How we cite our quotes: Act.Line
Quote #1
Who does not seek to be remembered? Memory is Master of Death, the chink
In his armour of conceit. (1.98)
Hmm, it sounds like Elesin has a decent amount of pride, which (given his statements here) seems to be potentially at odds with his mission/acceptance of death. Hmm…
Quote #2
Only the curses of the departed are to be feared. The claims of one whose foot is on the threshold of their abode surpasses even the claims of blood. It is impiety even to place hindrances in their way. (1.112)
Iyaloja is explaining to others why she feels like she can't deny Elesin his request to take a local girl (who is betrothed to Iyaloja's own son) as his bride. Because he's on his way to the other side, his claims on others for deference and favors are pretty strong, it seems.
Quote #3
I said nothing. Now we must go prepare your bridal chamber. Then these same hands will lay your shrouds. (1.130)
Perhaps in an effort to keep Elesin's eyes on the prize, Iyaloja follows up a reference to his wedding with mention of his soon-to-follow death. Whatever her intentions, Elesin does not appreciate her bluntness.
Quote #4
I don't have to stop anything. If they want to throw themselves off the top of a cliff or poison themselves for the sake of some barbaric custom what is that to me? If it were ritual murder or something like that I'd be duty bound to do something. I can't keep an eye on all the potential suicides in this province. And as for that man—believe me, it's good riddance. (2.128)
At first, Simon is less concerned about the Elesin situation when he learns that it's a suicide rather than a murder. However, as his wife correctly predicts, he does end up interfering to prevent problems from happening when the Prince is around.
Quote #5
JOSEPH: No master. He will not kill anybody and no one will kill him. He will simply die.
JANE: But why Joseph?
JOSEPH: It is native law and custom. The King die last month. Tonight is his burial. But before they can bury him, the Elesin must die so as to accompany him to heaven. (2.66-68)
So the Pilkingses (and we) can understand what's happening, Joseph gives us the rundown on the significance of the ritual Elesin is preparing for.
Quote #6
And yet this fear will not depart from me
The darkness of this new abode is deep—
Will your human eyes suffice? (3.90)
Here, the Praise-Singer seems nervous that Elesin will have trouble making the transition to the great beyond. Perhaps it's that he's afraid that Elesin will be afraid.
Quote #7
It is the death of war that kills the valiant,
Death of water is how the swimmer goes
It is the death of markets that kills the trader
And death of indecision takes the idle away
The trade of the cutlass blunts its edge
And the beautiful die the death of beauty.
It takes an Elesin to die the death of death…
Only Elesin… dies the unknowable death of death…
Gracefully, gracefully does the horseman regain
The stables at the end of the day, gracefully… (3.95)
Here, Iyaloja describes the unique kind of death that the Elesin is slated to die, suggesting that there are several different types depending on who is involved.
Quote #8
JANE: Your calm acceptance for instance, can you explain that? It was so unnatural. I don't understand that at all. I feel a need to understand all I can.
OLUNDE: But you explained it yourself. My medical training perhaps. I have seen death too often. And the soldiers who returned from the front, they died on our hands all the time. (4.147-148)
When Olunde is calm about the notion that his father has died, Jane can't handle it—his reaction is way too foreign for her, and she asks him how he could possibly feel this way. He claims it's because he's been working as a doctor in England during the war, but Jane is cautious about buying that explanation.
Quote #9
My young bride, did you hear the ghostly one? You sit and sob in your silent heart but say nothing to all this. First I blamed the white man, then I blamed my gods for deserting me. Now I feel I want to blame you for the mystery of the sapping of my will. But blame is a strange peace offering for a man to bring a world he has deeply wronged, and to its innocent dwellers. Oh little mother, I have taken countless women in my life but you were more than a desire of the flesh. I needed you as the abyss across which my body must be drawn, I filled it with earth and dropped my seed in it at the moment of preparedness for my crossing. You were the final gift of the living to their emissary to the land of the ancestors, and perhaps your warmth and youth brought new insights of this world to me and turned my feet leaden on this side of the abyss. For I confess to you, daughter, my weakness came not merely from the abomination of the white man who came violently into my fading presence, there was also a weight of longing on my earth-held limbs. I would have shaken it off, already my foot had begun to lift but then, the white ghost entered and all was defiled. (5.42)
Here, Elesin is trying to figure out and express exactly what happened to him when he started moving toward the "abyss"—or at least, what happened within himself that gave the British the window they needed to stop him.
Quote #10
PILKINGS [in a tired voice]: Was this what you wanted?
IYALOJA: No child, it is what you brought to be, you who play with strangers' lives, who even usurp the vestments of our dead, yet believe that the stain of death will not cling to you. The gods demanded only the old expired plantain but you cut down the sap-laden shoot to feed your pride. (5.153)
Now that Elesin is dead, Iyaloja turns her venom on Simon Pilkings. She seems to be blaming him for the fact that Olunde sacrificed himself to redeem his father's failure.