(no subject)

[polutrope]

Antigone listens to the bard sing the story of Jason and Medea as many times as he’s willing to sing it. He tries to put her off sometimes, say he’s busy, or at least suggests something else she might want to hear – the Calydonian boar hunt, perhaps? And sometimes she lets herself be put off, and listens to the song of Meleager’s stubbornness and Althea’s pride; she sees Atalanta come striding across the plain, the arrows on her back, the very image of Artemis. But she learns Jason and Medea; when the bard is gone, she recites as much as she can remember, for Oedipus and Jocasta if they’ll listen, and for the walls if they won’t. She enlists Haemon to be Jason to her Medea; he protests sometimes – “why do I always have to be Jason?” – but always gives in.

She understands Medea, she’s decided. Not always; she couldn’t kill Polynices, even though he was annoying, but she knows in her heart why Medea killed her children. When she plays with Haemon, Medea always gives long speeches explaining why she’s doing what she’s doing (and Jason yawns and rolls his eyes); her dragons are formed of words. Haemon’s not always a satisfying Jason; she doesn’t want him to just sit there and take Medea’s words. He’s supposed to answer back, to protest, to claim his innocence. She does it for him sometimes, striking different poses for Jason and Medea.

***

Ismene learns the city. She knows each of the seven gates; when they were built, where the stone came from; who the artisans were; the stories shown on them. She avoids Antigone when she can – which, she admits to herself, is easy enough: Antigone hardly ever looks for her. And more, Ismene lives out in the city, while Antigone closes herself in. Ismene can’t understand her sister; the streets and alleys of Thebes are like her blood; the hall where Oedipus dispenses justice is her phren. Supplicants to the King of Thebes are always surprised to see a child by his side, and a female child at that; but Ismene listens to the laws and her father’s decision, solemn and quiet and slightly unnerving.


She doesn’t dislike her siblings; sure, Antigone’s overbearing and Eteocles is arrogant, and Polynices is a little too ready to tease, but they’re hers. It’s right that she love them, and so she does. From a distance: the physical distance of the inside of the hall and the outside, of the line in the center of the gate where Thebes becomes “somewhere else,” a somewhere else where her brothers hunt and ride and fight; and from the internal distance of Ismene’s thoughts. She has what no one else in her family does: reserve. Let Antigone have her Medea, and let Eteocles and Polynices fight; let Jocasta worry and blame herself; let Oedipus take the weight of the world on his shoulders. Ismene follows the rules, and always comes through to the other side.