by Brian Aldiss
Creon waved a clenched fist to say, ‘Who are you to speak of rank blood, you who are neither man nor woman?’
‘Ah, but to be branded an incestuous parricide! That is what has brought shame and ruin upon our city, a shame in which Jocasta has colluded. And so his life is all corruption, a death that lays all Thebes to waste …’
To which said Creon, ‘Old fellow, why should one man’s error infect a city? Do not judge humans too harshly. For what laws of humanity can we create that will stand against the whim of the gods, as long as we continue to believe in them?’
An old man in the crowd said mildly, ‘How can we not believe in the gods, when we see Apollo’s curse on Oedipus so unkindly fulfilled? Just as predicted, he killed his father and mated with his mother.’
Creon drew himself up to his full height.
‘Firmly though we try to build a scaffold of justice and decency by which to live, the gods can make short work of it. But when we say “the gods”, we are absolving ourselves from our own folly. We must think better of ourselves, that we are not slaves of “the gods”, but rather, masters of our own fates. Were I king here, I would ban the gods from our gates.’
The same old man protested, ‘Did not Oedipus try to swim against this tide of prophecy? Apollo saw to it that the ghastly drama was nevertheless enacted. As far as I can see, we’re pretty helpless.’
Creon replied, ‘If Oedipus had scorned Apollo’s prediction, he would now be King of Corinth.’ His manner suggested that he thought this statement would end the discussion.
A youth remarked, ‘I don’t know about all that. I reckon that both Oedipus and Jocasta ran into temptation. Even now, she’s an attractive woman. And as far as I can see, he was nobody much, a wild man who seized the chance to marry a royal widow. Frankly, I would have done the same.’
Some laughter and clapping indicated that there were others who thought as he did.
Ignoring these remarks, Creon said soberly, ‘We must see that mankind’s laws become more rational – and thereby more comprehensible – than the whims of the gods.
‘We may ask ourselves, why did Apollo, supposing there to be such a personage, prompt this tragedy? Was it for sport? Or from malice? Or did that great god seek to show how weak we are against circumstance and destiny? Such ideas to me are incomprehensible. They argue against the existence of gods.
‘Do they argue for the confusion in our minds?
‘Even you, Tiresias, cannot untie this knot of questions …’
Within the palace, all was misery and disturbance. Jocasta had locked herself into her chamber. She walked about from one end of the room to the other in a flurry of ribbons and garments, bare feet slapping the tiles. Her old servant Hezikiee, weeping, tried to soothe her.
‘Whatever you did, you a woman are pure and innocent, dearest queen.’
Jocasta denied it. ‘I am more guilty than he. How like a man, he simply loved me and never enquired of the nature of that love. I recognised him from the start, Hezikiee – almost from the start.’
‘No, no, of course you didn’t …’
‘But I did. A mother’s instinct told me. Then there were the scars on his feet. Did they not speak to me?’
Jocasta took another turn about the room.
‘Oh, it’s so awful for you, so awful! With all these gods of yours I don’t hold at all.’ The poor old creature hugged herself.
‘Now my dark secret is out. How can I live? I am shamed before the world.’
‘Always, always the blame is put on women – like thrown on white walls muck!’
As Jocasta fell distraught onto her couch, misery came like a wave upon her – misery and guilt. Certainly, the Sphinx had brought the original curse upon Thebes; but the Sphinx was a thing of the past, dead and buried, leaving no successor. It was she, Jocasta, by her silence before the wedding, who was to blame for the fulfilment of the curse; and who therefore had caused the lands of Thebes to be barren, and Oedipus and all the family to be dragged into disgrace.
She had not been strong enough.
‘Oh, it is so unfair! So unfair! There’s no fairness in the world!’ So cried Hezikiee, tearing her hair. She ran about, richocheting from wall to wall in dramatic fashion.
Jocasta’s sons, Polynices and Eteocles, banged on the door of her chamber. She would not admit them. Antigone ran to her great-grandmother. Only Ismene stayed with her father; her bear slunk into a corner when she heard Oedipus’ groans of misery and dismay, perhaps fearing she was about to be whipped.
Even the slaves were still, huddled in groups, fearful of what would become of them following their master’s downfall. They knew evil was about. They had been without merriment ever since four of their number had vanished, and no account ever given for their disappearance.
Creon, having dismissed Tiresias, entered the palace in company with a subdued Eurydice. He sat himself down on a chair, folded his arms, and waited. Eurydice stood meekly behind him.
Semele embraced Antigone, who perforce took deep breaths of the old woman’s hair.
‘Oh, oh, old one, why is life such a maze?’ Antigone cried. ‘I thought to do good by bringing that shepherd here. Instead I have made matters worse. Under what laws can we live?’
‘Your father’s labyrinth has been a labyrinth that is a straight line. You are not his daughter alone, but his sister also. Yet still he has his eye on your skirt.’ The old woman tittered nervously.
‘How can you say that? How can I think that? What horror to be so doubly related! And he loves me so … Cannot you do something, something that would save us all?’
Semele looked at Antigone, rolled her eyes and shrugged, before folding her arms protectively over the remains of her bosom.
‘Virtue?’ She gave a laugh like a crow’s croak. ‘Would virtue have helped?’
Antigone rolled her eyes. ‘Really … virtue is too abstract a proposition for me.’
‘Child, I should have done something many a year ago – if anything was to be done. The present is a slab of marble on which the story is already carved. But wait … mmm … catch me a serpent and I will do what I can.’
Antigone ran out into the wilds beyond the palace garden, carrying a pronged stick. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she searched in long grass and under stones.
Polynices and Eteocles, meanwhile, had forced open the door of Jocasta’s room. They stood in dismay, not daring to approach Jocasta’s couch, where she lay huddled.
Oedipus entered, lumbering in. He walked like a man made of stone. When he spoke, his voice was hollow. ‘Creon told me I would find you lads here. Comfort your mother. I dare not approach her, such disgrace have I brought upon her. But let me first clasp you with a brother’s arms. Unwittingly, I have brought disaster upon us all.’
The two young men did not move. White of cheek, they stared at their father and brother, appalled by his words.
‘Better stay away from us,’ muttered Polynices.
‘It’s not healthy around here,’ said Eteocles, avoiding his father’s gaze.
Oedipus stood as if he would never move again, his shoulders slumped. He accepted his sons’ words as a rejection.
‘When I was of an enquiring mind, why did I not enquire enough? Foolish and wicked was I to give you for a mother she who had been my mother too! Now I grieve for you both, seeing your misery. Why should you wish to touch me? I who have defiled the bare idea of family …
‘What a blighted life must lie before you both. You will take no part in festivals or feasts, for all will shun you as you shun me.’
‘Listen,’ said Eteocles. ‘We are bound to you, Father. We don’t shun you. We are simply stunned by the tragedy – long suspected in the taverns, it is true, but dismissed as no more than bawdy fabrication. It’s all right for—’
But Oedipus interrupted. ‘Nothing is right. The laws of the gods have been disobeyed. Who will marry either of you, knowing the shame that comes from my mistakes? Oh, no matter that I
was driven to them. Nothing of shame is wanting. Think, Eteocles, Polynices – your father slew his father, and then married his own mother, upon whom he begot you and your sisters. That’s three sins on all the other sins! I have damned you upon the earth, as deeply as I have damned myself. Oh, how the god Apollo must laugh at the fulfilment of the accursed prophecy!
‘These eyes that look on your shame are full of tears—’
At that, Polynices took a step forward, to lay a hand on Oedipus’ arm. ‘Try not to grieve for us. We two will be ever staunch friends and—’
‘It may not be so. I have sown division among us. Oh, oh, vile creature that I am, I cannot bear to look upon you or your sisters more!’
He lumbered forward to the couch on which Jocasta lay. He snatched a brooch from her robe. Before the boys could prevent him, he plunged the pin into first his right eye and then his left. He uttered a terrible cry in which pain and a kind of triumph were intermingled. Blood and ichor welled down his cheeks. Blinded, arms extended before him, he made for the door, still uttering his cry.
He smashed a hand against the door post, and then was through. There he stood, groaning, arms outstretched. Blood streamed down his cheeks.
Creon rose to his feet and hesitatingly approached.
‘You are wounded, Brother!’
‘Self-wounded as throughout life! How I reproach myself!’
‘You luckless mortal! I am not your enemy, Oedipus. Your enemy has been circumstances and your pride.’
‘Creon, I know we have quarrelled in the past, yet there is something I would have you do for me. A final favour.’
‘Tell me, and I will endeavour to do it.’
‘Send me away from Thebes, in order to lift the curse from the city, as I am cursed by my own vow. The city now is yours, for you to rule in justice and mercy.’
Creon hesitated. His gaze was downcast. He could not look on Oedipus, so ghastly was the sight. ‘If I do all this, it is not because the gods will it. I strive not to believe in gods. It will be for my obligation to Thebes, to ensure it becomes fertile and orderly again.’
‘Whom do the gods hate more than I?’ Oedipus lifted his hands, smeared with his blood, above his head, in an endeavour to express his pain. ‘Matters will right themselves when I am gone, be sure of that! I will to the wilderness, where I have been before …’
He paused, his voice seeming to choke in his throat. Then he spoke of Jocasta, his tone changing; in losing his sight, he was acquiring clearer inner vision. He wished Creon on his behalf to say farewell to his sister Jocasta, for whom he had nothing but love and gratitude. Although they, as mother and son, had lived in a way that the world condemned, nevertheless Jocasta had been for him the great green pasture of his life. He laid no blame on her. He was a man and so must shoulder the blame. Apollo had been against him since the day of his birth. He begged Creon and Eurydice to take pity on his Jocasta. She was a good, compassionate woman.
‘Very well, Oedipus.’ Creon’s voice was heavy and slow. ‘It shall be done as you say, although to take Jocasta into our house is to bring shame upon ourselves also. Eurydice and I will guide you to the city gate, and leave you there, to make your way as you can in the country beyond. I will rule Thebes in your stead, not according to the gods’ design – rather, according to my own mature wisdom. And I will care for your children.’
‘No, no, do not think to take my children away from me. Not Antigone!’
Creon sighed. ‘Even now, you seek to have your way.’ Taking Oedipus’ arm, he led him to the doorway.
‘And what of poor Jocasta?’ Oedipus asked, as he shuffled from the palace. ‘How can she lift up her head again in this general disgrace?’
The rock was lifted. Sunlight slanted in upon a coiled snake, banded with black and yellow. At once, Antigone’s cleft stick came down, pinning it to the ground.
The girl then clutched it firmly behind its head. As she lifted it, it flung a coil about her arm.
‘No, you beast, you don’t escape! I have no fear of you!’
Fleet of foot, she ran then, hastening back to the palace, to Semele’s quarters.
Semele had a small fire burning on her altar slab. It gave off a halitus of bird’s feathers, wood hissing sap, roasted griffin excreta and sweet unguents. The old woman even then was pouring on perfume from a long-necked bottle. Smoke writhed around the old woman’s head. The pupils of her eyes were dark marbles, expanded by drugs.
She gestured to Antigone to fling the snake on the blaze. They stood and watched it writhe in the ecstasies of death. The old woman chanted in a high-pitched voice.
The wreaths of smoke took form. The right half, no more, of a man’s head appeared. It stared. Its lips moved. No sound emerged.
‘Sophocles, I command you to speak clear from whatsoever future you appear,’ said Semele. ‘Ill things are upon us here. Speak from the flame, for you must share the blame – this was your idea.’
The shadowy half-head spoke in faint tones barely distinguishable from the crackle of burning apple branches.
‘Why call to me again, old woman? Can you not see that it is all written? Your destinies are fixed as the fixed stars. As for me, I am free to write as I will.’
‘Then why do you write us into such misery, you wretch?’ cried Antigone. ‘My poor father damned, my mother disgraced?’
‘I wrote as I wrote because there is a war within the human spirit,’ responded the wraith. ‘My dramas are about that war. Do you not see that self-gratification is not all in life? We must grow out of it, as babies must grow out of the ease of the breast. Supposing your mother had denied herself gratification, then the outcome of this drama would have been different. One fault can overturn a throne, one sin bring on a lifetime’s regret. On such hinges my dramas turn. And through the pity and understanding they engender, through the tragedy, we hope nobility is achieved.’
‘Nobility? I spit on nobility,’ said Semele. ‘I know nothing—’
But she broke off, because the eye of the half-face seemed to be growing at an alarming rate, becoming confused with the swirls of smoke, until its pupil was a vortex of grey cloud, merely an accidental design in an imaginary world of effects, something to which they had spoken and had never heard speak.
‘Oh, oh, oh, it’s all gone wrong!’ cried the old witch, falling to the ground.
Jocasta roused herself from the stupor in which she lay. Wild-eyed, she looked about her, at Oedipus’ blood spattered upon the tiled floor, at the four walls, above all at the terrible emptiness that could not be filled.
Her cheeks were pallid, her lips were pallid, dark shadows encircled her eyes. Hezikiee dared not come near her, but stood in silent apprehension, hand gripping hand upon her apron.
Jocasta made a noise like speech, which gradually became intelligible.
‘I devoured my son by my love, depraved but fully sincere … Why did I not tell him who I was from year one? Why deceive him? Why did I strive to squeeze pleasure out of pain? Why could I not see where my behaviour would lead?’
She rocked back and forth on her couch, clutching her knees, staring not at Hezikiee but into space. ‘It’s my deceit, my deceit … Well, now my fate must take its course. Though I am a woman, I must pay as if I were a man …’
‘Over and over you have paid by your guilt, dearest, in silence borne through many many years,’ said her old serving woman, wringing her hands. ‘You are not to blame, dearest queen. A wonderful example you have been of a wife and mother!’
‘As for my young sons by Oedipus,’ said Jocasta, ignoring Hezikiee. ‘Being men, they can fend for themselves, wherever they go. But my poor daughters, my two dear girls, who have shared my food as my love – now must my haughty brother Creon try to care for them. Like my poor Oedipus, I can no longer see them. I am the poison that runs in their veins.’
She pulled herself from the crumpled couch, and ran barefoot from her room and out at a rear portal, away from the palace and its grounds.
Hezikiee followed, puffing and panting, falling ever further behind. She called but Jocasta did not heed her.
The queen ran, ignoring feet cut by thorn or legs slashed by bramble, on and on, towards the steep cliffs above the river called Climonoin. In her mind, it was as in her dream. At the lip of the cliff, she paused only briefly. Then with a wild cry, she flung up her arms and sprang outwards into the void.
Hezikiee reached the cliff at last, panting. She stared cautiously down over the lip. Seeing Jocasta’s body lying far below, she groaned and cried her name.
‘Fair Queen Jocasta, you I loved of all the most!’
After a pause to catch her breath, she sought out a narrow twisting path that led down to the level of the river. She stood gazing across at the broken body of her mistress. But before going over to it, she went first and knelt on the riverbank, where she cupped her hands and drank of the cool water. With the water she splashed her face.
Because she was old and tired and thirsty, and the day was hot.
Antigone
Sophocles’ tragedy of Oedipus Rex continues to live; although its chief characters die, the play itself still exudes energy.
Picture a foreign country, far from the West and its liberties. This country consists mainly of desert. The lives of most of its subjects are hard. The government is repressive. The president of this country is a decent man at heart, but power has corrupted him. He has built himself twelve palaces, each one more pretentious than the last, while his capital city has no hospital worthy of the name.
This president gives his subjects free salt and free bread – a small loaf per day per person – but will allow of no opposition to his rule. His party, the so-called People’s Popular Party, sees to it that dissidents are driven from the country, or tortured, or, most likely, shot. Tea in this country is expensive, but bullets are cheap.
Despite which, there is a tradition of theatre in the country. The leading light of a resurgence in drama and comedy has been a director, young, fiery, courageous, by name Jon Rahman Karimov. He is handsome, highly creative and full of humour, as are all his family. His wife is a celebrated actress.