Sphinxes and Satyrs are found on some beautiful, turquoise vases that adorn the patios and paths in the Castle Garden. A pair lining the forecourt have Satyrs as handles; these were wild, half-man, half-beast spirits associated with Dionysus, the god of wine and famed for their debauchery and outrageous behaviour. An adjacent pair are decorated with Lions.
The pair at the entrance to the ‘Tower Lawn’ are described as bronze garden vases with sphinxes; a Sphinx was a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. The Sphinx was a protective spirit to the ancient Egyptians but a monster to the ancient Greeks; the Sphinx of Thebes asked travellers a riddle and devoured them when they failed to answer correctly. The riddle, ““What has one voice but goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?” was finally solved by Oedipus: “Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and; in old age, he uses a walking stick”. The astonished sphinx killed herself. Oedipus, who, earlier and unknowingly, killed his father King Laius in an argument, accepted the throne that was promised by the grateful city and married the widowed queen, his mother Jocasta. Later, to save the city from repeated plagues and make good on a further prophecy, Oedipus hunted the King’s killer and eventually discovered the truth about his parents, including that his father left him for dead in the mountains as a baby to avoid a prophecy that his son would kill him and marry his mother. Oedipus was rescued by a shepherd and raised by the King and Queen of Corinth. When, as a young man, he was given the same prophecy, he fled to Thebes, confident that he could outrun his fate and, as King, arrogantly believed he had outwitted the Gods. As he could not bear to see the children he had fathered with his mother, Oedipus blinded himself, and in despair, left the city and spent the rest of his life as a beggar; his rise and fall is the great tragedy of inescapable fate, and that “hubris breeds the tyrant.” Perhaps unsurprisingly given the times, Sophocles’ Theban plays, and especially Oedipus Rex, remain hugely popular today.
All three designs in the Castle Garden are likely to be 19th century copies of those produced in 1665 by Charles Ballin for the Parterres created around the Sun King’s new palace of Versailles. And they are available to purchase today for a pretty price. The half dozen vases at Sissinghurst are planted with early spring flowers and will look their best in a month.
The gardens and orchards are bare, barring the monocultures of pale mauve crocus, patches of sparkling aconites, snowdrops,hellebores, cyclamen and iris; but the herbaceous plants are just starting to burst through the dark earth and there is a real sense that winter is turning to Spring. At the end of the day, the dying sun lights up up the old castle’s rich red walls.
