“There was a stone altar in the cave, which I knew of old; but now it was washed of blood and strewn with laurel. I went up to it, and the first of the Solemn Ones came up with shears, like an old priestess with a kindly face. She cut my forelock and laid it on the altar; and I saw the hair fire-red again, as at my dedication when I was a boy.”
His hands were folded in his lap, and his face saw. I kept quiet, lest I bring the darkness back again. But presently he stood up straight, and called, “Antigone!” like a man used to being obeyed.
The girl came up. She looked as a dog does, when the house is stirring for some change it does not know; one not very quick, but trusty, the kind that will lie on a grave until it dies.
She held out her arm for his hand—it seemed that the long use must have worn a hollow there—and they talked together. I could have heard their words, but did not. For as soon as I had a moment by myself, I knew why it was my brow felt tight and my belly sinking, and the cluck of hens pierced my head like needles. If a child had clapped its hands behind me, I should have jumped a foot. A cold snake seemed coiling along my bowels. I looked at the olive trees of sweet Kolonos; already scared birds were flustered and cluttering. It was the wrath of Poseidon Earth-Shaker, coming to a head at last and ready to burst the ground.
I looked about; at the old man talking to the girl, my Guard yawning at ease, the gawping peasants beyond the vine-rows. When my warning comes, I get enraged with the people round me, all so unmoved while I, who have faced things most of them would run a mile from, am sweating cold. But the gift and the burden is from the gods; and one must bear it so. I kept quiet, and beckoned the Kolonians. They came hopefully, picking up their stones again.
“Be still,” I said. “I have the warning of Poseidon. He will strike here before long. What do you expect, when you stone the suppliants at his altar?” At this they did not drop their stones, but bent and laid them like eggs upon the ground. I pointed them down the hill, and they went off, trying to run tiptoe. I could have laughed if I had not felt so sick.
Amyntor, who understood, said quietly, “I have seen to everything, the horses and the Guard. Come away and rest.”
“Yes,” I said, “but we must look after our guests first.” I turned to Oedipus, saying, “Come. It is time.” So it was and more; I had trouble to keep my voice steady.
He kissed the girl’s brow; she walked off down the hill, like a good dog sent home, and reaching out for me he laid on my arm his light strong fingers, with their seeing touch. “Child of Poseidon, if your father is ready, so am I. Bring me to where his door will open, and give me to the god.”
I stared at his empty eyes. When I took his meaning, I could have run like a horse from a burning byre. All my life, when the earthquake-sickness took me, I had schooled myself to give my warning before I got away, and that took all my steadfastness. My hair, which was already prickling, began to rise upon my head. He could not know what he asked of me. And then I thought, “But the god—he knows.”
Surely it was a Sending, this fearful thing; it could not have come from man. If I failed from fear, for certain his power would leave me. I said to Amyntor, “Take the men down the hill, and wait.” He stared at me. I looked sickly, I daresay. “Go,” I said, reminding myself what a good man he was, or else I might have struck him. “I must do this for the god.”
He grabbed up my hand and pressed it to his forehead, then quietly fell in the Guard and took them off. I was alone with Oedipus the Accursed, while the still air lay like lead on the moveless treetops, the bees were silent, and the birds cowered among the leaves.
He tightened his fingers, asking where we should go. “Hush,” I said; the least sound made me retch and shiver. “Wait, I must see.” But all I could feel was the longing to flee in time. So I thought, “Where do I want to run?” and then, slowly as an ox to the altar, I walked the other way. I saw where this was leading me, to the broken ground with the fir trees. Then such a horror squeezed my heart that I knew it was the place.
The blind man came with me quite easily, tapping with his stick before him. I steered him through the vine-rows, and up the slope to the gate. At every step my bursting head grew tighter, my heart beat harder, the goose-flesh rose on my neck and arms. That was my only guide, to go smelling like a dog after the scent of fear.
As we came up into the stony wasteland, he slid his fingers down my wrist to my hand. His felt quite warm and dry. “What is it?” he said gently, but still too loud for me. “You are sick, or in pain.”
One does not put face on, with a god breathing down one’s neck. I said, “I am afraid. We are getting near.” He pressed my hand kindly. I saw no fear in him; he had passed beyond it long ago. “It is only my warning,” I said. “When the god has spoken it will pass.”
The boulders with the fir trees were close ahead. I could have looked more quietly at my own grave. I have never been much scared of dying; I was brought up to be ready any time, for who can tell when the god will want his sacrifice? This was not fear of anything, or I could have met it. It was just fear, like a burning fever that makes you shake with cold. And yet, his voice no longer grated on me. There was even comfort in it.
“You are the heir of my death. I cannot give it to my people. Our line was sent as the curse of Thebes; God grant that my sons are childless.” His voice had hate in it; for a moment I glimpsed him in his prime, a red man with pale fierce eyes. But the flame died quickly. “To you, Theseus, and your land, I give my death and my blessing.”
“But,” I whispered, “they stoned you at the altar.”
“Why not?” He was calm and reasoning. “I killed my father.”
We were among the boulders. He threaded them without much help, seeming to feel them before the touch. My fear was sinking from my head to gripe my belly; I slipped away from him and voided it, and felt light and cold, but a little better. Coming back I steered him to clearer ground, and said, “Fate was your master. You did these things unknowing. Men have done worse at less cost.”
He smiled. Even as I was, it awed me. “So I said always, till I became a man.”
We had come to the edge of the horseshoe dip, and the fear in me was saying, “Be anywhere but here.” My head felt so empty it must float away; women say it is so before they swoon. So I thought, “I can no more. The god will take me or leave me, I am in his hand.” And I leaned upon a boulder, as limp as a wrung-out rag. But he still talked on.
“I was reared Polybios’ son. But I never favored him; it was talked of, and I heard. And when I asked the god at Delphi, his only answer was a warning. ‘You will kill the planter of your seed and sow the field you grew in.’ So. Did I not know that every man or woman past forty must be my father or mother now, before the god? I knew. When the redbeard cursed me from his chariot’s road and poked me with his spear, and the woman laughed beside him, did I not remember? Oh, yes. But my wrath was sweet to me. All my life, I could never forego my anger. ‘Only this once,’ I thought. ‘The gods will wait for one day.’ So I killed him and his foot-runners, for my battle-fury made me as strong as three. The woman was in the chariot, fumbling with the reins. I remembered her laughter. So I dragged her down, and threw her across her husband’s corpse.”
His words roosted in my mind like crows in a dead tree. I was so spent, I hardly shuddered.
“And later, when I rode as a victor into Thebes, shaven and washed and garlanded, she met my eyes and said nothing. She had only seen me in my anger; blood and rage and the grime of the dusty road will change a man. She was not sure. And the soft bright look of the wolf-bitch at the new leader of the pack … It is Theban law, that the King rules by right of marriage. To be a king, to be a king … I gave her a stranger’s greeting. I never told, she asked no questions. Never, until the end.”