Jason and Medeia (14 page)

‘Herakles!' But the hero scowled and shook his head, and without stirring from his seat, raising his right

hand

like a pillar, he said, ‘No, friends, I must refuse.

And I must

refuse, also, to let any other man stand up. The man who wears the pelt of a panther has shown

good sense

so far—Jason, Aison's son. Let Jason lead.'

“They clapped at his generosity and slapped my back, praising my cunning, swearing that I was the man

for the job,

no doubt of it! What can I say? I was flattered, excited. —But no, the thing's more complicated. I was a boy,

remember,

and beloved of the goddess of will, as many things since

have proved.

It had never crossed my mind that the crew would

turn like that,

as if they'd planned it, and all choose Herakles. —And

now

when the giant handed it back to me, and led the

clapping

himself, grinning, white teeth flashing, his muscular

face

all innocence, so open and boyish that we all smiled too, what I secretly felt was jealousy, almost rage. It makes me laugh now. What a donzel I was! But ah, at the

time,

how my heart smarted, hearing them praise me like

a god! He was

their leader, whatever they pretended. And rightly, of

course, he was better,

as plainly superior to me as the sun to a mill wheel.

And yet

I resented him, and I burned like a coal at their

feigned delight,

their self-delusion, in choosing me. I had half a mind to quit, sulking, and crawl away to some forest and live like a hermit. Screw them all! At the same time,

however,

I wanted to lead them, whether or not I was worthy—

I was,

God knew (and I knew), ambitious. All my life I've hated standing in somebody's shadow. So, with as good a grace as possible, I blinded myself to the obvious.

I accepted. Orpheus smiled, studying his fingernails.

“ ‘Second detail,' I shouted, and cleared my throat—

looking

guilty as sin, no doubt. ‘If you do indeed trust me with this honorable charge—' It came to me I was

putting it on

a trifle thick, and I hastily dropped the orbicular style. “We've two things left, and we may as well start on

both of them

at once. The first is the sacrifice to the gods—a feast to Phoibus, for warm, clear days, to Poseidon for

gentle seas,

and to Hera, who's been my special friend—thanks to

Pelias'

scorn of her. Also an altar on the shore to Apollo, the god of embarkation. And while we're waiting for

the slaves

to pick out oxen from the herd and drive them down

to us,

I suggest that we drag the
Argo
down into the water

and haul

our tackle on, and cast lots for the rowing benches.' They all agreed at once and I turned, ahead of them

all—

to show my fitness as a leader, I suppose, or escape

their eyes—

and threw myself into the work. They leaped to their

feet and followed.

“We piled our clothes on a smooth rock ledge which

long ago

was scoured by seas but now stood high and dry. Then, at Argus' suggestion, we strengthened the ship by

girding her round

with tough new rope, which we knotted taut on

either side

so her planks couldn't spring from their bolts but would

stand whatever force

the sea might hurl against them. We hollowed a runway

out,

wide enough for the
Argo's
beam, and we gouged it into the sea as far as the prow would reach, deeper and

deeper

as the trench advanced, below the level of her stem.

Then we laid

smooth rollers down, and tipped her up on the first of

the logs.

We swung the long oars inside out—the whole crew

moved

like a single man with a hundred legs—and we lashed

the handles

tight to the tholepins of bronze, leaving nearly a foot

and a half

projecting, to give us a hold. We took our places then on either side, and we dug in with our feet and put our chests to the oars. Then Tiphys, king of all

mariners, leaped

on board, and when he shouted, ‘Heave; we echoed

the shout

and heaved, putting our backs into it, pushing till

our necks

were swelled up like a puff-adder's, and our thick legs

shook

and our groins cried out. ‘Ah!; the
Argo
whispered.
‘Ah!'
At the first heave we'd shifted the ship from where

she lay,

and we strained forward to keep her on the move.

And move she did!

Between two files of huffing, shouting Akhaians,

the craft

ran swiftly down to the sea. The rollers, ground and

chafed

by the mighty keel, wheezed like oxen at the ship's

weight

and sent up a pall of smoke. The ship slid in and gave a cry and would have been off on her own to that

land of promise

if Herakles hadn't leaped in and seized her, the rest of

us shouting,

straining back on the hawsers with all our might.

She rocked,

gentle on the tide, singing, and we watched that

gentle roll,

and my heart was hungry for the sea.

“No need to tell you more.

We piled up shingle, there on the beach, working

together

like one man with a hundred hands, and we made

an altar

of olive wood. The herdsmen came to us, driving

the oxen

and we hailed them, praising their choice. A few of us

dragged the great

square beasts to the altar, and others came with

lustral water

and barleycorns, and I called to Apollo, god of my

fathers,

as I would have called to a man I knew—that's how

I felt

that morning, with the
Argo
singing, the men all

watching me,

arm in arm—I'd completely forgotten my resentment

now;

‘O hear us, Lord, Great God Apollo, you that dwell in Pegaisai, in Aison's city, you that promised to be my guide! Lord, bring our ship to Kolchis and back, and my friends all safe and sound! We'll bring you

countless gifts,

some in Pytho, some in Ortygia. O, Archer King, accept the sacrifice we bring you, payment in advance

for passage

safe to the fleece and home! Give us good luck as

we cast

the ship's cable; and send fair weather and a gentle

breeze.'

“I sprinkled the barleycorns in the fire, and Herakles and mighty Ankaios girded themselves for their work

with the beasts,

the child Ankaios, twelve feet tall, still wearing his

bearskin.

The first ox Herakles struck on the forehead with his

club, and it fell

where it stood. Dark blood came dribbling from its nose

and mouth. The second

Ankaios smote with his huge bronze axe—blood sprayed

and steamed—

and the ox pitched forward onto both its horns. The

men around them

slit the animals' throats, and flayed them, chopped

them up

with swords, and carved the flesh. They cut off the

sacred parts

from the thighs and heaped them together and, after

wrapping them

in fat, burned them on the faggots. I poured libations

out,

old unmixed wine. And Idmon the seer, with Mopsos

at his back,

both of them wise in the ways of the gods, watching

intently,

smiled and nodded, agreeing as surely as two heads

ruled

by a single mind, for the flames were bright that

surrounded the meat,

and the smoke ascended in dark spirals, exactly as it

should.

‘All's well for you,' they said, ‘though not for us all,

and not

without some troubles, and terrible dangers later.' It was enough, God knows, for the moment. The crew was

jubilant.

“We finished our duties to the other gods in the

same spirit.

It seemed to us that they all stood around us smiling,

unseen,

like larger figures of ourselves, all arm in arm, as

we were,

some with their hands on our shoulders, sharing our

joy. Great Zeus,

the very sea and hills, it seemed, locked arms and

shared

our joy, our eagerness to go! I wouldn't have given

much

that moment for the holy hermit's life in his sullen

woods

or stalking the barren island conversing with gulls

and snakes

praying, clenching his teeth against the civilities of man!

“Then we all cast lots for the benches, choosing our

oars—

or all of us but Herakles, for the whole crew said, and rightly, that a giant like that should take the midships seat, and the boy Ankaios

beside him;

and Tiphys, they all agreed, should be our helmsman,

the man

who knew when a swell was coming from miles away.

It was settled.

“The time of day had come when, after his midday

rest,

the sun begins to stretch out shadows of rocks over

fields,

and trees are dark at the base but bright above. We'd

spent

too long at our preparations. But no use fretting now. We strewed the sand with a thick covering of leaves

and lay

in rows, above where the surf sprawled, gray in the

dark. We ate,

and we drank the mellow wine the stewards had drawn

for us

in jugs. The men began telling stories, the way men will when things are going well and there's no more work,

and the wine

has made them conscious of the way they feel toward

friends, old times,

and the rest. There was nobody there, you'd have

thought, who could work up a mood

for quarrelling. I lay a little apart from the others, looking at the sky with my hands behind my head and

thinking,

hardly listening to the talk. And after a while, a strange malaise came over me. All was well for me, the seers had said, but not for all of us. I thought, briefly, of my mother. I might never see her again. I wondered

which

of my friends would never reach home. It was a queer

thing

I was doing. I suddenly wondered why—and saw myself as a murderer: Herakles, laughing by the fire, huge as

a mountain,

beautiful Hylas looking up at him, laughing in a voice that seemed an imitation of the hero's; Orpheus, polishing his delicate harp with hands like a lover's …

Abruptly,

I sat up, trying to check my gloomy thoughts—trying, to tell the truth, to shake off my sudden, senseless

shame.

Idas saw me. As darkness thickened he'd watched,

invisible,

except for his eyes. He laughed his nasty, madhouse

laugh

and yelled at me, too loud, like a deaf man. ‘Jason,' he

bawled,

‘tell us your morbid thoughts, O Lord of the Argonauts!' His eyes were wild. ‘Is it panic I spy on the face of the

warlike

Jason son of Aison? Fear of the dark, maybe? Lo, we've chosen you keeper of us all, and there you sit, quiet as a stone! Be brave, good man! We'll all protect

you,

now that we've solemnly chosen you—after deepest

thought,

you understand, and the most profound reflection!'

He laughed.

“By my keen spear, the spear that carries me farther in

war

than Zeus himself, I swear that no disaster shall trouble a hair of Jason's beard, so long as Idas is with him. That's the kind of ally you've got in me, old friend!' I couldn't tell if the lunatic meant to mock me or meant to defend me against some imagined foe. I doubt if he

knew

himself. I did know this: with a word, a single wild assertion, he'd made the night go stony dark as if he'd closed a door on the gods, and in that selfsame

gesture

closed out his friends—perhaps closed out the very

earth

at his feet. He lifted a full beaker with both dark hands and guzzled the sweet unwatered wine till his lips and

beard

were drenched with it. The men all cried out in anger

at his words,

and Idmon said—it was no mere guess, he spoke as

a seer—

Tour words are deadly!—and it's you, black Idas, who'll

die of them!

Crazy as you are, you've scoffed at almighty Zeus

himself!

Laugh all you will, the time will come—and soon,

man, soon—

when you'll roll your eyes like a sheep in flight from a

wolf, and no one,

nothing at your back but Zeus!'

“More loudly than before, mad Idas

laughed. “Woe be unto Idas! For he hath drunk of the

blood

of bulls. He will surely die! He'll crawl on his belly,

eat dust,

and children will kick him in the head! —Come now, my brave little seer! Employ your second sight and tell me: How do you mean to escape from poor mad Idas once he's proved your prophecies lie? I've

heard

you prophesied once you'd love some lady of Thrace till

your dying

day. Where's she gone now? Snuck off to the woods,

Idmon?

Wringing her fingers and moaning and plucking the

wild flowers,

timid as a rabbit, hiding from the eyes of men like

one of

the god's pale shuddering nuns? I have it on authority that Zeus is a man-eating spider.' He spoke in fury,