Brian Aldiss - Jocasta - Wife and Mother

A shadow lies over it, over it.

This is the house that’s bound to fall.

Innocence lost –

Terrible cost –

You’ll not recover it!

‘I’ll give you recover!’ shrieked Semele. ‘You’ll not recover when I swat you lot, you flying bitches!’

Jocasta ran forward, crying to Semele to stop. She seized the old woman’s skinny arm, and bid her be silent. These flying creatures were the Furies, the Kindly Ones, who must be appeased.

‘Fetch milk and wine for them. Bow to them. Make every attempt to flatter them – if it’s not too late.’

‘Not me, Jocasta girl. I’ll have nothing to do with them.’ With that she flung down the broom and ran into the darkness of her house.

Jocasta raised her pale arms above her, calling to the snarling creatures which fluttered close to her head. ‘We’re sorry, we intended you no harm. My grandmother is old and mad. I am your friend. Welcome, thrice welcome! Why are you visiting us?’

The dreadful creatures wore distorted imitations of female faces, emaciated baby bodies and disproportionately large dugs, with tiny bulging bellies and whiplike tails. They flew on wings resembling those of large bats, while the flanges of their over-developed ears, trained to pick up any whisper of human hubris, met in the middle of their foreheads, pipistrelle fashion. Taking up Jocasta’s words, they chanted:

Too late! Too late!

Too late by far!

We’ve come today

Only to say

You and your mate

Must face your fate!

Har har har!

Spitting and shrieking with horrid laughter, they rose higher, their bat wings drumming against the air.

It’s as I thought, you vile pests, said Jocasta to herself but, as had become her custom, what she said aloud was in different vein.

‘Oh, how melodious are your voices! But please don’t say that, dear ladies! Come and stay with us and you shall have wine, and milk served with honey. Tell us what we have done. And what the remedy is …’

But the evil creatures rose above the tiles of the roof, striking into the pure air, and were away, their unwholesome figures dwindling with distance.

‘Oh, Zeus!’ exclaimed Jocasta, clutching her head. ‘As if I do not know what this ghastly visit forebodes!’

‘You don’t believe that old nonsense, do you?’ said Semele, poking her head out through her door. Her laughter was almost as shrill as that of the so-called Kindly Ones. ‘Those ancient harridans need a covering by bulls, that’s what!’

The skirmish roused a beast within the hut. From the grandmother’s suite burst forth the Sphinx, terrifying in height, miscellaneous in form, grand in colour. Flapping her wings as soon as she gained the open, rising no more than a metre above the thyme with which the square was bedded, she squawked in indignation as she went. A griffin came chasing after her. The griffin saw Jocasta, turned tail, and darted back into Semele’s quarters.

As he did so, Semele’s venerable prune of a face reappeared, screaming, ‘I won’t have that Sphinx-thing in here. It keeps going invisible – just to annoy me! Lock the damned thing up, will you?’

Jocasta stood back as the monster approached, still squawking. She loomed above the queen, who saw that her hindquarters were still not entirely visible. The Sphinx was a considerable riddle of a beast, her lion’s body, eagle’s wings and serpent’s tail, emblems of the three seasons, not consorting well together. Clumsy she certainly was, yet impressive. Her woman’s face with its cat’s whiskers was distorted by irritation.

Landing in a flutter of feathers, the creature demanded of Jocasta, in her fluting voice, ‘Is Oedipus surrounded by those moaning mouths again?’

‘Is this another of your riddles?’ Jocasta asked. She placed a hand over the generous contour of her left breast, to calm a heart still beating from the encounter with the Furies. ‘Must you always be in such a flutter, dear Sphinx?’

‘Why should I not flutter? I should live among the stars … Am I not a captive?’

We are all captives of something, said Jocasta to herself. Aloud she replied, ‘You are free to come and go within the palace grounds. They are more comfortable than the stars. Try to be happy with that.’

The great creature loomed over her before sitting and scratching herself with a back leg, in a show of nonchalance.

‘You are never at ease with me,’ she said. ‘What is the reason? Let us be frank with one another – I have never been Oedipus’ mother.’

Jocasta tried to laugh. ‘Then why act like it?’

‘I shall be a mother.’ The creature gave a great squawk before rushing on with her discourse.

‘Your grandmother tells me that we have to process to the coast. Will Oedipus lead me on that golden chain I hate so much? Will I have to walk? Could I not fly? How wretched is my state. Doesn’t Oedipus know I am expecting to lay an egg at any time, and cannot travel? Has he no compassion?’ Her voice was high with maternal indignation. She shook her scanty mane. As the feathers floated to the ground, they became invisible.

‘Of course he has compassion. Didn’t he save you from death, dear Sphinx? He has much on his mind, with Thebes suffering from famine.’

The creature stretched herself out on the ground with her hindquarters towards Jocasta. She spoke without looking at her. ‘Why must the tyrant travel at all?’

‘We leave for Paralia Avidos in the morning. It’s ritual. We shall worship at the shrine of Apollo, in order to lift the weight of misery from the shoulders of Thebes. If you’re going to cause trouble, Sphinx, I’ll have to lock you up in your cage.’

At this threat, the Sphinx turned her head to gaze piteously at Jocasta.

Jocasta looked straight into the creature’s great hazel eyes, wherein lived something both animal and human. It prompted her to pat the feathery flank and say, ‘I love you, dear Sphinx, but you’re such a trouble.’

‘By the great broken blue eggshells of Cithaeron Hollow, what have I done to offend you, O Jocasta?’ The voice rose shriller still, sinking to a faint warble to ask, ‘What about ancient Semele’s griffins? They possess neither sense nor sensibility. How about locking up those wretched little animals?’

So saying, the creature bounded over Jocasta’s head and squeezed herself into the entrance of the palace in quest of Oedipus. Jocasta stood watching a stray feather float to earth and disappear. She inhaled the fragrance of the herbs underfoot. Then with a shrug of her shoulders she went to look in on her old grandmother.

‘Shit!’ exclaimed Semele, pulling irritably at a braid of her tangled grey hair. ‘That wretched Sphinx! So cunning. Its shit’s invisible. Only turns visible after a while, when the damned thing’s gone.’ The old woman was either addressing her great-grandson, Polynices, or talking to herself. Certainly the half-naked boy gave no response.

‘Why it can’t drop a decent visible turd like everyone else I don’t know. Even the steam off it is invisible, and that’s odd … I’m sure there was nothing like this when I was young. People seem to be eating more these days, so I suppose they’re shitting more. Adonis had an idea that you could shove the shit back up your arsehole and then you wouldn’t need to eat.’

‘Don’t talk in that manner, Grandmother,’ said Jocasta. ‘It’s so crude. These are days of greater civility than used to be.’

‘Did Adonis manage it?’ asked young Polynices, without curiosity. He lay sprawling on a rug, regarding the ceiling where a bluebottle buzzed furiously in the entanglements of a spider’s web. A small spider rushed in for the kill.