Ted Hughes - tortured or twisted?

You reap what you sow

Ted Hughes widow has just released a poem about his reaction to Sylvia Plath's suicide. It reveals Ted's tortured state of mind and apparent guilt about Sylvia's suicide. Ted was all man - big, bold and brusque and yet this was tempered with incredible sensitivity as revealed in his poetry.

But Ted was full of dichotomies and essentially flawed. A serial adulterer, his self-destruct dial was set to max, and because of this, not just one, but three lives were lost.

Sylivia Plath's suicide is often recounted and blamed on Hughes, but what about Assia Wevill and her four year old daughter Shura? Assia also committed suicide and took Shura with her when Hughes cheated on her. Granted Assia was no angel and as often happens in these unfortunate circumstances – she reaped what she had sown.

Their affair had started after Wevill and her husband, David, visited Hughes and Plath at their home, also in Devon, in 1962. Assia claimed that Hughes had kissed her when they were alone together in the kitchen. Five weeks later, Hughes hurried to a London agency where Wevill was working, scribbled a note and left it with the receptionist. It said: 'I have come to see you, despite all marriages.'

Assia couldn't resist the thrill of responding and from her office window, she noticed that a gardener was mowing the lawn below - and found her inspiration. She went down, picked up a single blade of the freshly cut grass, dipped it in Dior perfume and sent it to Ted. Three days later, an envelope arrived at Assia's office: in it, the blade of grass lay beside one from Devon and the die was cast.

What a tangled web they weaved – one so murky and bloodstained it was worthy of a Jacobean horror play. Assia's husband David found out about their liaison and took an overdose of sleeping pills, but survived, otherwise Ted would have had four deaths on his conscience.

It's ironic that Assia told friends that Ted's lovemaking was so ferocious that 'in bed, he smells like a butcher.' Because that's exactly what he was...metaphorically.

How horrific that within two days of Sylvia's suicide, Ted and Assia starting sharing her bed in the London flat where she died. Assia was probably already pregnant by Ted and used the same bed to recover from an abortion six weeks later.

The couple parted in 1968 after Ted embarked on another affair. The following year, at the age of 42, Assia gassed herself, just as Plath had done. In a diary entry, she blamed the ghost of Plath for making her suicidal.

With so much blood on his hands, no wonder Ted was a tortured soul. The tragedy is he had the power to prevent Sylvia's, Assia's and Shura's deaths – but chose otherwise.