Wole Soyinka
dramatic verse dialogues in plays likeThe Lion and the Jewel,Death and the
King’s HorsemanandThe Bacchae of Euripides. In this respect, it is significant
that the whole poem is structured by a tacit distribution of the stanzas
and lines of the poem between three “speakers”: the first two of the ten
stanzas of the poem, as well as the concluding two-line stanza, are spoken
by the poet-narrator; the longest section comprising the seven middle
stanzas of the poem are spoken by the “Tempters” who have come to
Mandela’s cell to break him; the ninth or penultimate stanza is spoken by
Mandela himself. The only deviation from this basic stanzaic pattern is
that every single stanza in the poem ends with the refrain of the poem’s
title, “no, he said.” This pattern affords Soyinka a tremendous scope
for indicting all who collaborated with the monstrous evil of apartheid,
by complacency as much as active connivance. Beyond this, the poem
executes a devastating dismantling of the logics of old and new forms
of racist discourses and supremacist social imaginaries very rare in con-
temporary poetry. Nowhere is this more eloquently articulated than in
the sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas, the core of the Tempters’ gauntlet
to Mandela:
The axis of the world has shifted. Even the polar star
Loses its fixity, nudged by man-made planets.
The universe has shrunk. History reechoes as
We plant new space flags of a master race.
You are the afterburn of our crudest launch.
The stars disown you, but – no, he said.
Your tongue is swollen, a mute keel
Upended on the seabed of forgotten time.
The present breeds new tasks, same taskmasters.
On that star planet of our galaxy, code-named Bantustan,
They sieve rare diamonds from moon dust. In the choice reserves
Venerably pastured, you...but – no, he said.
That ancient largess on the mountaintop
Shrinks before our gift’s munificence, an offer even
Christ, second-come, could not refuse. Be ebony mascot
On the flagship of our space fleet, still
Through every turbulence, spectator of our Brave New World
Come, Ancient Mariner, but – no, he said.
(ME,–)Mandela as an “ebony mascot” on the flagship of a space fleet probing
the “Milky Way” is an image which seems to confer a seal of nobility
on Black suffering, just as it also subtly suggests a readiness to accept a