Omeros

Derek travels, as his father’s ghost suggested. He wants to see the imperial world from “across the meridian” (191). In Lisbon, Portugal, he thinks about the way in which colonialism and the slave trade changed the racial composition of Spain and the Caribbean. He thinks about Pope Alexander VI and the 15th-century Treaty of Tordesillas, which split the Americas between Portugal and Spain. Derek reflects on historical divisions and connections. On the docks in Europe, there are bronze statues; the docks of Saint Lucia are bare and unadorned by comparison. On Saint Lucia, very little describes history in the European sense. The old ruins of Europe are nowhere to be found, for example. This is because on Saint Lucia (and in other such places) the past is something to be forgotten. While on a tour of a castle in Portugal, Derek gets a sense of the past near a marked grave. Portugal was granted entry into the imperial colonial race through the Pope’s treaty; now, it is as sleepy and “empty” as Saint Lucia.

Derek arrives in London, England. There, he finds a man named Omeros—a bargeman with a “cragged face” who lives on the streets (193). When Omeros tries to rest on the steps of a church, the warden of the church ushers him away.