Jocasta: Wife and Mother

by Brian Aldiss

Eriphus had the assured manner of someone who knew his facts. He gestured towards the sky, saying, ‘A babe who had yet to set eyes on a full moon.’

  Oedipus went to stand against a wall. Supporting his head against his arm, he asked, ‘What is your claim to know all this – supposing it to be truth?’

  To which Eriphus replied that he had presented the babe – ‘your very infant self, good sire’ – to Polybus with his own hands.

  Oedipus stared at the ground, as if the pattern on the tiles held a part of the unfolding puzzle. Finally, he asked Eriphus what proof he had that the babe was the infant Oedipus.

  ‘I am coming to that immediately, great king.’

  In the silence following this statement, Jocasta gave a cry and fell back on the couch. Oedipus and Antigone hurried to her side. Faintly, she whispered, ‘Make Creon leave. Do not let him hear this fatal news.’

  Saying he could not dismiss Creon, Oedipus bid Antigone look after her mother.

  Turning to Eriphus, Oedipus enquired into the exact circumstances of the presentation of the babe to King Polybus. He asked if Eriphus had bought or found this babe supposed to be himself. His face was pale, his voice choked and faint.

  Eriphus answered that as he was walking upon the Cithaeron hills, he had heard crying. This much he acted out by taking a pace or two before Oedipus, lifting a hollowed hand behind his ear, as if by gesture to reinforce the truth of his statement. The cries, he said, guided him to the babe. It lay naked on a bed of leaves, its feet shackled. He lifted it up and soothed it to quell its crying.

  After a silence, Oedipus asked, ‘So you were a shepherd in those days?’

  ‘No, sir. I was in the employ of King Laius, who reigned over Thebes before you. Queen Jocasta will vouch for the fact. I had been sent to measure out the extent of his lands. I was always one for precision. I had, as the saying is, a head for figures.’ The man answered straightforwardly, hardly blinking an eye.

  ‘Enough of all this!’ cried Jocasta from her couch. ‘It is too harrowing! Antigone, tell your father to cease this inquisition. Send Eriphus away at once!’

  Antigone sat beside her mother, an arm about her waist. ‘I believe we must hear how this tale unravels, dear Mother.’ She kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘I believe, too, that I begin to understand your long association with this man Eriphus.’

  Oedipus nodded in agreement with his daughter. Turning again to the shepherd, he asked, ‘Why was this babe crying? Was it from want of mother’s milk?’

  ‘In part, no doubt. Mostly the poor babe cried from pain.’ Eriphus stood firm, his gaze meeting Oedipus’ without flinching. ‘As I have reported, its feet were shackled. They had been pierced so that it could not crawl or move from where it had been laid.’

  Oedipus, with downward look, seemed to address himself. ‘Ah, then that babe was I! – There’s the proof of it. I bear the scars of that cruelty.’

  ‘Certainly, sire. Your wounds were inflicted on you in your earliest weeks.’ Eriphus spoke in his factual way, gesturing towards Oedipus’ sandals. ‘You still bear the scars, if I may be indelicate enough to mention them.’

  ‘Yes, it’s certain proof … Jocasta, my scars … Have I not suffered from those wounds for ever?’ He seemed pleased by this clear fact.

  For response, Jocasta merely pressed her hands to her face.

  ‘Sire, it was for the wounds that King Polybus named you Oedipus, the Swollen Foot. I took the infant straight to the king. He and his good queen immediately caused his servants to apply herbs to the wounds to cure them. Else you would have remained a cripple for life.’

  Creon had been listening intently, chin in hand. He asked Eriphus now why he took the babe to Polybus and not to Laius, for whom he worked.

  To which Eriphus answered that he never trusted King Laius. But Polybus had a good reputation, and lacked an heir.

  ‘So there was a reward for you?’ asked Creon.

  Eriphus was disconcerted. ‘Only a small one, sire. No more than I deserved.’

  During these questions and his answers, Eriphus could not but observe the emotions he was arousing in the family circle. He became alarmed. He claimed that he had told all that he could remember; the rest, which happened so long ago, had faded from his memory.

  ‘That’s my story, good sire,’ he said, with apology. ‘In order that I might tell it, your daughter brought me here, to my great inconvenience. You were never the son of King Polybus, as I have explained. My desire is that to have this mystery solved should please you.’

  ‘It does not please me,’ said Oedipus in a deep voice, shaking his locks.

  The shepherd continued, now with a whine of supplication in his voice, looking from Oedipus to Jocasta and from Jocasta to Antigone.

  ‘For many years I have been unaccustomed to talk with grand people such as you. Mine is what you would deign to call a rustic way of life. I trust, great king, you will be benevolent enough to recompense me for my long journey, away from my wife and my flocks. Although I am no longer in the service of your palace, I shall remain always your humble servant, sire.’

  Perhaps he belatedly saw danger. Falling down onto one knee, Eriphus began an account of his own life. The family were too concerned with digesting the turn of events to stop him.

  While they tried to solace each other’s distress, the shepherd embarked on a fantastic tale.

  Eriphus said that his father had been the ruler of a distant island in the Aegean Sea, by name Assos Island. This good and holy man had built a shrine to the many-breasted Artemis. The goddess herself had descended one night when the king was worshipping there. He immediately fell in love with her and she with him. They embraced each other. It was in the month of May.

  Artemis took her suitor with her to the moon. Her twin brother, Apollo, resented the king and stabbed him to death with a silver sword. Artemis, however, gave birth to the king’s progeny. She lay looking at herself in a silver mirror as she delivered, and so it was that identical twin boys were born to her. The sole distinction between them was that one had dark blue eyes, the colour of the night sky, while the other had brown eyes, the colour of the ground on earth. Both boys were named Eriphus.

  Artemis sent one boy back to earth immediately. Ill befell this lad, for the island of Assos was conquered in a war, whereupon this Eriphus became a slave at the court of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. The other boy – he who now told this tale – flew back to earth with Artemis only when he was fully grown.

  He met his identical brother for the first time when walking on the hillside where the infant Oedipus was laid.

  Oedipus was much impressed by this story. He had begun to listen intently until the end of it. Jocasta and the others, however, had heard the shepherd out with impatience.

  ‘What nonsense, Eriphus!’ Jocasta cried. ‘Why do you burden our ears with this ridiculous story? You claim you were born on the moon and you never served the court of Laius and Jocasta, only your twin brother?’

  ‘That is so, lady.’ He bowed low, while managing still to observe her from under his craggy brow.

  ‘So in fact you have defrauded me.’

  ‘Not to harm you, lady – only to serve you.’

  ‘Take my money, you mean.’

  ‘Obey your edicts scrupulously.’

  ‘So what is life like on the moon?’ she asked, with anger on her lips.

  ‘Much like life here, my lady, except that people on the moon all wear silver garments, and there are no sheep and no kings or queens.’

  ‘A poor place, then!’

  ‘A rich place. Very light, and light of heart.’

  ‘How is it I never noticed the difference in the colour of your eyes?’

  ‘Lady, the men who serve you in general fear to look on you, so they bow their heads as I do now, and you do not see their eyes.’

  ‘Really, Eriphus, why these fabrications? What does it mean, this nonsense about having a twin brother? And how distant, exactly, is the moon?’


  Ignoring this interchange, Oedipus asked the shepherd, ‘What colour were the people of the moon? Were they like us?’

  ‘They were of silver, sir, like their garments – all except the lips of the women.’

  ‘This is complete nonsense – a made-up tale!’ cried Jocasta. ‘How can we believe anything he says?’ Turning again to Eriphus, she asked, ‘So this man whom I paid for many years – your supposed brother – where is he? Vanished into thin air, I suppose?’

  ‘It happened much as you say, my lady. One day, my twin was drinking at a spring when water nymphs arose from the water and, after one look at him, fell in love with him. They carried him off, undressing him as they went, and he has never been seen since.’

  ‘What rubbish you talk!’ said Antigone. ‘I’m enchanted!’

  ‘It is not rubbish. I have my brother’s hat to prove it.’

  ‘Very well, enough of all this,’ said Oedipus heavily. ‘Tell me straight, or else I will have you encouraged, how this child who you say was I came to be pinioned on a remote Cithaeron hillside.’

  ‘Pray, do not think of torture, sir! Have I not suffered enough? Did I not do you a great service by saving you, a mere mewling babe, from death?’

  ‘Suffer you shall, unless you speak truth. No more nonsense about the moon. Say how this babe came to be on this hillside. Who were its parents?’

  Jocasta cried, ‘Oh, bury these details. They will bring only sheer misery. Keep them within these four walls. The man is plainly confused and unreliable. Bury them. Do not listen, Oedipus, I beg you!’ She hid her face in Antigone’s shoulder. Antigone hushed her mother and stroked her long hair.

  ‘I implore you, dread sire, not to ask me questions for whose answers you can have no liking.’ So spoke Eriphus. He sank onto one knee again.

  ‘You die if I have to question you again.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ Eriphus swallowed and wiped his wrinkled brow with his hand. ‘If speak I must, to tell truth, the babe was taken from Laius’ palace – in fact, from this very palace, begging your pardon for mentioning it. It happened one night when the moon was set, for secrecy.’

  ‘How Laius’ damned name haunts me! So, this remarkable babe was taken away at night. A slave’s child? Or someone like that?’

  The shepherd trembled violently, putting out a hand to steady himself against the wall. ‘I am on the verge of telling you.’

  ‘And I of hearing you tell. But tell you will and hear I shall.’

  Eriphus looked profoundly miserable. His glance darted here and there, seeking a way of escape. Then he spoke.

  ‘Oh, sire, it was my twin brother, the mirror of me, the other Eriphus, with the eyes of earth, who was forced to carry this babe forth from the palace – from this very palace – according to instructions received.’

  ‘Who gave these instructions?’

  They were all still now, hanging on the shepherd’s responses.

  ‘Why, sire, none other – none other than the king himself … It was the king’s child and heir, born of his wife.’

  ‘King Laius? How so?’ He shot a glance at Jocasta, who waited resignedly to one side, hands clasped together, head hanging. ‘His wife, man?’

  Eriphus looked from one to another of the tense faces about him. He grasped his throat as if he were choking, before saying, ‘Dread king, Laius feared Apollo’s prophecy. He thought the boy-child would grow to kill him. Therefore, he handed over the newborn child to my twin brother to be killed – not to me, sir, not to me – for I am the one with the eyes of a deep blue. That mirror of me was given an order to take the child and kill it, in order to thwart the prophecy.’

  Oedipus was clutching his fists to his breast.

  ‘Clearly I was not killed – unless I too had a mirror as a brother.’

  Jocasta was sobbing. ‘Enquire no more, no more …’

  ‘Sir, I lied to you earlier. I admit it. It was not by accident that I was on the hillside. Nor was I employed by Laius. Forgive me. I made up a harmless lie.’

  ‘This man is all lies,’ Creon interposed. ‘He must be put to death. Such monstrous lying is an offence against nature. It can cause empires to fall.’

  Ignoring Creon, for his eyes were fixed intently on Oedipus, Eriphus went on to confess that he had been employed by Polybus, King of Corinth. One day, a woman had come to him by night. She was the lover of Eriphus’ twin brother, then a slave at Laius’ court. This twin had sent her on an errand of mercy, to save an infant life – for Laius had decided the infant should die of exposure. She instructed Eriphus to hasten to the hillside and gather up the babe, who would otherwise die as was intended. It would be his duty to take the child far away, to be brought up by parents who had no knowlege of Apollo’s curse.

  ‘This makes no sense to me,’ said Oedipus. ‘Why should a slave of the court, as you describe your brother, go to such lengths to save a royal child? Why should he care?’

  Casting an anxious glance at Jocasta, whose face was hidden, Eriphus answered, ‘Dread king, the queen of Laius, this lady here, Jocasta by name – she was prompted by kindness towards her own child, the fruit of her young womb, to defy the auguries. She paid my brother for his mercy, and his mistress for her mission. By her gentle heart, she was instrumental in saving your infant life …’

  He paused, for Oedipus had raised his hands to heaven and was shouting.

  ‘Oh, then, then … No, it cannot be … Jocasta … The truth at last – too dreadful to be a lie! – that it should be so cruel, so vile! My love, my mother! That I was born of your womb! So was I spared that I should come to this? Oh, I die …’

  Antigone was shrieking, ‘The shadow! The shadow over us! So I – I—’

  Jocasta had jumped to her feet, and was screaming hysterically while her children gazed on her with anguished shock. ‘Oh, I am lost and damned! Damned for ever! I it is who dies. I, I, I, your poor wife and mother …’

  She rushed from the chamber.

  17

  The palace gates were closed. Not a sound came from within. Outside the palace, and in the open space called the agora, people were gathered. They stood silently, sensing a tragic moment in history.

  Only the swallows were busy above their heads, darting and swooping as if to the music of flutes.

  Although the gates were closed, the dark secrets from within had leaked out. The citizens’ noses twitched like those of rats at the lure of scandal.

  Towards noon, the crowds parted, giving way to blind Tiresias, tapping his path out with his staff of cornel-wood. Flies floated around him, dust trailed from his aged cloak.

  He spoke, addressing the crowd in his high and husky voice.

  ‘How quiet you are today, you generations of men! What is it that you fear? Alas for Thebes! Fear is never far away. Fear enjoins silence. What have you ever done but starve and strive and beg and still starve? You are nothing, and will be swept away to nothingness.

  ‘What use is fear? Do you fear death? Will the fear of death protect you from it?

  ‘What man has ever won for himself more than smoke from the fires of happiness? And how soon those fires die! Do you suppose this day that you might warm yourselves from the embers of the king’s happiness?’

  Creon had been standing in his doorway. He came forward now, to answer the blind seer. As a witness to the shepherd Eriphus’ report, he had shared in his sister Jocasta’s disgrace and distress. Yet he was moved to pity for his sister; for among the immutable unwindings of fate, her good intentions, her love for her babe, had precipitated the tragedy which, he saw, had yet to wind to a conclusion.

  ‘You preach a message of despair, old fellow!’ he said. ‘Even if all is ultimately in vain, at least we can enjoy our days in the sun. Just think of Oedipus. Who won greater fame and prosperity than he? Did he not gain wealth beyond all desiring? Think how he overcame that riddling lion, maid and bird, the Sphinx, which menaced our gates. Like a terrible mother laying waste the tranquillity of her family, tha
t great creature with her breath laid waste our lands.

  ‘Recall how Oedipus freed Thebes from that curse. Yes, we were properly grateful then, bestowing the highest honours we had to give. To be king in our mighty city! Was that not happiness, at least for a while?’

  Tiresias then replied, ‘You have changed your tune, I observe, Creon. Do you now side with your sister?’

  ‘As to Queen Jocasta, old fellow, consider what she has suffered. First to be wed to Laius, who was disgraced and murdered, then to Oedipus, who has now fallen so low in the general estimation. I know her for a kind and loving parent of her children. All her children. Who would be base enough not to speak up for her virtue, or hope for her and Oedipus’ happiness?’

  Many in the crowd muttered agreement at this.

  ‘But you it was, O Creon, no less,’ argued Tiresias, while the mob listened, ‘who told us that happiness was false. Who is more wretched now than Oedipus? Has not his life fallen into the smouldering ashes of ill repute? All this while, in his brief years of good success, he was bedding her who gave him birth. And then – to think she knew he was her son, but kept that secret to herself … Is not her shame, your sister’s shame, as bad – or even worse – than his? How it redounds on him! And all this while, the monstrous sin endured, not slumbering but awaiting revelation. No wonder we also were cursed.’

  Creon was unmoved, and spoke sturdily, surveying the crowd to see if anyone dared dispute his word. ‘My sister was at fault, and yet I wonder you dare speak of her in such opprobrious terms, old fellow. Just think! Jocasta’s was the sweet mercy that saved her living babe from the scheming of the cruel pederastic king, Laius. What fear and selfishness was Laius’! And then, years later, chance brought that babe, now full-grown, back to her – full-grown, bearded and bright. How overjoyed she must have been to discover that Laius’ murderous plan had failed. If her caresses turned to carnal embraces – who here would claim to judge what they themselves might do, given the same circumstances?’

  To which Tiresias, unabashed, said, ‘Jocasta had no man to guide her, to set her on a proper course, that’s true. But Oedipus, unknowingly, to be a son and then a husband, child of cursed Laius … What rank blood runs in the veins of that family …’