like a “jealous wife”
– p.8)
Is the Praise-Singer referring to Elesin going to the marketplace or his going to the next life?
 ELESIN HAS LIVED A VERY GOOD LIFE DUE TO
HIS STATUS AS THE KING’S HORSEMAN!
• “The market is the long-suffering home of my spirit and women are packing up to go. That
Esu*-harassed day slipped into the stewpot while we feasted. We ate it up with the rest of
the meat. I have neglected my women.” (Elesin, p.7)
*Esu is the Yoruba god of mischief and uncertainty
• “I know the women will cover you in damask and alari ..” (Praise-Singer, p.7)

damask is a woven fabric, alari is a rich cloth, brightly coloured.

• “This market is my roost. When I come among the women I am a chicken with a hundred
mothers. I become a monarch whose palace is built of tenderness and beauty.” (Elesin, p.8)
 ELESIN OBA

• Elesin is the first character to enter the play. The initial stage direction at the very start (describing
the market-place packing up) states:
Elesin Oba enters along a passage before the market, pursued by his drummers and praise-singers.
He is a man of enormous vitality, speaks, dances and sings with that infectious enjoyment of life which
accompanies all his actions. (p.7)
• But we see Elesin coming to the market place to see the women that he loves and the luxuries they
give him (of food and clothing). The Praise-Singer warns Elesin that he likes these things too much
and that he must carry out his duty today or the order of life as the Yoruba believe it to be will
collapse. Elesin on stage will not seem like someone about to leave this life. This is probably
deliberate staging by Soyinka.
 ELESIN OBA

• Before this, on p.8, he has told the Praise-Singer that he must stay behind here and sing
his praises: “Stay close to me, but only on this side. My fame, my honour are
legacies to the living, stay behind and let the world sip its honey from your lips.”
This is not very humble.
• The women purposefully question Elesin’s intent to take his own life: “You will not
delay?” then, “Nothing will hold you back? (p.13). Note how she questions twice here
and Elesin must answer at length each time, affirming his duty, his courage, his destiny.
But, in answering her, we learn again that Elesin has enjoyed the good life.
 ELESIN OBA

Elesin: […] The world is not a constant honey-pot.

Where I found little I made do with little.
My master’s hands and mine have always
Dipped together and, home or sacred feast,
The bowl was beaten bronze, the meats
So succulent our teeth accused us of neglect.
We shared the choicest of the season’s
Harvest of yams. (p.13)
 ELESIN OBA

• On p.14, Elesin appears to be offended when the women all heap praise on him for being
a man of honour. However, it turns out he’s just play-acting with them. He does it to
gain fine clothes to wear.
• He seems a bit of a greedy, attention-seeking, manipulative man? Not in an evil way, but
like a spoilt child. What do you think?
• Consider the powerful staging in this moment. Iyaloja and all the women kneel before
Elesin because: “It does not bear thinking. If we offend you now we have mortified
the gods. We offend heaven itself.” (p.15)
ON REALISING, THAT THEY HAVEN’T OFFENDED ELESIN AND HE’S PLAYING
WITH THEM, THE WOMEN ALL ROAR WITH LAUGHTER (STAGE DIRECTION,
P.15) AND ARE RELIEVED. AGAIN PERHAPS SOME FORESHADOWING:

Iyaloja: (dancing around him. Sings) The women repeat 3 times:

He forgives us. He forgives us. Women:

What a fearful thing it is when For a while we truly feared

The voyager sets forth Our hands had wrenched the world adrift

But a curse remains behind. In emptiness.

(p.16) Soyinka emphasises what the Yoruba

believe. What Elesin must do!
 THE NOT-I BIRD
(PAGES 9 & 10)
• See the stage direction at the bottom of p.9. Elesin’s recitation about the Not-I Bird is
undertaken with great acting, dancing, music and entertainment.
• Iyaloja enters the scene for the first time watching Elesin.
• Elesin’s recitation about the ‘Not-I bird’ tells the story of various examples of the living being
visited by Death and how they each try to hide from it.
• The fact that the women all come around to hear Elesin, and that Elesin recites it with dancing,
mimicry and music is all staging by Soyinka. Elesin is sure of himself. He is the centre of
attention. He loves it! He’s a performer. And yet, soon he must undertake ritual suicide.
 ELESIN AND WOMEN
• Beauty and Beauty
Stage direction, p.17:
Elesin stands resplendent in rich clothes,
cap, shawl, etc. His sash is of a bright red
alari cloth. The Women dance round him.
Suddenly, his attention is caught by an
object off-stage.
• Beauty and Beauty
Elesin thinks he has already died and gone
to heaven as the beautiful young girl
enters: “Tell me friends, / Am I still
earthed in that beloved market / Of my
youth? Or could it be my will / Has
outleapt the conscious act and I have
come / Among the great departed? (p.18)
 ELESIN AND WOMEN
(THE BEAUTIFUL YOUNG GIRL)
Elesin: In all my life
As Horseman of the King, the juiciest
Fruit on every tree was mine. I saw,
I touched, I wooed, rarely was the answer No.
The honour of my place, the veneration I
Received in the eye of man or woman
Prospered my suit and
Played havoc with my sleeping hours.
And they that tell me my eyes were a hawk
In perpetual hunger. Split an iroko tree
In two, hide a woman’s beauty in its
heartwood
And seal it up again – Elesin, journeying by,
Would make his camp beside that tree
Of all the shades in the forest. (p.18)
 ELESIN AND WOMEN
“IYALOJA FALLS SILENT. THE WOMEN SHUFFLE UNEASILY.”

• Elesin wants the beautiful girl for his last night….

• …but she is already engaged to Iyaloja’s son.
• Elesin doesn’t care. To have her he must marry her.
• Iyaloja and Praise-Singer warn Elesin not to be so submerged in life’s pleasures.
• After some hesitation, the women and Iyaloja agree that Elesin can have the girl (but the woman
urged Iyaloja NOT to oblige him on this because of her son). They cannot deny this important man
who is about to go to the next life to maintain the order of existence as the Yoruba believe. That is a
sacrifice indeed,……
• Still! One cannot help but see Elesin has very wrong here. Lustful and hurtful ☹
THE PRAISE-SINGER IN PAGES 18-19, SUMMARISE FOR US, SOME OF ELESIN’S
CONDUCT. HE THEN SUGGESTS THAT WITH WOMEN, ELESIN IS LIKE A
PARASITE: “LEAF-NIBBLING GRUB …COLA CHEWING BEETLE” (COLANUT)

“snake-on-the-loose in dark passages of the market!”;

“Bed-bug”;
“When caught with his bride’s own sister….”
“Hunter who carries his powder-horn on the hips and fires crouching or standing!” (pouch
for carrying gun powder)
“trouserless or shirtless”
“Oka-rearing-from-a-camouflage-of-leaves” (Oka = python)
 ELESIN OBA’S LUST

We see Elesin comparing the beautiful girl to the perfect crop ripe for harvesting made with perfect tools:
Elesin: No, not even Ogun* with the finest hoe he ever *p.86
Forged at the anvil could have shaped
That rise of buttocks, not though he had
The richest earth between his fingers.
Her wrapper was no disguise
For thighs whose ripples shamed the river’s
Coils around the hills of Ilesi. Her eyes
Were new-laid eggs glowing in the dark. / Her skin . . . . . Here, he is cut off by Ilyaloja….
THE PLANTAIN
(P.21)
 WARNINGS TO ELESIN FROM THE VERY START OF THE PLAY,
THAT HE IS TOO MUCH STILL IN THIS WORLD AND NOT OF THE
NEXT….
Praise-Singer: They love to spoil you but beware. The hands of women also weaken the
unwary. (p.8) (“they” = the women of the market)

See p.17ff and xxxi

 THE WARNING PERSIST IN SCENE 1

• P.17, the women repeat their faith in Elesin that he will carry out his ritual duty. They
repeat “We know you’ll leave it so” twice. Then, “The world is in your hands” (18)

• Iyaloja’s warning – see the end of the Scene (top of

p.23-24). Despite agreeing to Elesin marrying the
fiancé of her son, she issues stark warning!
 YORUBA RELIGION HAS NEVER FALTERED FROM THE
CERTAINTY OF THE NEXT LIFE. THE PRAISE-SINGER IS CERTAIN
ABOUT THIS!
Praise-Singer: In their time the world was never tilted from its groove, it shall not be in yours. (p.8)
Praise-Singer: In their time the great wars came and went, the little wars came and went; the white
slavers came and went, they took away the heart of our race, they bore away the mind and muscle of
our race. The city fell and was rebuilt; the city fell and our people trudged through mountain and forest
to find a new home but – Elesin Oba do you hear me? (p.8)
Praise-Singer: There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life
of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man; there is only one world to the spirit of our race.
If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us
shelter? (p.9)
 YORUBA RELIGION HAS NEVER FALTERED FROM THE
CERTAINTY OF THE NEXT LIFE. THE PRAISE-SINGER IS CERTAIN
ABOUT THIS!
Praise-Singer: There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one
home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man; there is only one
world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of
the great void, whose world will give us shelter? (p.9)
Here we see some foreshadowing. We also see the Yoruba belief that Elesin does not
carry out his suicide tonight, it could mean the end of Yoruba life – of what they
believe. They will be lost souls with no passage to their ancestors in the next life.
Elesin is the King’s horseman. His role is crucial. He must lead the King first. The
King’s horse has already been killed for this reason (and his dog).
THE PRAISE-SINGER
(OLOHUN-IYO)
IYALOJA
 SCENE ONE TASK (HANDOUT)

• FARMER Runs away: “He snaps / his fingers round his head, abandons / A
hard-worn harvest and begins a rapid dialogue with his legs.
• FEARLESS HUNTER Rooted to one spot: “ ‘..and this night-lamp / Has leaked out all
its oil. I think / It’s best to go home and resume my hunt / Another
day.’ But now he pauses, suddenly / Let’s out a wail: ‘Of foolish mouth, calling Down a curse
on your own head! Your lamp / Has leaked out all its oil. Has it?’ […some indecision…] Ten
market-days have passed / My friends, and still he’s rooted there / Rigid as the plinth….
• COURTESAN (Ready for her client, the Chief Tax Officer), she stays in saying
she’s got her period.
 SCENE ONE TASK (HANDOUT)

• The MALLAM (teacher of the Koran) Shuts down school, goes home and “rings
himself with amulets”
• IFA / Ifawomi (god of divination / PRIEST “And Ifa spoke no more that day / The
Priest locked fast his doors, Sealed up his
leaking roof – “
• COURIER Squatted constipated, utters spells. (The
courier was delivering wine) ???????
Marking = 1pt for each and 2pts for quality of final explanation. Total = 15
 TAKE NOTE OF ELESIN’S WORDS HERE!

ELESIN: Life is honour.

It ends when honour ends.

These will come back to haunt him…