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THE EYES OF OEDIPUS

The wounds of Oedipus's eyes which have bled for so long are beginning to heal. Black tears no longer course down his cheeks, inspiring the horrific feeling in others that these are their own bloodied tears. The appalling chaos that has reigned over the palace since the death of Iocasta is subsiding. Creon has reinstated the customs and ceremonies of old but everyone in Thebes is aware of the persistence of a secret and ominous rift.

It has taken Oedipus a long time, almost a year, to understand. If at times his sons are restless and quarrelsome, if at times a muted murmur of distress rises from the city; then Creon who holds the reins of power, remains patient, very patient. For he knows that one day Oedipus will not be able to wait any longer. But what is he waiting for?

That night, the huge white seagull hovering over Corinth, the sight of which has helped Oedipus endure the interminable days and nights, does not appear in his dream. In its place, he sees an eagle alternately masking and unmasking the stars as it glides overhead. With one majestic movement, it swoops towards the earth beating its wings, terrorizing its prey as it draws nearer. Oedipus is that prey. He leaps aside and escapes the eagle's talons. He wakes, his senses alert, ready to fight.

At dawn, despite her brothers having forbidden her to do so, and the guard's obstructiveness, Antigone enters his room: `Father, you are calling me, you have no right.'

He has not spoken since that terrible day, so she is surprised, taken aback, when he replies: `I do have the right, but I have called no one.' She looks questioningly at the guard, who ascertains with a slight movement that Oedipus has not called. She leaves the room.

A few hours later she returns: `Father, you are calling me, you are calling me continually -- with your heart.' She is not crying. He feels she knows how to control herself.

`Tomorrow, at dawn, I shall leave. You and Ismene will lead me to the Northern Gate.'

`Where will you go?'

In a terrifying voice, he roars: `Nowhere! Anywhere! Away from Thebes!' He calms down and with a flick of his hand, dismisses her. He prefers to say no more, for the guard has left, no doubt to alert Creon or the two brothers, who at this hour, are to be found in the Great Hall, eyeing one another malevolently.

The next day, it is obvious that the soldiers have been thorough in forewarning the inhabitants, for the city is deserted, all doors and shutters closed.

Ismene gives Oedipus a gourd and attaches it to his belt, and Antigone hands him a staff. He weighs it in his hand and finds pleasure in the familiar contact. It is the wood of his favourite spear. He thinks: `This is a farewell gift from my sons.' He forgets that Antigone, like the boys, can handle the pike and the spear and that no weapon is unknown to her. The streets are silent except for the sound of their footsteps and the tap of Oedipus's staff as he fumbles across the flagstones. They arrive at the Northern Gate. Polynices emerges from the shadows. Single-handed, he unbars the enormous bronze reinforced gates. On the ramparts above them, Eteocles is armed, keeping watch over the city and the road that winds northwards through gardens and fields to become, very quickly, a track full of ruts and holes.

Ismene, who generally behaves well, has not stopped snivelling since they left the palace. Antigone, dry-eyed, is torn, troubled by something small and yet absurdly terrifying. With one hand she guides her father, with the other she carries the bag she prepared the evening before, along with the water bottle Ismene has given him. A beggar's bag to go nowhere. The idea, the image of Oedipus the King begging, is unbearable. She could not bring herself to give him the bag when they were in the palace, and now that he is leaving them, for good perhaps, now that he is about to pass through the formidable gateway, she still cannot do it. However, time presses, since Oedipus obviously wants to curtail his farewells. He kisses them, briefly says something which she cannot understand, and turns away. He is through the gate, his step and staff reverberating differently on the paving stones of the road, from on the flagstones of the city. She watches his broad back, his tall figure moving off into the distance. She wrings her hands. Wretched, she clutches the absurd bag which was to enable her father to be a beggar like any other. Still she does not cry; she sobs without tears. Then she, proud Antigone, howls with all her might. Ismene is appalled, she stammers: `Come! Let's go back,' while their father, blind and alone, begins his journey to nowhere. Antigone pushes away Polynices who is holding her back. She shouts: `Wait for me!' springs forward and runs down the road. Breathless, she catches up with Oedipus, drained by the run and her emotions. She can neither speak nor give him the bag. He stops: `Go back Antigone, no one can come with me!' and sets off again. She is chilled by his tone, for his words are not so much a father's command as the sentence of a city and the fearsome gods that watch over her. She turns and runs back to where Polynices is waiting for her in front of the gates. What a relief, he has not closed them! Crying, she throws herself into his open arms. Like Oedipus, he is tall, virile, handsome. But unlike him, he does not reject her. She loves him. Polynices, in his boyish, princely and ambitious way, loves her too. He strokes her hair, her shoulders -- flatters her, soothing her with his caresses as he does his horses. He tells her they must respect Oedipus's decision and not interfere. He does not question whether it really is his decision. He takes her by the arm, tries to drag her back into the city. She resists. She wants to stay on this side of the gates -- to cry and cry and cry. He is patient but the time allocated for Oedipus's departure has passed, he asks her to go and join Ismene so that he can close the gates. She wants to know why. He explains that all the gates of Thebes must be closed and remain closed that day and over the next three days for the ceremony of purification. It has been decreed. Suddenly she understands. It is the decree, passed the previous evening, forbidding Oedipus access to the city and the possibility of ever returning. It is their decree, the one she cannot accept and will never accept. Losing patience, Polynices pushes her towards the threshold of the city and tries to force her to across it.

This is no way to deal with the wayward girl who, catching her brother unawares, frees herself with a sudden movement. Staring at him, she moves backwards slowly, ready to fight. His despondency over his error of judgement soon turns to anger for he has run out of time and the decree is mandatory.

Above them, Eteocles is supervizing the closure of the gates, ready to report the slightest delay. Let her experience the life of the wanderer, a life of subterfuge. She'll be back. However, a surge of affection makes him take a beautiful object from his belt: `Have this. You'll need it!' Fearing a trap, she leaps back, like a young animal, and catches the object in flight. She looks at it: it is Polynices's finest dagger, the one she has always coveted. She thanks him with the mocking little curtsey that is so much a part of their ritual games but he does not respond with one of his grotesque grimaces. He is busy shutting the gates, barring them noisily behind him. Mournfully, Antigone looks at the ornamental bronze reinforcements that she had been so proud to see each time she returned to the city. She hears her brother dragging away Ismene, who by now is wailing loudly. She turns around. All she is carrying is Polynices's dagger and Oedipus's begging bag. She thinks: `I'll be the one who'll beg for him.' Seeing her move away, Eteocles, from high up on the ramparts, calls after her several times. She does not turn around but hurries one; their father is already out of sight.

Antigone does not run, she knows she only needs to walk to catch up with Oedipus. She follows him but there is a yearning inside her, pulling her not towards him but back to Thebes. Ahead, her father's tall figure advances with difficulty, with that insane obstinacy he has always had. Anger explodes within her. Why did he call her with his heart if it was only to reject her? Why did he stay so long in Thebes, humiliated and dejected, if he was to leave so abruptly? The consequences of this are all too obvious: with her two brothers' aspirations to the kingdom stronger than ever there is now open hostility between them; like an animal, Oedipus has been banished from the palace, from the city, and she, unable to endure this tragedy, is following him, with neither walking shoes nor overcoat, abandoning Ismene to the struggles and intrigues of the palace. Only too aware that she knows nothing of life beyond the useless things taught to a king's daughter, Antigone is frightened and bitter. Anything that was of value in Thebes, everything that gave them an aura of importance is now lost, engulfed in what Eteocles refers to as their father's mad, ludicrous adventure.

As she catches up with that great stooping figure advancing ahead of her, stumbling over stones and falling into potholes, Antigone's fury increases as she thinks of those who drove him out, especially the man who manipulated them all: Creon! Creon who loves Ismene so much because of her likeness to Iocasta; while she, Antigone, has inherited from her father her height, too tall for a girl, and her face, now blotchy and graceless. Her mother used to say: `You look like your father, be patient, you will be beautiful, very beautiful even.'

She is not far from Oedipus, who advances with difficulty; hesitating, ceaselessly tapping on the ground with his staff. She is hungry and thirsty, like him she is burnt by the sun, but by walking faster she can now and then stop and rest in the shade.

Oedipus is nearing a well; a peasant woman, holding a child by the hand, arrives at the same time. Orders must have been sent out from Thebes for she is the first person he has come across. Living in an isolated spot, this woman cannot have been warned. She sees he is blind and gives him water. She fills his gourd and he asks her to pour some water over his head. She laughs: `Like the soldiers do?'

He sighs: `As I used to once.'

She looks at him with a mixture of pity and respect. He thanks her. Despite the band over his eyes, he still has a wonderful smile. He sets off once more.

Antigone goes up to the well and announces her name; the woman responds by giving hers: Ilyssa. She fills the bowl left on the lip of the well and the two of them drink. Is Antigone with the blind man? Yes, she is.

`You shouldn't let him go off alone like that, he'll fall and hurt himself:

`It's what he wants.'

`It's what he wants, what he wants! He could so easily sprain his ankle. You must take charge, my girl!'

Antigone is horrified: `Take charge?'

`Yes, take charge, he might be glad to have someone leading him. Has he been off on his own like this for long?'

`He was thrown out of Thebes this morning.'

`So he's the old tyrant who killed his father! I shouldn't have spoken to him. I'll have to purify myself and my son too. What should I do?'

Antigone, who is familiar with the rites of Thebes, helps her perform them faithfully. Reassured, Ilyssa gets ready to leave. At last, Antigone has the courage to ask her for something to eat. Ilyssa brings her some bread from her house. She smiles, but does not approach her. She throws the bread on the ground. Antigone bends down and picks it up.

Oedipus is dizzy. It began when he first left the shady city streets to plunge unprotected into the wind and the harshness of the road. Is it the effect of the brilliance of the sun on his scarred eyes, or the result of being in the open air after all those months of inactivity, seated on the ground at the foot of a pillar in a small anteroom of the palace? He feels as if he is crossing a red fog streaked with dark lightning, or as if he is entering a suddenly bright zone with immediate painful consequences. With every step he takes he veers to the left or the right, hoping, expecting to follow the movement, exaggerating it until he loses his balance. He hurries, not because he is anxious to arrive somewhere, for he does not know, no longer wants to know where he might go. He hurries because he is Oedipus who has always hurried, who has always been hurried by others, by events and by the oracle. Except when the event, or was it the oracle, was Iocasta, when together they put themselves beyond what we know as time.

As Ilyssa poured the water over his head he thought how a similarly icy destiny had befallen him and what he referred to in those days as his happiness. Since then facts have become confused, unconnected events have sprung from nowhere. Like the dream of the eagle, which dragged him out of that humiliating corner of the palace where he could at least refuse to face up to the future. He can no longer allow himself to do this and must find a simple, empty place, where he can crumble and disappear. By following and hounding him like a last intrusive presence from Thebes, Antigone is threatening, challenging this aim so compatible with his vertigo.

He finds it increasingly difficult to continue on his way. His body aches from having lost the habit of walking. When he no longer feels the sun's heat on his brow he leaves the road and stretches out on the ground. An automatic reflex from his military life makes him take off his sandals and put down his staff and gourd.

Light steps approach, a hand slips a little grass and some leaves under his head and places a piece of bread in his hand. Antigone says: `That's all I have. I've already eaten the other half.' He does not refuse it but eats the bread which, though hard, tastes good. He hands her the gourd; with the next day in mind she takes a few sips only. He drinks, careful in turn to leave half the water. He too is thinking ahead. What misery! He says: `Antigone, tomorrow you must return to Thebes. It's what I want.' She says nothing and moves away. He tells himself he has no way of protecting her. As always, he falls asleep suddenly.

There is very little moonlight and Antigone is frightened of the dark. She daren't lie down at the side of the road like Oedipus. There is a vineyard a little further on. Between two rows of vines she will be hidden. She lies down in a furrow and wonders what she will do in the morning. She realizes she has no idea. He wants me to go back to Thebes, and I, with all my soul, long to also. But where does this longing come from? For I can hear another voice speaking to me at the same time, saying: Go with him, no matter where. That `no matter where' fills me with dread and yet attracts me. She is exhausted, no longer able to think clearly. She looks up at the thin crescent moon -- without doubt a goddess. A little dazed she thinks of all the goddesses, all the gods to whom she has offered libations, made sacrifices, for whom she has sung, danced and who are now with her, drowsy as she is with sleep, far from home, from Thebes, where they all existed.

She wakes early, numbed by the morning chill, aching from her night on the hard ground. The sun on the horizon is barely visible through the mist. Her father has not yet set off. He wakes and stretches in the grass. Trees grow between the rows of vines. Whereas the grapes are only just beginning to ripen, the fruit on the trees is ready to eat. She picks some and takes it to Oedipus. He accepts and shares it with her, chewing carefully, as she has always seen him do, like someone who knows that food is in short supply and must be rationed.

She goes back for more and is in the process of picking the fruit when she hears a shout behind her. She turns, it is the farmer, furious at seeing her thieving. She does not know what to do or how to justify what she is doing. At that moment Oedipus's tall frame appears behind her. As the man nears them, he sees Oedipus is blind. He says: `I didn't know, take what you want!'

With horror, Antigone sees Oedipus kneel, stretch out his arms towards the man and say, like a real beggar: `Give a little bread to the blind, as you would to Zeus and the great gods, protectors of Thebes.'

Nervously, the man asks: `Are you Oedipus, the old king?'

`I am a blind man, a supplicant. Don't come near me but give us a little bread to see us through the day.'

Terror-stricken, the man rushes away. Antigone thinks he is fleeing and will not return. She is horrified by what she has just witnessed; never did she imagine that her father could kneel and ask for bread. He stands up and she implores him: `Why do you humiliate yourself like this?'

The reply is not the one she dreads. He does not say: `For you,' but: `I ask for bread and say how things are.'

The farmer returns. Keeping a safe distance, he leaves a piece of bread and a small pitcher on the ground and hurries off. Antigone goes to take the bread, picks up the pitcher that contains a little wine and pours it into the gourd. In silence, they eat half the bread and Antigone puts the rest in the bag with the fruit.

He stands: `You saw what happened, worse incidents could occur on the road and I am in no position to protect you. Return to Thebes, Antigone; I am not ordering you, since you no longer wish to obey me, but I do beseech you to.'

She does not protest for she is frightened he might kneel at her feet to make her consent. She agrees.

They return to the road. He kisses her and they part, each in their own direction, he to the east and she to the west -- towards Thebes, the city with its seven gates closed to Oedipus.

She has walked for a long time, oblivious of the wind, the sun burning her, the length of her journey. Her heart is heavy but continues to draw her back to Thebes, as if there she might find peace and the answer to her questions. Overwhelmed by fatigue, her body no longer responding, she cannot help but slow down. With the last of her strength, she reaches the well where she met Ilyssa the previous day.

She lowers the bucket but is too tired to raise it. Afraid she will faint she is forced to lie down, and with the last vestiges of her strength, she calls Ilyssa. She must have sounded in great distress for Ilyssa comes running.

Ilyssa gives her a drink, washes her face and hands, and tells her to eat. She opens Antigone's bag and gives her the farmer's bread. Seeing it, Antigone thinks: `Oedipus has nothing, he is on the road with nothing.' She grabs the bag and wants to run off in pursuit. Ilyssa restrains her: `Eat and rest first and wait for the heat of the day to pass.' Like a little girl, Antigone sobs in Ilyssa's arms; she is consoled and led to the shade of a tree. Ilyssa gives her bread and biscuits. As the sun begins to go down and the road becomes shadier, she accompanies her part of the way: `Don't hurry. As my mother used to say: work needs time. The blind man cannot go fast, you will catch up with him -- but be careful, they say the bandit Clius is in the area. He is handsome and irresistible to women. Later he kills them.'

Ilyssa can go no further for she cannot leave her children. They embrace and Antigone, turning her back on Thebes, leaves to follow Oedipus. She walks slowly, stopping as Ilyssa advised her to, to rest and nibble at the bread. The weightiest and most secret part of her being has successfully tipped the balance and is pulling her towards the dark abyss over which Oedipus is leaning, and into which she will have to follow him.

By dusk, she can see her father in the distance; walking is an effort for him, he stops often and sometimes falls; his silhouette has changed. She would like to run and catch up with him but she remembers Ilyssa's advice and saves her strength. When she is nearer she sees that he is wearing a straw hat for protection. Someone must have given it to him, for he was not wearing it before. He can go no further and leaves the road to collapse at the foot of a tree. He has drunk all the water in the gourd and walked all day without food. He does not object when she raises to his lips the leather bottle that Ilyssa gave her. He drinks, incoherently muttering words in the Corinthian dialect which she does not understand. No doubt he has the beginnings of sunstroke, it is fortunate that he has the hat. Who gave it to him? `A man,' he replies, `who came like a hunter without making a sound and then left without saying a word.'

Oedipus does not seem surprised, not at feeling her close, nor at the food she brings. She thinks that perhaps he does not know who she is. She stays near him until he falls asleep, before finding herself some kind of shelter in a field.