Jocasta: Wife and Mother. Brian Aldiss

      JOCASTA: WIFE AND MOTHER

      Brian Aldiss

       Copyright

       The Friday Project

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

      Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2014

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

      Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780007482146

      Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007482153

      Version: 2014-11-12

       Dedication

      For JASON

      my Anglo-Greek grandson

      with

      hopes for his new life

      and for his generation

       She was not unprincipled. In many respects

       she was a ‘Good Woman’. But love and lust

       silenced her. She could have spoken.

       She did not speak. So the trap was sprung.

       From then on, decline was inevitable

       and a kingdom was lost.

       We all face similar crises

       wherein we are made or broken.

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       Jocasta

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

      

       Antigone

       Chapter I

       Chapter II

       Chapter III

       Chapter IV

       Chapter V

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       About the Author

      

       Other titles in the Brian Aldiss Collection

      

       About the Publisher

Jocasta

       1

      The flowers on the hillside were dying in the August heat. They crunched under Jocasta’s naked tread, spines of Skylokremida, crisp remains of Agriolitsa. Lizards scuttled away from her feet. It was said in the city that where the queen trod, clumps of yellow