Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

eflecting their social relevance in African culture. Rotimi introduces a royal bard. not
in the Greek original, whose function it is to exalt and entertain the king. In reference
to the African context, Okpewho asserts that like Hesiod., "every bard considers
himself. and none other . the chosen one in his craft, commissioned by the supernatural
powers ID deliver me crurh in song" (48). It is in this attitude that Odewa.Ie's royal
bard pushes the King gently aside , faces Queen OjuoIa and declares:
ROYAL BARD : You and your husband ­
two partS of the same
calabash split equal
by the gods . Indeed ,
what is the difference between the right ear
Of a horse
And the left ear of thaI same
horse?
Nothin g (38).
While describing the marital union, the metaph orical imagery of "two parts of the
same" can also be applied to the union between mother and child . A calabash grows
like an enclosed womb - a gourd when full grown is cut open, the pulp removed. and
the outer shell is dried and usedas a container . References to two parts of a calabash
coming together as one also has sexual connowions.
Since in certain African traditions a king would have many children and more
than one wife. Rotimi arguesin Dem Say, that he adds Abero, the maiden in
Odewale 's palace who, according to custom, is "being groomed by the 0100ri . Queen
Ojuota, to be a potential wife of the king· (63-64). Unlike the Sophoclean drama in
which Oedipus' children are 00 stage only for the final scene, Odewa1e's two sons and
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