Jocasta: Wife and Mother Read online

  ‘Oh, those voices from the past. How I confuse what was and what could have been – my other pasts … Those infinite trails I never took. Now here I stand, in this lovely unloved garden. How the wretched citizens would envy me if they could see me here! Little would they know of the tumble of thoughts through my brain. How can I speak them? So easily does this nightingale warble forth its hopes, yet I, for all my superior powers, how can I tell others my mind?

  ‘And what is next to come? Apollo, how I fear it! The ship of our self-indulgence is in a storm, though the silence of the night belies it … Oedipus has hold of the anchor and is sinking down with it. Even this present moment, seeming to rise fresh about me, like Anadyomene from the foam, was somehow forged in past time, long past time, and cannot be amended.

  ‘Well, we have lived and must live, until we cease … And that moment too must be waiting, prepared for us, in a place we cannot as yet see or feel …’

  The night was darker now. A cloud hid the moon.

  She followed Oedipus slowly into the palace.

  10

  Ismene dreamed that those who had departed to the underworld were being called back to remedy the wrongs they had committed while alive. They returned in platoons, marching naked, wearing only heavy boots.

  Tramp tramp tramp tramp. The dead had turned purple in death. All hair had fallen from their bodies. Holes in their bare skulls marked where maggots had bored in. Dead dead dead dead.

  ‘Go away!’ said Ismene in her dream. ‘The world doesn’t want you any more.’ More more more more. Still they came towards her.

  Fearfully, she opened an eye. She was lying on her couch with her favourite rug over her. She was in her own room. The night was sickening towards dawn, though it was still far from light.

  She heard again the sound that provoked her dream. March march march march.

  The noise roused her fully. She sat up. Dim flickering light played a game with the shadows across her ceiling.

  Ismene rose from her couch and crossed to the window, clutching the rug to her body. Her window looked towards the road. There, through the dull purple of dawn, soldiers could be seen. Their leaders carried flambeaux, whose smoky luminance blurred the foremost ranks. The column halted and was dismissed. The soldiery began to slip away.

  The man who commanded them stood rigid for a while. The young soldier by his side carried a torch high, lighting the commander’s face. Ismene made out the commander to be her uncle Creon. She could also identify the torch-bearer. It was her brother Eteocles.

  With a grunt, her pet bear Phoebe jumped onto the chair beside her. Ismene put an arm around the bear’s shoulders and clutched her thick fur. The bear snuffled at the open window.

  When Ismene looked out again after this distraction, it was to find the street empty. But, on second impressions, not entirely empty. One warrior remained. He had taken up a position, partly concealed, behind a pillar of the house opposite her window.

  She crouched low against her bear to watch his movements. The warrior remained where he was. After a while, she realised that he was not so much attempting to conceal himself from her view as deliberately showing himself in a menacing position.

  Ismene was anxious. She grew cold, but did not like to move, except to huddle closer to the warmth of Phoebe’s body.

  Light slowly filtered into the world. She now saw the waiting warrior’s face, which he chose to reveal. He was a well-enough-looking youth with nothing in particular to distinguish him from other youths. Nevertheless Ismene found his face disturbingly familiar.

  At last she could place him, even recalling his name. It was the warrior whom they had attacked in the marketplace at Paralia Avidos; she was almost certain of it, and remembered the man’s threats. Yes, Chrysippus – the former catamite of King Laius!

  At the recollection of his name, and his threats, dread filled Ismene. She knew she should inform her father at once. Throwing a square of fabric about her shoulders, she crept from the chamber. Phoebe followed, ambling rapidly.

  She was in the corridor. It was dark, and stifling with the leftover heat of the previous day. Her great-grandmother stood phantasmally there, skinny old arms raised triumphantly above her head.

  ‘I’ve done it!’ Semele shrieked. ‘Done it! Done it! Magic still works!’

  Then she was swept away as by a great gale. With a whistling sound, a man appeared in her stead, turning in a twinkling from transparent to solid. He stood before the girl in a defensive position, blinking with surprise. He was old and gloomy and grand. Ismene came to a halt before him.

  The apparition had a high forehead, and was white of hair and beard. His appearance in the corridor had caused him to smoulder. He was wrapped in an unfashionable toga-type robe. He stood before Ismene, regarding her fixedly. His blue eyes were coddled between heavy eyebrows above and fleshy bags beneath.

  ‘Oh, my stars!’ she exclaimed. She stuffed two fingers into her mouth.

  The man spoke. In a deep melancholy voice he enquired of Ismene as to what probability sphere he might be in.

  Fear constricted her throat. At her heels, the pet bear adopted a crouch and backed away, growling. She could answer only, ‘What – what-what-prob—’

  ‘Do you speak the Attic tongue?’ he demanded. ‘Who or what are you? And by what magical means was I transported here? Why can I not enjoy my time in Hades in peace?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, sir, please,’ cried Ismene, finding at least a segment of her mind and voice. She sank to her knees. ‘It’s not me, it’s Semele. She’s to blame. She’s always messing about with her concoctions. None of the rest of us believes in magic. Mother says we are of a different age, sir.’

  He gazed sternly down at her. ‘You do not believe in magic? Then, pray, how do you account for my presence here?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t, sir, not at all. As you can see, I’m in my night attire. I was on my way to warn my father—’

  ‘What is that creature now leaving your side, going backwards, child?’

  ‘Please, sir, that is not a creature. It’s my bear, Phoebe. It doesn’t always move backwards.’ Not daring to look away from the apparition, Ismene said out of the corner of her mouth, ‘Get him, Phoebe! Eat him!’

  The bear backed off more rapidly.

  ‘What’s that you say, child? Tell me your name at once.’

  ‘I’m the Princess Ismene, sir, daughter of Oedipus, King of Thebes.’

  ‘Oh, so I’m in that probability sphere … What a bore! Well, Princess Ismene, cowering in your shift, let me offer you a word or two of wisdom.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please, sir. I’d be glad …’

  Shifting his gaze, so that he regarded a space above Ismene’s head, the apparition spoke in a lordly way. He said that stoicism was the only philosophy he knew of which could serve as a shield against the harsh blows which fate dealt human life. Better than prayer and sacrifice was stoicism. Furthermore, it was wise to remain optimistic for oneself and pessimistic for the rest of the world, because one never knew what one’s nearest relations had got up to, were getting up to, and might get up to again. He added thoughtfully that he was not intending this remark personally, but …

  Whimpers in unison from Ismene and the retreating Phoebe prompted him to continue his monologue. He might add, he said, that he had been in life a moderately successful playwright and, according to reports received from new arrivals in Hades, his plays continued to be produced in various languages all over the world, long after his departure from the world of the living. In fact, his play Antigone had been performed in Hades.

  He concluded from this success story, and indeed from others, that there were certain persons marked out from birth to thrive and to be something in the world. There were others – and this category included even princesses – who would never be anything, who would never become known, never strike out an original thought, never shine amid the constellations of humanity.

  Here the apparition once more bent his consid
erable regard upon the cowering princess. The bear had now backed all the way into Ismene’s room and disappeared from view. Princess Ismene, the apparition said, was a case in point. She would never have a considerable role in life. For that matter, she never had a considerable role in his play. Her sister – ah, that, he declared, was different.

  She, Ismene, was not to deliver any news to Oedipus which might deflect the flow of predestined events. She was, in short, to return to her chamber, following her creature. At once. Without a word.

  Ismene could but obey. However, turning slowly, she witnessed a remarkable sight. The apparition was becoming transparent again. Through him she could see, with increasingly less difficulty, her mother Jocasta, hurrying along the corridor towards her. By the time Jocasta reached the spot where the apparition had been, it had disappeared entirely from mortal view.

  ‘Ismene, my cherub, are you safe? What is it? What’s all this smoke? I thought the palace had caught fire.’ Jocasta’s eyes were large with anxiety; her thick dark hair was dishevelled. A dumb servant followed her in a soiled shift, and some way behind her Hezikiee, grumbling about the earliness of the hour.

  ‘It’s Semele, Mama. Another of her horrid tricks.’ Ismene spoke with a whimper.

  ‘Hush! It’s early yet, child. Go back to your bed and I will order a servant to bring you some sustenance. Did I hear a man’s voice?’

  ‘Oh, Mama …’ Ismene burst into tears and, in the next few minutes, told her mother not only about the apparition but also about the warrior Chrysippus she had seen loitering near the palace.

  ‘She was seeing things, that’s what,’ Hezikiee interposed, impatiently. ‘A dream … imagination … you know what silly young girls are like.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Jocasta, giving Ismene a hug. ‘Chrysippus is nothing.’ She did not allow her daughter to see that she was worried.

  ‘The spectre said I was a dull person and would never shine,’ Ismene blurted out. ‘He said I’d never – never – ne—’ Her voice became strangulated and her body rigid. She trembled and shook. Her eyes turned upwards into her head until only the whites showed. Snot issued from her nose and foam from her mouth.

  ‘Oh, my darling!’ Jocasta held her child in her arms, staring anxiously into the red bloated face. Ismene had had such fits before, in moments of stress. Phoebe emerged from the chamber to stand by her mistress, head cocked on one side, trying to understand what was happening.

  ‘I’ll get some wine. These fits I can’t stand. Right and natural they’re not,’ said Hezikiee, plunging away down the corridor in her slippers.

  Gradually the fit subsided. Ismene became limp and pale. She cried. She buried her face in Phoebe’s dark fur.

  Soothingly, Jocasta told her that all was well. Lifting her with tender care, she carried the child back to her room, and summoned a servant to wash Ismene all over, since she had pissed herself. The servant, not looking greatly pleased, set about the task, with towels and cold perfumed water.

  Jocasta convinced herself that no further harm would come to her younger daughter. As swiftly as she could, she went to her ancient grandmother. Semele wore only a goatskin, the head of the goat dangling between her legs. The old prunes of her dugs lay naked against her ribs. She wore on her head a crown of juniper leaves and twigs, making her look more primitive and grander than usual. She leant with an elbow on her stone altar. On that altar, something still smoked, giving off a rancid smell.

  ‘It’s daylight. The rifts between dawn and dusk are the perfect times, when the Great Light is adrift in the world-river.’ She raised her scrawny arms above the green crown on her head. ‘That’s when you know best what you know at all. What you don’t know can be summoned up. Then the unknown comes off its throne. What you can’t recall can be called forth. What you call can come. What cannot speak is dumb.’

  ‘Well, Gran, I’ve come to ask you what you’re up to!’

  Semele turned her back on her granddaughter and inhaled from a smoking tube, before exhaling with a sigh of satisfaction.

  ‘I’m up to my helm in another realm. Don’t ask or irritate or ingratiate. I wait at a gate where everything lives that lived late.’

  ‘Stop it, will you! What have you been doing?’

  The old woman rearranged herself to face Jocasta. She pulled a face which showed her yellowed teeth and her gums. She made chattering noises before deviating into speech.

  ‘Don’t be aggravating! You asked me to deliver a person waiting, a person waiting in the womb-time of tomorrow, that great town – a man of some renown.’ She had begun a sort of slow dance, hardly moving her feet. The goat’s head jogged in her crotch, bracelets of bronze clanked at her wrist.

  ‘Yes, yes. Sophocles by name. And?’

  ‘Yes, Sophocles by name. I magicked him. The birds I burn bid him return. Though dim, he came.’

  ‘You dotty old woman. Stand still, will you? If he came, he did not come to me. He came to Ismene and frightened the life out of her!’

  ‘Oh, is there life in her, or is she in life? If there’s strife in her, then she’s in strife! To show that she’s unfit she has a fit about it.’

  ‘What have you been taking? What’s that you’re smoking? What’s the point of summoning up Sophocles if he does not come to me?’

  Semele shrieked with laughter, smacking her knobbly knees.

  ‘Oh, he’ll come back, right back, now I have the knack. When all’s done and said, you were too long in bed. You overslept, and so the tryst was never kept! You were just too late – the playwrights of this world won’t wait.’

  She plunged both hands into the still-smouldering embers of her hearth and flung them above her head. The thrown pieces turned into dark sad birds which flew eastwards towards the rising sun.

  11

  Oedipus needed no word from his daughter. Rising early from his bath, roused by the same noise of returning soldiery which had awakened Ismene, he had looked from his vantage point and seen the shadowy figure of Chrysippus waiting beside a pillar.

  The sight did not improve Oedipus’ mood. When he had encountered Jocasta in the garden during the evening of the previous day, he had kept from her the reason why he was there.

  He was revisiting the scene of a crime he had committed.

  The Sphinx had died of grief, his Sphinx, his trophy, to whom much was owed. Thalia’s prophecy said that the death of the Sphinx would bring about the death of Oedipus himself and the fall of his house.

  So he had walked about his garden. He had come to a place beneath the wall where grew an ancient apple tree, both its trunk and its fruits covered in scabs. The tree had been young when Semele was young, an age ago. There he would have the Sphinx buried.

  He had stood beneath the scabby branches and wept freely.

  How could a man be happy?

  Why had there always to be grief, coming wave on wave, as the sea breaks without cease on a desolate shore?

  What could a man do to be quiet and philosophical and kind?

  He commanded four slaves to drag the body of his pet out from the palace. All was done in secrecy. The slaves, with tremendous labour, dug an immense hole. Despite the curses of their master, they worked slowly, probably fearing what might befall when the task was finished. Into the hole at last was heaved the body of the Sphinx – that body whose contradictions symbolised the old seasons. Oedipus stood by the grave, sword in hand, watching by the light of the moon and one yellow-complexioned lantern as soil was cast down over the defunct creature.

  The brief prayer he uttered held as much complaint as supplication. He made the slaves kneel on the brink of the grave. Shudderingly, all four obeyed his command.

  One, the youngest of the four, turned his face towards Oedipus, saying, ‘Great king, I wish my dear mother—’

  Four times Oedipus wielded his sword. Four heads fell into the grave. Four bodies fell into the grave. No cry was uttered. ‘So much for your damned mother …’ said Oedipus to himself, wiping hi
s blade on the grass.

  Three of the slaves had been born in distant Illyria, beyond the mountains. The fourth was a local man.

  No one outside the palace walls should know that the life of the Sphinx was at an end. For a long while beyond moonset Oedipus worked, filling in the hole, covering the bodies, finally stamping down the soil, replacing the grassy turfs. Last of all, he drove his sword down into the ground, until even its hilt was covered.

  ‘Secrecy must overcome mercy,’ he said aloud, but his voice trembled and his teeth clattered together.

  He knelt and prayed that this grave might never be opened, nor discovered. He also prayed that he might live. And his Jocasta also.

  Whispering this prayer, he heard – or he thought he heard – mocking laughter. He stood, looked about him, listened.

  Semele was creeping round in the chilly pre-dawn air, collecting kindling, preparing for a fire on her altar. She carried a lighted flambeau and was chanting softly. He saw her ancient face, distorted by the light of her flame.

  Taking care that the old witch should not see him, Oedipus found he could only linger in the garden as if tethered there. Only after much time had passed and the moon was sinking among the barren hills did he return to his chambers. There, he called to a mute manservant for water. He lay soaking in a bath, sluicing the dirt of the grave from his body.

  ‘Apollo, I am innocent. Apollo, I am innocent. They were but miserable slaves. Apollo, I am innocent. Hear me, great Apollo!’

  He woke undrowned and gloomy in the morning. To drape himself and slouch onto his balcony. To see in the dim light of dawn the figure of Chrysippus, lounging against a pillar, arms folded, casting his gaze over the palace. And to know that Apollo was not deceived.