Jocasta: Wife and Mother

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘It is also our destiny to struggle. Onions do not struggle. It is for that reason I would not consider writing a play with a tomato, however purple, however rich, as central character. My play, Oedipus Tyrannus, makes it all clear. Perhaps you would care to read it?’ He proffered the scroll he was carrying.

  She backed away from it. How can I read about myself? I must be demented to believe I am having this conversation …

  ‘I don’t want to read your play. Why is it called Oedipus Rex? Between these four walls, Jocasta Regina would have been a better title, wouldn’t it?’ She giggled at the nonsense she was prepared to talk, speaking to an empty room, still standing, if rocking slightly, and plainly out of her mind.

  Sophocles told Jocasta, with a note of apology in his voice, that she had only a small role in his play. ‘In fact, I am prepared to admit that in your case the characterisation is rather scanty. Poor, to be frank. But a fuller characterisation would have revealed a rather weak hinge in the carefully constructed plot.’

  The literary criticism confused her; she was unused to such discourse. She asked Sophocles what he meant by a weak hinge.

  By way of answer, Sophocles offered her the instance of a play in which two people were marrying. He posited that they were brother and sister and, for purposes of the plot, had been apart for some years, so that it was legitimate to suppose they might not recognise each other when they met again; hence the close relationship between them remained concealed. The he involved marries the she, his sister, in all innocence, unaware that he is committing the forbidden sin of incest …

  The blue eyes contemplated Jocasta narrowly as he posed the rhetorical question with which, he said, he was confronted at this stage. Was the playwright to characterise the sister as similarly innocent? But that was to make too much of coincidence, bordering almost on farce. (In other words, he said, observing Jocasta’s confusion, if the double-coincidence arrangement was revealed, the audience might laugh. Laughter was fatal to a tragedy.)

  The playwright was therefore left with two alternatives. He could characterise the woman as a wanton, who secretly recognised her lover as her brother—

  ‘Stop it! I know nothing about writing plays. I don’t want to listen!’ Jocasta heard her own voice shrill in the confined space.

  Sophocles continued, unperturbed by the outburst. He regarded this alternative as the more interesting of the two. However, the play was to be centrally about the male, not the female. Therefore, he would adopt the second alternative, which was to give the female in the case as small a role in the plot as possible – even if she provided the hinge of it.

  Her cheeks were flaming. She hid her face in her hands, to babble that she had no interest in this hypothetical play. Finally, controlling herself, she asked, ‘What is this plot you keep talking about? Is someone plotting against me?’

  Sophocles went into a long explanation of the way in which a dramatist worked. In his play it was the circumstances which were against the characters. ‘Circumstance makes character,’ he said. That was his idea of drama: men caught in the net of destiny … His genius in dramatising this idea was to have the central character’s fate revealed step by step, until he was brought low. Sophocles cackled to recall how low …

  The judgement, he said, was not always to the just. However noble the characters, circumstances conspired to bring them down. For instance, he had written another play in which Jocasta’s daughter, Antigone, had a good meaty role, fighting stubborn circumstance. Her brother Polynices—

  Jocasta broke in on what threatened to be a long disquisition. She asked if she was characterised as noble in his play.

  He supposed she was.

  ‘What is my character? I regularly ask myself that. I am open, yet secretive. I suffer badly from guilt, yet often I am carefree. Perhaps you understand that. I think I am happy but then – oh, there seems to be a core of misery in me. Perhaps I am not at all happy. I think – I sometimes think I am nothing, a fiction. Nothing. What is my character?’

  She felt acutely the misery of asking such a question.

  She had revealed so much of herself that she began to cry. She again hid her face in her hands.

  When she looked up once more, Sophocles seemed to have disappeared. Then he faded back into her vision again.

  ‘Well?’ she said snappishly. ‘Am I happy or not? Am I good or bad? Answer me, if you’re so clever.’

  Sophocles responded coolly that she knew the answers, or else she would not ask. Her role could be acted according to different interpretations; but it provided little scope for an actress, since it was such a subordinate one. He wondered – here he paused and said he hoped she would not be offended by his question – he wondered if she was a highly sexed woman.

  ‘You impertinent old man! What’s that to you? If you wrote the part, you should know. I suppose you are an intellectual, are you?’

  He responded that he was a writer. That was a slightly different thing.

  She wanted only to escape, but found herself saying, ‘You seem to me to live the life of intellect, at least compared to the way I live.’

  He corrected her, saying that grammar demanded ‘compared with …’ not ‘compared to’, since they were balancing one thing against another.

  ‘You are so precise! Why don’t you measure the distance from our earth to the moon instead of writing your plays?’

  He shrugged his shoulders, saying indifferently that the case was not really like that. Of course she did not understand. He would not expect— But something had changed. Already the light was altering, his voice fading, the bronze door opening. ‘The probability sphere!’ he gasped. He threw up his hands with the aspect of a man drowning.

  She grabbed his toga. ‘So what happens to me in your damned play? Tell me!’

  His voice was as faint as an echo. ‘You kill yourself …’ Then he was gone. She stood there grasping her own gown.

  Jocasta staggered from the room.

  She killed herself … No, it could not be.

  She hid her face in her hands and wept again. In a moment, she recovered herself. Drying her face on the hem of her garment, she walked boldly along the corridor, and back to the drama of everyday life. Only inwardly did she tremble.

  Ever fond of drama was old Hezikiee, who came running to her.

  ‘Mistress queen, where were you? I was worried. What has happened?’

  ‘Nothing has happened,’ said Jocasta soothingly.

  The old woman raised a hand to heaven, momentarily gazing upwards with open mouth.

  ‘But you look so pale! You would tell your old Hezikiee, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course, of course, my dear. Now, hush!’ She smiled to think she would ever tell her old slave woman anything.

  All in the palace was chaos. Gradually Jocasta became aware of it. She heard the Sphinx clucking, Antigone screaming, Oedipus shouting. Jocasta dried her cheeks once more on her skirt. She tried to make for her room, with Hezikiee remonstrating behind her.

  Antigone ran to her, still shrieking, her face, her neck, her nightdress, her hands, all covered in blood.

  ‘Oh oh oh, Mother! Save me! Help me! What he’s done! Oh, what a devil! Cruel! Cruel!’ She choked on her own sobs.

  ‘What is it, child? What are you making all this noise about?’ As she asked, she put a comforting arm about her elder daughter’s shoulders.

  ‘Look at what he has done! Look! Oh, I could die! Lo-o-o-k!’

  She opened a bloody hand. In her palm was what appeared to be a cherry, a squelchy round red organ, still seeping blood.

  Jocasta gave a shriek. ‘Oh, by the Seven Stars! A tonsil? No, a testicle! Whose? Whose, girl? Polynices?’

  Her emotions already ruffled by the encounter with Sophocles, she started to scream, throwing her arms above her head so as to do so more liberally.

  Hezikiee clutched Jocasta, crying that the world was terrible, and would come to nothing in no time.

  ‘No, no, M
other! Not Polynices! It belonged to my poor Sersex. Oh, I could die!’ They screamed in chorus, staring in horror at the bloody thing.

  Up came Semele, a griffin following her. ‘You may well scream, the pair of you! No good will come of this, mark my words.’

  They rushed about. In the garden, Jocasta made Antigone throw the severed testicle away into a clump of poppies. Phido, one of the griffins, rushed in and gobbled up the morsel. More tears. Antigone kicked Phido on his rump.

  They stood, they sat, they rose again. They walked a few paces in a bedraggled trio. They clung to each other, then pushed each other away in order to cry more freely.

  Gradually, Jocasta learnt the truth of the matter. Oedipus, in his anxious search for the Sphinx, had pulled back the curtain of Antigone’s bedchamber. There he came on Antigone and her slave Sersex, both naked, kneeling on her couch, she with the man’s penis in her mouth, he leaning over her with a finger pressing her anus.

  Driven by fury at finding a mere slave enjoying such royal treatment, Oedipus seized the youth by his throat. Wrenching a dagger from his belt, he sliced off the man’s scrotum and its contents with one blow.

  ‘Oh, how awful!’ exclaimed Jocasta. ‘Antigone, you slut, doing it with a slave … A Macedonian at that!’

  ‘Why not? Why not? Who was I supposed to do it with? Oh, I’ll never forgive Father, never, never ever.’ She began shrieking again, this time in short bursts. She threw herself to the ground, leaving a bloody handprint on the stone.

  Semele cackled. ‘They aren’t meant to be sucked, you know, girl. You’re meant to stick them up you. Though it’s true they’re hard to resist …’

  ‘Silence, for shame, you old lecher,’ ordered Jocasta. ‘It’s not a question of where you put them.’ Fresh showers of tears burst from her eyes. ‘Antigone, where is Sersex now? Is he dying?’

  ‘He has fled. Gone to his father. His father’s old now – a horse dealer – was once in Laius’ service here. He’ll die of the shock, I shouldn’t wonder. Poor darling! Oh, I could die! If only I could die!’ She started to shriek again. ‘Why has willpower no effect on life?’

  Jocasta helped the girl to her feet and kissed her bloodied cheek.

  ‘We’re accursed,’ Jocasta cried. ‘This is so barbarous …’ She could bear no more. Seeing that Antigone was calmer, she slunk off to her chamber, where she threw herself on the couch, to lie with her face buried in cushions. How could Oedipus do this? Is it me? Of course I’m real. I suffer, don’t I? Is it all worth it …? Is it really worth it? The cruelty …

  She was drifting into sleep when a hand clutched her shoulder. She roused herself, recognising the touch. She looked up.

  Oedipus’ face was lined with penitence. ‘I didn’t intend what I did. It happened without thought. I can’t understand my own cruel act. My dear sweet child Antigone sullied …’ He slobbered as he spoke.

  ‘You wanted her for yourself, you cur!’ She flung the words like stones, without premeditation. ‘You secretly desire Antigone for yourself, admit it! It was jealousy – that serpent, jealousy!’

  She flared into rage, struck away his hand, cursed and spat, called him a murderer, shrieked out her hatred of him.

  Oedipus stared at her, open-mouthed, pale and sick. He burst into tears. He howled. He tore his hair. ‘I never thought of such a thing …’

  ‘Well, think now, damn you!’

  Covering his face with his hands, Oedipus let great sobs shake his frame. Wet and slobber dripped down his chin.

  ‘It’s my awful temper …’ He could say no more for crying.

  ‘You brute, you brute … I hate you …’

  ‘Oh, forgive me, Jocasta … It’s not in my character—’ Again a storm of weeping convulsed him.

  Jocasta pulled him down to her breast, stroking his damp hair.

  ‘There, there, my darling, let me mother you. I know you didn’t intend it. All the same …’

  Oedipus snuggled into her warmth. Gradually, his sniffling ceased. Jocasta felt her heart swell with happiness as she clutched him. The nightmare of her supposed encounter with Sophocles faded. Whatever the apparition had said, she was real enough: could she not feel, see, endure that extravagant mixture of emotions which constituted life?

  Her thoughts drifted like mist. Mutilation of a slave … It happened every day. The fellow was of no importance. And Antigone would soon find another lover, one of her own station. Poor girl … but what a temper she had! As bad as Oedipus …

  They both fell into a kind of doze until, roused by cramp in her left arm where Oedipus lay across it, Jocasta murmured, ‘This cruelty is not like you. You’re so unjust, Oedipus …’

  In a similarly sleepy tone, he responded, ‘It’s not my injustice. It’s the injustice of the gods which prevails everywhere, over everything.’

  She protested that he was exculpating himself.

  He roused himself. Leaning up on his elbows, he said, gazing into her face, ‘If there were no injustice, if justice was the outcome of every action, every endeavour, then the world of humans would be an automatic machine, and no judgement would be required of us. Suppose that reward or punishment followed our every act – then would we have no more humanity than a dog, or a tree.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘We would be as the animals are, without conscience.’

  ‘You were an animal to cut off poor Sersex’s balls.’

  They stared in silence into one another’s eyes. ‘Eyes of lapis lazuli …’ he murmured.

  He was reduced and like a child again. He said he knew he had been too hasty. He regretted the action.

  ‘You desire your own daughter—’ Abruptly, she did not add that nowadays she was feeling the first salts of age, and was less attractive than previously. In any case, to talk of incest was to enter on dangerous ground.

  Oedipus sat on the edge of the couch, his broad back turned to her, and talked, his voice gradually becoming clearer. ‘Please don’t nurse your anger against me! You know the long hours I spend with my teacher, learning philosophy. I try to quell those years I perforce spent as a wild man in the wilderness. Have I not served the people of Thebes well and conscientiously? A man must try to overcome the stain of his early vicissitudes – that’s a part of beoming a true adult. Have I not striven to that end? When have I been cruel to you, O most beloved?’

  Uttering these words, he turned his gaze upon her, but she would not look at him.

  ‘Nothing is as cruel as my fate, Jocasta, my beauteous bride. My entire life has been haunted by dread.

  ‘When I was Prince of Corinth, the prediction was made that I would kill my father, King Polybus, and then marry and couple with my mother, Queen Merope.’

  ‘Oh, let’s not go into all that business again,’ Jocasta said impatiently. But, looking into her face with a pathetic expression, Oedipus continued. Seeing they were most private after the storm, he was driven to unburden himself.

  ‘In order that these vile events should not come about according to the oracle, I left Corinth in haste. I became a vagabond. Then indeed I was mad and hasty of temper. I cared not whom I killed. I lived in the wilderness, and wilderness entered into my soul. Men and animals I treated alike. Oh, what my life has been … Can you not have compassion on me?’

  She said uneasily, ‘Let your mind not dwell on those bygone days. There are many elements of life we do not understand. Let us suckle on the teat of present happiness while we are able.’

  She rearranged one of her long elegant hairy legs beside his, so that her gown fell away and her leg was naked even to the thigh. He stroked the thigh absent-mindedly. ‘Still I am weighed down by my past …’ But the words had scarcely left his mouth when the edge of his hand came into contact with the first of her curly hairs. Forgetting all else, he slid his hand upwards until his fingers dipped into the moisture there contained.

  ‘Oh …’ Jocasta gave a little breath and pulled him down to her. There was a way to be oblivious to the woes of the world.

/>   It was Polynices who discovered where the invisible Sphinx had hidden. The creature squatted in a remote corner of the palace, her great wings folded. She had made herself a nest plaited of straw and grass and thistles. Slowly her egg worked its way down towards external existence. Clever Polynices had merely followed a trail of bluebottles and smaller flies to the nest. Those insects, themselves incapable of an invisibility which required some intellectual effort, buzzed about the reproductive quarters of the fabulous beast.

  Now, triumphant from his success, Polynices had gone to seek out his lady love in a nearby street. He lay on the narrow couch of his young woman, Leyda, who worked in a taverna close to the palace. Between exchanges of kisses, Leyda was complaining of the many disappointments life held.

  ‘Not you, my darling sweet sweetheart,’ she assured the lustful boy. ‘But I was waiting on an old man called Tiresias the other night, very smelly and wise he was, sipping his ale. He said that disappointments came because appearances are intended to deceive. Appearances are the cosmetics over a harsh reality – I think he said that. That way they challenge our intellects. I couldn’t understand what he meant and I asked him if he thought I had an intellect, but he said he didn’t know. I asked him why it was that the lovely apples on that tree out at the back of the taverna tasted so sour. It was unkind of the gods. Only he said it was—’

  ‘A cooking-apple tree!’ finished Polynices, rather curtly, before the girl could get the words out.

  ‘Well, it’s disappointing, isn’t it? I got a tummy ache from eating one. Well, two. Why can’t they come ready cooked, if they have to be cookers? Then you wouldn’t have to cook them.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Leyda. How could they be cooked on the tree?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? You could have a different kind of a tree that cooks its own apples, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Things can’t all be different. That’s why they’re the same, stupid.’

  She sighed heavily, blowing her perfumed breath, slightly tinged with a flavour of onion, over him. ‘For instance, why can’t you have an erection all the time? Why does it have to go down in that silly way after you’ve come? It’s disappointing for a girl, isn’t it?’