Jocasta: Wife and Mother

by Brian Aldiss

  Tears were shed on her quilt as she rolled a few possessions into a bundle. Then she was off before her mother, as she feared, could come clumsily to persuade her that all this was nothing, that it did not matter, that she must not take it seriously, that Oedipus meant well, and so forth.

  Antigone slunk like a malefactor from a side gate and made haste down the dusty street to the shelter of her uncle Creon’s humbler dwelling.

  7

  Oedipus squatted in the semi-dark of a remote corner of his palace. He wore sandals and a loose robe. A slave stood over him, fanning away the noisily buzzing flies.

  ‘Come along, beauty,’ murmured the king, subduing his voice to a whisper such as sea creeping along a strand might make. ‘Come along, my baby. You have nothing to fear from me. Show me just the tip of your pretty nose to demonstrate your trust. Just the pretty tip, and I will reward you with a bowl of honey and milk and yoghurt to ease your exertions.’

  From the invisible Sphinx came no response, only a faint gurgle of effort.

  ‘Come on, be a good girl. There’s nothing to be afraid of!’

  He put out a cautious hand. The hand met with feathers, crisp and crepitous. At once it was struck by the lashing of an invisible tail. It struck a second time, no less hurtful for being unseen.

  ‘You old witch, why are you so touchy? Don’t fear that I intended to hurt you!’

  He stood up, rubbing his hand. ‘Look, my sweet spectre, I want to know what the meaning is of this egg-laying … What does it forefigure? I am racked by rumours, exhausted by omens. Speak, will you, confound you?’

  From the dark corner came at last the screeching voice of the Sphinx. ‘Tell what is not of gold but goads you.’

  Oedipus made an exclamation of dismay. ‘You and your riddles!’ He rose and turned on his heel. The horizontal sunshine of evening lay flaring down the passage ahead of him.

  ‘Your g(u)ilt!’ screamed the monster triumphantly.

  Oedipus could not but laugh.

  He strode out to where Jocasta and her old grandmother had gone to sit, warming themselves against a wall in the last rays of the sun, drinking a potent concoction Semele had mixed.

  ‘Oedipus!’ said Jocasta. ‘Come, sit with us. All is well … At least, it is fairly well, though I fear we have lost our elder daughter.’

  Semele, laughing, began, ‘Antigone’s at that daft age—’

  Jocasta put a finger to her lips, motioning her grandmother to be silent. She then devoted herself to soothing Oedipus, putting an affectionate arm about his shoulders. ‘There, there! The Sphinx will lay when she can. Mustn’t be too impatient.’

  ‘I’m always at fault,’ he muttered, but he gave Jocasta a shy half-smile. ‘You’re so forgiving, my dearest!’

  ‘It’s my only good trait,’ she said with a smile.

  Bees bumbled over the small flowers of herbs growing between the stone slabs at their feet. Jocasta gazed down on them, wondering whether the bees felt pleasure at their work. She could stamp out their lives with her sandal, should she so wish.

  Oedipus sat beside her, exhaling a great breath as he relaxed.

  She decided to raise a matter which had puzzled her. She said that she had been to the stables and found that their cream-coloured mare, by name Vocifer, was missing, and that, now that she thought on it, she couldn’t recall seeing the mare on the journey back from Paralia Avidos. The head groom had denied any knowledge of what had led to her absence. She wondered if Oedipus knew where the mare had gone.

  With some hesitation, Oedipus admitted that he had ordered the groom to kill the animal, and to keep quiet about it.

  ‘Why did you have her put down?’ asked Jocasta quietly.

  Oedipus answered merely that he thought Vocifer was dangerous, probably possessed of a malign spirit. He said nothing of the fact that she had spoken to him, predicting ill.

  Remembering how evilly the mare had looked upon her, Jocasta nodded. ‘I also regarded her as dangerous. I am pleased you got rid of her.’ She spoke to keep the peace between her and Oedipus. She was not pleased. Nor did she care for the sound of malign spirits.

  He patted her hand. Nothing more was said on the subject.

  But she was cold, despite the warmth of the day, recalling the mare’s look of threat. She hated herself.

  Crowing and trumpeting came from inside the palace. In the sound was triumph but also a chord of something close to sorrow and pain.

  ‘Zeus! My precious pet has delivered!’ exclaimed Oedipus. ‘Just as soon as I am absent from her!’ He pushed a slave out of the way, and ran. Jocasta and the old woman followed.

  ‘That cry – she’s glad but she knows there’s trouble lurking,’ said Semele, with a horrendous gesture imitating that trouble.

  ‘Try not to look always on the dark side, dear,’ Jocasta advised.

  The stress of laying, followed by the effort of crowing about it, had rendered part of the Sphinx visible. Her head and throat appeared in the gloom. They towered in isolation above her excited visitors. Because the rest of her body was still invisible, the egg she had laid was revealed, couched in its nest of straw and sticks and chicken bones.

  Like all things newly born into a wicked world, the egg glowed with innocence – a blue innocence, lightly flecked with little red and gold accents, a shape of perfection, more perfect than the finest vase. It lay on its rough bed, like a blue eye looking up at them and, if loveliness were the origin of intelligence, would have seen into their charged hearts.

  ‘A thing of beauty!’ exclaimed Oedipus, almost despite himself.

  ‘A joy for ever!’ said Jocasta, as they crowded round.

  ‘What a meal it will make!’ shrilled Semele.

  Immediately, out of the nowhere into the everywhere swept a powerful wing, beating with unseen strength against Semele’s body, sending her reeling. Jocasta managed to steady her grandmother before she fell.

  Now the Sphinx chose to become fully visible, if only in order to conceal her new-laid egg. ‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Begone, all of you! I have laid while you are mislaid.’

  ‘How long will the egg take to hatch?’ Jocasta asked.

  The Sphinx, tucking her great head under a great wing, replied, ‘Before the full-breasted man will mutter, then shall Truth utter.’

  ‘Why did I ever house a thing that talks such nonsense?’ asked Oedipus, laughing.

  ‘Who or what is the full-breasted man?’ asked Jocasta.

  Semele held a withered hand over her eyes, before saying, ‘It is a reference to a time, just after noon.’

  It was just after noon on the following day when Jocasta left the palace grounds, to walk blindly along the road that would wind, if one followed it doggedly enough, to Corinth. She choked back her sobs, walking like a drunken woman, scarcely able to believe what had happened.

  The egg of the Sphinx had cracked. A claw had appeared over the rim of broken shell. A small edition of its mother Sphinx had emerged, a Sphinx-chick, its body covered with yellowy-brown fur. There it sat, triumphant in its shattered home. It sang with joy to have entered the wicked world. The noise of its song had attracted Oedipus. Taking the Sphinx-chick from its mother, Oedipus had gone with it to a nearby bench, whereon Jocasta sat working at a tapestry.

  He set it down, speaking soothingly to the tiny creature. Its embryonic wings fluttered, its tail twitched. It gave a thin chirrup.

  ‘Now, you infant creature, tell me why you are come into this world.’ Oedipus scowled in concentration. ‘Tell me if you are on the side of Truth or riddles, for I want no more riddles.’

  Semele entered from the garden and at once tried to intervene. Phido trotted meekly at her heels.

  ‘Ask not about your fate, my son, or you will rouse the Kindly Ones! I beat them off once, but can’t depend on doing it again.’

  The Sphinx-chick spoke, the tiny words whistling from its throat.

  ‘I came into the world this way

  Where life is fragile as
an egg.

  So I will say what Mama cannot say.

  Forgive me, sire, I beg –

  Your days begin to die this day.’

  In dismay at this affront, Oedipus sent the small creature hurtling from the bench. Its infant wings fluttered as it tried to save itself from falling. Acute in his timing, Semele’s griffin sprang forward and caught the chick in his mouth. A gulp and it was gone.

  The Sphinx gave a shattering cry, which the walls threw back. A silence fell. Oedipus sat blank and overcome by shock.

  Semele cackled. ‘My son, you waken them! I hear the Kindly Ones rouse from their sleep.’ She cupped a hand around an ear. ‘The beat of their wings!’ She essayed a caper. ‘No vulture so weird has ever appeared!’

  Jocasta was ice cold. ‘Grandmama, kindly leave us. I wish to speak to my husband alone. Take your wretched animal with you.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’

  But the old woman left as instructed. Phido padded beside her, a yellow feather dangling from his lower lip, a grin on his face. Jocasta turned to Oedipus. The king seemed nonplussed by the sudden disappearance of the Sphinx-chick. He sat shaking his head.

  The Sphinx, showing her catlike qualities, crawled to a corner and hid her human face between her front paws.

  ‘Oedipus, I will have my say and you will listen.’ Jocasta spoke in a level voice. ‘You gather your fate about you. Now another death lies at your door. A cloud forms round us. Vocifer put down. Poor Sersex maimed, our daughter fled. Now this defenceless chick … You are losing your grip on sanity.’

  She drew herself up before him, confronting him where he sat.

  ‘For all this, I must accept some of the blame. I have passed too much time upon your bed. I have not thought enough, cushioning myself in my immediate desires. I have lied and been untrue to myself, in order to keep peace. My inner concerns have occupied me too greatly; I have lived for appearances. I know it only now, when I feel that Nemesis threatens. I have not guided you – until it seems you are beyond guidance.

  ‘I have to tell you that my life must change, is changing, in part in hopes that yours will also change, if it be not too late. I will not lie with you again. You hear that, man? I will never lie with you again. I am resolved. In our union is something—’

  His blow struck her on the cheekbone as he sprang up. Her head spun round. Her body twisted. She fell heavily, striking the bench with her hip. There she leant, half-a-sprawl on the ground. He stood over her.

  ‘You too turn against me, Jocasta? You pretend it is for my good? You lie as you speak against your lies! Do you wish to kill me? Now you damn me for having the mare Vocifer put down, whereas beforehand you approved! Never forget you belong to me, Jocasta, are bound to me. You are my wife and I’ll show you who’s master …’

  Half-sobbing, she began, ‘But I am not your wife, I—’ when he seized her body roughly, tugging her up.

  She saw what was coming. She swung the tapestry which lay beside her on the bench, catching it by its wooden frame, and brought it upwards so that one corner caught Oedipus over his eye. Howling, he let go of her.

  Jocasta was horrified at what she had done. She begged forgiveness. It was her guilt that had prompted her to violence. She slunk away. He followed later. The Sphinx alone possessed the courtyard.

  Now she walked in distress along the Corinth road.

  Later, he had come to her when she was walking in their garden. He apologised for striking her. He regretted the accident which had caused the Sphinx-chick to be gobbled up. The incident (as he described it) with the slave Sersex had been an endeavour to save their daughter’s honour. He was sorry that Antigone had gone to Jocasta’s brother Creon, assuring Jocasta that their daughter would soon return; Antigone was at that uncertain age, between child and woman.

  When Jocasta remained silent, he said that the affairs of Thebes much troubled him. They were his main concern at present.

  Provoked, Jocasta said, ‘Oh, and what about your past? Doesn’t that concern you at all?’

  ‘What is past is past. It’s the present that is my concern.’

  ‘Oh? You thought differently yesterday. You talked differently yesterday.’

  ‘That was yesterday. Please don’t be hostile, Jocasta. Sometimes I think we are living in a madhouse.’

  She bit her bottom lip and stared at him, uncertain as to what to say.

  Oedipus took advantage of her silence. ‘You yourself are so insincere. I don’t know where I am with you.’

  Anger burst from her. ‘Now you are attacking me again! I will not stand for it. I do what I can …’

  ‘Do you think that is good enough? I don’t know you any more. It’s as if you had become my enemy!’

  She wandered blindly, in burning sunlight, along the road, at times touching her throbbing right cheek. She had no idea but to put distance between herself and the palace. Was she insincere, as he claimed? Was not what Oedipus labelled insincerity rather her uncertainty about her own disposition? Perhaps, in that vision she had suffered, when she believed a man called Sophocles had appeared, he had been correct to say that she was playing a role in an obscure theatre she could not comprehend.

  But the nature of things had forced her to it. Had forced a flaw and falsity into her very heart.

  The way was uneven. She walked slowly, consumed by her painful inward thought. At a turn in the road, the route began to run into a wide declivity. Jocasta stood uncertain, ignoring the strident music of the cicadas. Large boulders, rounded by age, splintered by heat, fringed the wayside. A voice like a creaking door called from one of them.

  ‘Lady, your way leads only from, not to. To is a measureable distance, whereas from goes on for ever. So you will never get there.’

  She staggered for support to one of the great rocks, to find there, partly concealed by its shade, an old ragged man – or was it a woman? – standing propped against the rock. By his side was a staff of gnarled wood.

  ‘Just leave me alone, stranger.’

  ‘You have left yourself alone.’ The voice was tremulous, as dusty as the clothes the person wore.

  ‘Please don’t vex me with riddling talk.’

  ‘Ha, but then, straight talk might vex you more, lady!’

  Jocasta, nervous with this stranger, asked if it was man or woman. For answer, the old person pulled aside a flap of his blouse to show her a full breast, ripe and young-looking, in contrast with the rest of the withered face and body. A roseate nipple oozed milk. Then it hitched up its robe to give a glimpse of a long penis, brown and worn, dangling from a nest of entangled grey hair.

  ‘You have no need to complain. The burden of both sexes is mine. I am Tiresias. I have been the plaything of the gods. Hera blinded me, but Zeus rewarded me with inward sight.’

  He swung his staff in a threatening way. ‘This staff of cornel-wood was given me by Athene. Oh yes, I know all about gods – and about you.’

  ‘How can you be both male and female?’

  ‘All of us contain traits common to both sexes. Once on a time, I saw two snakes coupling. I killed the female snake and was turned into a female myself. So I became a harlot and was celebrated for my skills. I learnt much about men.’

  ‘What did you chiefly learn as a woman?’ Jocasta asked, interested despite herself.

  ‘That men are always ruled by the images of their mothers … Whether for good or ill, a desire for the mother remains. The mother, after all, is the source of all life. Could a man but gain possession of his mother …’

  ‘Yes, yes, what then? What if he does possess his mother?’

  ‘It is fatal. He must possess the mother only symbolically, through marriage to a woman who then becomes a mother in her turn. So the deep-seated urge is appeased in a natural way.’

  Jocasta felt she could ask no more of this odd old creature. She looked without seeing at the tawny landscape, as still as if painted, and the questions forced their way from her throat.

  ‘But i
f not appeased? If not symbolically? If in physical reality appeased?’

  Old unreliable eyes sought hers. Then their gaze fell to the ground. ‘As I told you. It is fatal. His soul withers like a flower, because it faces the wrong way … But don’t take my word for it, lady.’

  Jocasta seized his skinny arm.

  ‘What of the woman? The mother? What of her? What happens to her? Tell me!’

  ‘Mother, son, they are two sides of the same coin.’

  ‘Don’t fob me off with metaphors. What happens to the mother?’

  ‘Lady, let me go. You shake me and I am old. The coin is still spinning …’

  ‘What happens to the mother, I ask you?’

  ‘Mothers have no history. They are history itself. They die but others are already taking their place …’

  She leant back, feeling the rock hot against her spine, breathing heavily. She had closed her eyes.

  Tiresias was beginning to shuffle away. She forced herself to call him back.

  ‘And are you now man or woman? You have quite an interesting development under your cloak!’

  ‘For seven years I lived as a woman. Then again I saw two snakes coupling. This time, I killed the male snake.’ He cackled with laughter.

  ‘So you were turned back into a man?’

  ‘As you have witnessed – but not entirely!’

  ‘And what have you learnt as a man?’

  ‘That women shape themselves into the persons they believe men most desire. That men, for all their other failings, have in general a firm image of themselves, whereas a woman seeks for an image of herself in a man’s eyes. Men who are clever take advantage of that fact.’

  Almost despite herself, Jocasta laughed. ‘There’s truth in what you say! Indeed, we cannot possibly live without the admiration of men.’

  Like a child blurting out its woes, she began to tell this stranger something of herself.

  He interrupted. ‘I know well who you are. Your father was of Cadmus’ line, by name Menoeceus. He leapt from the walls of Thebes, jumping into eternity and the sorrowful World of Shades. Thus Thebes was saved from plague. Now plague threatens again.’

  Jocasta found herself speaking of the trouble she was in. The years had passed well enough; only recently, when she knew her youth was sinking from her, had her circumstances started to disintegrate. The wisdom of Tiresias released something within her. She confessed that her sexuality, coupled with an inability to dissociate herself from the mother–son bond, had created an aspect of tragedy: or so she conveyed in her rushing words, while Tiresias stood, supporting himself with his cornel-wood stick, nodding his head. How long she talked she could never afterwards recall. It was as if another spoke through her mouth while she was away. At last her purse full of words was all spent.