Jocasta: Wife and Mother

by Brian Aldiss

  Lo, the Furies are hovering overhead! They are as ugly as the fruit bats are beautiful, as Nemesis, whose messengers they are, is ugly. Jocasta, disturbed in spirit, sees them as she makes her way towards her grandmother’s habitation. She blows them a kiss. They settle on her roof. They look down and smile on her the smile that comes before repletion.

  ‘Too late! Too late!’ they sing. ‘Your fates await!’

  ‘Semele!’ called Jocasta.

  ‘I’m resting. Stay away.’ Voice from inside.

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘It’s my bedtime. What did you ever do for me? You’ve been an undutiful grandchild. You it was—’

  ‘Please, Grandmother!’ Jocasta plunged into the foetid gloom of the establishment, where a single oil lamp burned. Its feeble glow sufficed to illuminate the old woman lying on her bed, her favourite griffin ensconced beside her. She wore a mangy rug wrapped about her shoulders.

  ‘What do you want? Haven’t you brought me anything to eat? I’m starved. I suppose you realise I’m hundreds of years old, and deserve a little consideration?’

  ‘Yes, dear, I do realise. In one way or another, we all starve. Now please listen. Our whole world is about to tumble around our ears. Terrible truths – things that should never be spoken – will soon become the property of the common ear. You know what I mean? You must use some of your enchantments to divert what is otherwise fated to happen. Please.’

  The old woman hunched up her knees to clasp them within her arms. The rug slid slowly from her shoulders. After a while, as Jocasta stood waiting, Semele spoke.

  ‘Granddaughter dear, you know I have visions. Last night in a vision, your father Menoeceus spoke to me.’

  Fearing a lengthy digression, Jocasta wondered what her father could have had to say about the present situation.

  Semele’s answer was that Menoeceus had complained he had no being. He had never had being. He had never lived. He was not, he said, using a curious phrase, ‘in the script’. It was too late for him to be created. He felt himself to be nothing but a name.

  No one had written the story of Menoeceus. For his daughter Jocasta, and for her daughter Antigone, the situation was different. They had a part to play in a story, as had Oedipus.

  ‘In my vision, regarding his melancholy face, I saw Menoeceus’ deep despair, the despair of the uncreated.’ So said Semele, removing a paw of the griffin from her stomach. ‘He stated that it was far better to take part in a story, a drama – a tragedy, he called it – even if it ended badly, than to have no role at all in the great dramas of life.’

  Jocasta was sobbing. A sense of the misery of her existence, of her desperation when married to Laius, her deceptions with Oedipus – and always her inner sense, which she thought of as her secret madness, that she had no place in reality. What her grandmother was saying woke these terrors afresh. These were the fruit bats of thought, for ever leaving for another tree. She recalled what Sophocles had said about her coming to a bad end, and hid her face in her hands.

  Semele was shaking her arm to regain her attention.

  ‘It was only a vision. Stop crying, you great baby! He was talking nonsense. We all have a role in life. How can anyone be stupid enough to doubt their own existence?’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy – all too easy,’ said Jocasta, blubbering. She sat on the edge of her grandmother’s bed. As Semele stroked her hair, the younger woman’s sobs gradually subsided.

  ‘You know of Apollodorus the Macedonian, my girl?… He is the father of Sersex, who so unfortunately lost one or two of his most prized possessions. When he calls upon Oedipus, then all is up.’

  Jocasta asked what she meant by ‘up’.

  ‘Why, up, of course, you silly girl!’

  Even as she spoke, there came a tremendous knocking at the door of the palace.

  Apollodorus the Macedonian left his horses outside the palace, to be held by one of a growing mob of men. Although his beard was flecked with white, he remained a large and solid man. His bitterness at the cruel treatment of his son Sersex etched deep lines on either side of his mouth.

  Nevertheless, as he was admitted to Oedipus’ presence, his manner was of one who had himself strictly under control. He brought with him the ancient Tiresias, spilling dust and moth, linking his arm firmly with that of the sage, so there was no way in which Tiresias could escape. Also present were two other men, one young, one old, both clothed in leather, who accompanied Apollodorus, looking unhappy.

  Introducing them briefly, Apollodorus emphasised that they were Thebans and not Macedonians, since he knew, he declared, the local bigoted mistrust of Macedonians.

  ‘What do you men want of me?’ asked Oedipus. Sensing a threat, he called two guards to stand by him.

  Apollodorus stood squarely before the king.

  ‘I was selling my horses in the south, in Athens.’

  ‘What of it?’

  Apollodorus gave a laugh. ‘“What of it?” he asks. Why, this, that on my return to Thebes just now I find you have been speech-making. I hear you have put a curse on those villains who killed Laius.’

  ‘That I did. What of it? You bring me their names?’

  ‘I have known for a while that one man alone killed Laius.’

  Oedipus had been seated. He now stood, pale of face. Apollodorus took a step back as Oedipus spoke.

  ‘It is well known that King Laius was despatched by several brigands. I will have none of your suppositions here.’

  ‘“Several brigands”! I well know who put that lie about!’ Turning to the most leathery of his companions, Apollodorus gave him a quick order. As the man headed for the outer door, Jocasta entered from the rear, bringing Polynices and Antigone with her.

  Seeing Oedipus, seeing Apollodorus in a commanding position, she immediately understood something of what was afoot, and said to herself under her breath, ‘So this is where the drama is to be played out …’

  On hearing these whispered words, Antigone ran to her father and held his hand.

  The leathery man returned, bringing with him Chrysippus in chains. Chrysippus’ left eye was swollen. He looked exhausted. Tiresias came blindly forward with his stick. He spoke.

  ‘King Oedipus, I return before you. You may see me, but I now see into you more clearly. This young man here, Chrysippus of Cithaeron, has been talking with Creon, and—’

  Oedipus had had time to gather breath. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘Creon is conspiring against me? What is this trick you are playing on me? I’ll have you all thrown out of here!’

  Whereupon Tiresias tapped with his stick on the floor as a token of disapproval. ‘It would be best to hear what the young man says,’ Tiresias responded.

  ‘First let us try to restore him,’ said Jocasta, hurrying to Chrysippus’ side. ‘He has been roughly treated.’ She led him to a chair, into which he sank, to bury his head in his hands in an attitude of despair.

  At this display of weakness, Apollodorus himself looked uncertain.

  Turning, Jocasta caught sight of one of their slaves spying on proceedings from behind a pillar. She clicked her fingers and pointed at him, ordering him with peremptory majesty to bring wine as restorative.

  The wine was brought with expedition. Chrysippus drank.

  Tiresias tapped his way to the youth’s chair.

  ‘Now you shall shortly hear the truth,’ announced Apollodorus. ‘Remember, dread king, that truth is all around us – it’s no special possession of mine, that I know.’

  He sounded less resolute than before.

  ‘What ill news do you have for us?’ asked Jocasta in tremulous voice, looking down at the youth’s bowed head.

  ‘Speak, lad. Be not afraid,’ said Tiresias.

  Chrysippus looked miserably about him, as if seeking a way of escape. Finally, his gaze rested on Oedipus. Oedipus stood four-square, saying nothing, arms folded across his chest, in the attitude of a man who will confront whatever comes. Chrysippus began to speak.
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  ‘I beg you spare me, O king! The gift of life for me has been a curse. I never meant any harm. I live a nightmare from which I am unable to waken.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ ordered Apollodorus.

  ‘You have to understand. I was but a lad when it all happened … The slaying, I mean. Ever since then, I have experienced terrible dreams. The gods have been against me, poor wretch that I am … I was but a lad.’

  ‘Get to the murder,’ Apollodorus ordered.

  Chrysippus clutched Jocasta’s robe. ‘You do not know the madness that has possessed me. When the royal blood of Laius was spilled, I lay hidden behind that bush half a day – a full day, well into the night. At any moment I feared that I would be murdered. Raped and murdered. I was in terror. Only when a moon came up over the moor did a god speak to me and order me to move. So I rose and ran till dawn. Then I collapsed, senseless, exhausted, half-dead.’

  He was listened to with various degrees of impatience. Only Tiresias and Jocasta evinced sympathy. Oedipus appeared unmoved.

  ‘A cottager found me, a man long in years. He took me into his hovel. There he and his wife tended me. All the while I lay there, I feared that bandits would burst in and slit my throat. I was mad for half a year … It’s no easy thing to be the witness to a king’s assassination. Even a king such as Laius.’

  ‘But what did you see of that assassination?’ asked Jocasta, bending over him. ‘Don’t be afraid to speak.’

  ‘I am afraid to speak.’

  ‘Speak and get it over with!’ the king advised, not unkindly. Chrysippus had turned to look upwards into Jocasta’s face. ‘I saw it all, my queen. I saw the blood. I watched the guards die in agony. I saw the king’s body fall, the horse gallop off, dragging the overturned chariot. The royal body in the dust, writhing, then still. The flies. The vultures …’

  ‘How could you witness such things if you were hiding behind a bush, tell me?’

  ‘Oh, if only I had witnessed nothing! I suffered it all. In that fateful hour, the course of my life was written …’

  Jocasta thought, Did not Aristarchus tell me, that night upon the eastern shore, that the course of my life was already written? Now this wretch comes, claiming the same thing …

  ‘And what of the brigands, of whom you have spoken?’ enquired Tiresias gently, for the youth had relapsed into sobs.

  The young warrior wiped the slobber from his beard. ‘That admission is what Creon forced from me. I did not intend to lie. It is my life that has been a lie. I’ve had to live with it in my throat. I told you I was insane – and no wonder! Oh, Zeus, what an ill trick was played on me! The terror of that day magnified many things. What grew in my mind was a pack of brigands. I saw them in their ragged cloaks. Their bloodshot eyes were always staring at me. Four men there were, bloody men. The whole pack of them …’

  He sobbed before continuing.

  ‘Get on with it,’ said Apollodorus, glancing uneasily at the silent figure of Oedipus. The king’s brow was as dark as thunder.

  ‘Yet I now realise – how can I tell you this and expect belief? – that it was no pack of brigands. It was not a pack at all … It was but one man. In my saner moments I acknowledged it to myself. One man and one man alone slayed Laius.’

  ‘Now we have it!’ roared Apollodorus. ‘And who was that one man? Name him!’

  ‘I don’t know. I have no knowledge …’ He sank his face back into his hands.

  Apollodorus seized Chrysippus’ mop of dark hair and jerked his head up, shouting at him to tell the truth.

  ‘I don’t know what the truth is! I told you, man, I live in a nightmare.’

  ‘Leave him,’ said Tiresias. ‘He is suffering sufficiently. The gods are unjust, and have been unjust to this poor lad. His head has been turned. He cannot tell truth from untruth.’

  Chrysippus began to weep with great remorseful sobs. Jocasta felt her eyes fill with tears. All here were men, save Antigone and herself. What a vast gulf lay between the sexes! It was hard to understand all the lies and aggressions flying through their heads.

  ‘He’s certainly a self-confessed liar,’ said Oedipus, in a subdued way. ‘In which case, his testimony is useless.’

  ‘You’ve been sheltering behind a delusion, Oedipus!’ said Apollodorus. ‘You were that man of whom this fellow speaks, weren’t you? You were the very man who killed Laius.’

  ‘I deny every word of it! This is all a plot, inspired by Creon.’

  ‘The truth is no plot,’ said Tiresias. ‘Must I make it even clearer, as if it were inscribed on papyrus?’

  ‘Speak!’ commanded Oedipus.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ said Jocasta simultaneously, but was ignored.

  Tiresias said in his tired voice, ‘You are seeking the killer of Laius, dread king, or so you tell us. So you are seeking yourself.’

  Oedipus loomed over the ancient sage. ‘Tell me that again.’

  The old man looked up at the king with his blind eyes.

  ‘I tell you again, dread king, what in your heart of hearts you must already know – that you were he who slayed King Laius, at Triodos, where the three roads meet.’

  ‘Soldiers!’ shouted Oedipus. ‘Soldiers, take these villains and lock them in the cellars.’

  Apollodorus and his two companions stood where they were. The two companions clutched each other, seemingly half-disposed to flight. Chrysippus remained as he was, looking resigned. The rest of Oedipus’ guard were slow to appear. They arrived on the scene, fitting on helmets, buckling on swords, cursing under their breath.

  ‘One misery on another,’ said Chrysippus to himself. ‘I don’t know where I am.’

  ‘I am a poor man, O king,’ said Apollodorus, alarmed by this show of force. Foam showed in the line between his lower lip and the margin of his beard. ‘For a hundred gold coins I could easily keep my mouth shut regarding this matter. I will return to Macedonia and never come back to this city. For seventy-five. No, no, for sixty, let’s say. I’m not a greedy man.’

  Tiresias said, ‘Let the king lock us up. Truth cannot be contained in a cellar.’

  ‘No, but I can be,’ said Apollodorus. ‘Make it fifty, great king …’

  As the soldiers marshalled their prisoners, Jocasta asked for Chrysippus to be spared the cellars, on the grounds that he had already suffered enough.

  ‘Never enough! He has been paid to lie!’ said Oedipus. ‘Who knows what he saw or did not see of Laius’ death?’ He looked distraught, standing tugging at his beard as the captives were being shackled. He stared into the distance. Jocasta and Antigone stood and stared at him. All were gripped by a terrible silence.

  At last the woman spoke. ‘It seems this story is already about in the city’s taverns. You will not kill it by imprisoning Tiresias and the others.’

  ‘That I know,’ said Oedipus with a groan. ‘O Jocasta, my faithful wife, how the gods do play with us! Are we not their caged mice, bound to work their treadmills?’

  ‘Why don’t you simply pay Apollodorus the fifty gold coins he asks for, and send him away, back to Macedonia?’ asked Antigone. ‘Pay off his companions. Exile them. Tiresias has no wish to speak of the killing, as I understand.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And Chrysippus, the main if unreliable witness? How would you deal with him?’

  ‘Oh, that little wretch!’ Antigone exclaimed coolly, as the guards led the prisoners away. ‘Who is to believe his story? He’s muddled in the head. He doesn’t know what he saw on that fateful occasion. It’s your word against his. Father, you are king. He was a mistreated child. His mind has been warped. You are clear in your mind. The people will not believe his story – or would not if conditions in the city were improving.’

  Oedipus clutched his head, closing his eyes to think.

  ‘The desperate seize on anything to believe,’ said Jocasta. ‘The starving feed on rumours.’ Though addressing her daughter, she was observing Oedipus. In a level voice she asked him if he was prepared to admit to her that he it
was who had killed Laius.

  ‘I was a different man in those days … Yes. Yes, Jocasta, I did kill Laius.’

  ‘Oh! All this upset has brought on my bleeding,’ said Antigone. This was her first. She moved rapidly towards her own chambers, calling for her maid as she went.

  ‘You must consider what you wish to do next,’ Jocasta said, with a commanding calm. ‘I cannot bear any more.’

  She left Oedipus alone and went out into the night and the garden.

  14

  Men of genius are born to express their knowledge of reality. Often that knowledge is highly idiosyncratic. But reality itself is highly idiosyncratic. The gods have not made the path smooth. Some geniuses seem to view reality from a mountain top, others from a valley. Some see poetry and song, others merely prose.

  Could everything be in our heads, written in some kind of script we fail to read?

  Do we each stand perfectly alone on an empty stage, while our mind plays these tricks on us?

  Zeus, what a vile thought!

  Genius, at least in part, is a question of knowledge. Oedipus is so unknowing. Certainly, he guessed an answer to the riddle of the Sphinx; yet even that may have been the incorrect answer. The Sphinx accepted it, perhaps out of boredom. I believe that the answer was much more complex, all about the seasons – entirely more subtle, more complex.

  I am more subtle than he. I know more, too. It’s a burden …

  I am discounted because I am a woman. That’s a major flaw in our social relationships. It must have been better in an earlier age, when Semele was a girl, when females had more standing.

  So am I a genius? I still know things that Oedipus should have recognised long since.

  My fear is … No, that must not come out. It must be kept within these four walls.

  He has brought us into such trouble already …

  What he must do is let the prisoners go free, then announce to all and sundry that he finds himself in error, and will therefore rescind his tiresome vows and humble himself and make sacrifices to the gods, blah blah blah, and all will be well again and we can go on living our lives …