Jason and Medeia (19 page)

rest of us.

Then Herakles spoke. Said stupid words, great

bloated mushrooms—

Honor, Loyalty, Lofty Mission, Cowardice, Fame— grand assumptions of his lame-brained, muscular soul.

As if

the universe had honor in it, or loyalty, or lofty mission because, in the mindless knee-bends,

push-ups,

hammer-throws of his innocence, he believed in them. We could not look him in the eye or give him answer.

He had

the power to take off our heads as children tear off

branches

in a nut orchard, if he chose to think that “honorable.” Was I willing to die for Hypsipyle? Would she for me? You've lived too long, no doubt, when you've learned

that time takes care

of grief. We were young, but many bad lived too long.

So that

we said, rational as curled, dry leaves in an angry wind, we'd go. And prepared our gear.

“When the women got word of it

they came down running, and swarmed around us like

bees that pour

from the rocky hive when the meadows are jewelled with

dew and the lilies

are bloated with all bees need. Hypsipyle took my hands in hers and said, ‘Go then, Jason. Do what you must. Return when you've captured the fleece. The throne

will be waiting for you,

and I will be waiting, standing summer and winter on

the wall,

watching, surviving on hope. Believe in my love, Jason. Set my love like a seal on your heart, more firm

than death.

Swear you'll return.' I said I would. She didn't believe it, nor did I believe she'd wait. We kissed. The gods be

with you,

‘I said. She studied my face. ‘Don't speak of the gods,'

she said.

‘Be true to me.' She guided my hand to her breast.

‘Remember!'

“And so we sailed. My gentle cousin Akastos wept for fair Iphinoe—they were both virgins when we'd

first arrived.

‘I'll love her till the day I die,' he said. listen to me,

Jason.

I see the defeat in your eyes. They say what Idas says: God is a spider. But I say, No! Beware such thoughts! God is what happens when a man and woman in love

grow selfless,

or a man feels grief for his friend's despair, or his

cousin's—grieves

as I do for you.' He turned his head, embarrassed

by tears,

and Phlias the mute, Dionysos' son, reached out and

touched him.

‘I'm only a man. I can't undo all the evils of the world or answer the questions of the staring Sphinx who sits,

stone calm,

indifferent to time and place, his kingly head beyond concern for the love and hate that his lional chest

can't feel.

I can't undo your scorn for words, whether Herakles'

words

or mine. But I can say this, and be sure: I'll love Iphinoe and swear that my gift is by no means uncommon, as

you may learn

by proof of my love for you. Scorn on, if scorn gives

comfort.'

I understood well enough his depth of devotion. I felt the same for him. How could I not? Those violent eyes, that scrawny frame in which, in plain opposition to

reason,

he'd stand up to giants. God knew. And be slaughtered.

“I let it pass,

watching the sea-jaws snap at our driving oars. So

Lemnos

sank below the horizon and little by little, sank from mind. The
Argo
was silent. Tiphys watched the prow, steering through rocks like teeth. Above, no two clouds

touched.

The sky was a sepulchre. It did not seem to me, that day, that gods looked down on us, applauding. No one spoke.

We sailed.

Ankaios said—huge boy in a bearskin—'Who can say what his fate may bring if he keeps his courage

strong? ‘I laughed.

Akastos' jaw went tight. I understood, understood.”

Jason paused, frowning. He decided to say no more. So the day went, by Jason's gift, to Paidoboron, mournful, black-bearded guest from the North. And

yet the day went

to Jason, too. From him those gloomy sayings came, sayings darker, I thought, than any Paidoboron spoke. Kreon said nothing when the tale was done, but stared

at his hands

on the table, looking old, soul-weary, as if he'd been

there.

As Jason rose, excusing himself to go home—it was

late—

the king stopped him. “You've given us much to think

about,

as usual. It's a tale terrible enough, God knows. It's filled my mind with shadows, unpleasant memories. My philosophy's been, perhaps—” he paused, “—too

sanguine.” He looked

at Pyripta. Her gentle eyes were shining, brimming

with tears

for Lemnos' queen. She had not missed, I thought, what

Jason

meant by that talk of betrayal. Were they not now

asking the same

of him—betrayal of Medeia? And was he not toying

with it?

“Consider Pyripta!” the tale cried out. But she was

a child,

and the demand strange. It came to me that she

was beautiful.

Not handsomely formed, like Medeia, and not

voluptuous,

but beautiful nevertheless—a beauty of meaning, like

a common

hill-shrine, crudely carved, to the gentlest, wisest of gods, Apollo, avenger of wrongs. The king said, glancing up, “You'll return and tell us more? We'd be sorry to be left

in this mood.”

He said nothing. I noticed, of Jason's staying in the

palace, this time.

Jason was looking at the princess, seeing her as I had

seen her.

No wonder. I thought, if he longed to escape from

Medeia's stern eyes

to those—unjudging, filled with innocent compassion.

“If you wish,”

he said. The old king squeezed his hand. Pyripta smiled. “Come early tomorrow,” she said. She seemed surprised

that she'd spoken.

That morning, seven of the sea-kings made small

trades—rich ikons,

jewels and tapestries—and left. The omens were bad.

Medeia

naked on her bed—old Agapetika beside her—stared at nothing. For a moment, like Jason, I thought she was

dead. The slave

shook her head, too grieved for speech. He called a

physician.

The doctor examined her, listened to her heart, looked

solemn. She would

be well, he said, though the lady might lie in this

deathlike carus

for days—perhaps three or four, perhaps a week. He saw her face but did not inquire concerning the scratches.

Jason

closed the door on her softly, going to his sons. He took

them

from the old man's care and held them a moment. Then

they went out

and walked in the early morning air, though he hadn't

yet slept. I sat

beside her, touching her hand, watching the shadows of

the garden

travel across her face. Her slave had cleaned the wounds. They'd leave no scars. Her scars were deeper. Poor

innocent!

My hands moved through the cloth when I tried to

cover her.

Kreon, looking at the city, showed his age. His fingers shook. The game has changed,” he said. Ipnolebes—

standing

bent, morose, beside him—peered into memories:

tongues

of flame exploring curtains, the silent collapse of beams, hurrying men in armor, old women screaming, their

shrieks

soundless in the roar of fire. (I saw what Ipnolebes

saw—

trick of the dead-eyed moon-goddess. “End it, my

lord,” he said.

But Kreon frowned. “The gods will see to the end when

it's time.

Our man has begun a voyage on what he took to be familiar seas, and found the world transformed. By

chance—

the accident of an angry woman, a scene on the street— Athena's ship is transmogrified, and all of us with it. Get off if you can! The pilot's eyes have changed;

the world

he sailed, all childish bravura, has grown more dark.

Shall we

pretend that his darkened seas are a harmless phantasy? I don't much care for nightmare-ships. No more than

you do.

But I do not think it wise to flee toward happier dreams, singing in the dark, my eyes clenched shut, if the

nightmare world

is real. Somewhere ahead of us, the throne of Corinth waits for her king's successor—law or chaos. Towns are not preserved, I fear, by childish optimism. Alas, my friend, he's turned the
Argo's
prow to the void.
We'll
watch and wait, follow him into the darkness

and through it.”

So the old king spoke, nodding to himself. Then went to bed. Ipnolebes sighed, went down to his own small

couch.

“Hopeless,” I whispered, bending close to the old

slave's ear,

for surely he, at least, had the wits to hear me.

“Darkness

has
no other side. Turn back in time!” The slave slept on, snoring. I stared at the hairy nostrils, peeked at the blackness beyond the fallen walls of teeth, then

stepped back,

shocked. There was fire in his mouth: the screams of

women and children.

“Goddess! Goddess!” I whispered. But the walls of the

dream were sealed,

dark, deep-grounded as birth and death. I heard their

laughter,

dry and eternal as the wind. No trace of hope.

8

He said:

“Faith wasn't our business. Herakles' business, maybe; sailing the cool, treacherous seas of the barbarians. Or faith was Orpheus' business—singing, picking at his

lyre,

conversing with winds and rain.

“We beached at Samothrace,

island of Elektra, Atlas' child, where Kadmos of Thebes first glimpsed his faultless wife. The stop was

Orpheus' idea.

If we took the initiation, learned the secret rites, we might sail on to Kolchis with greater confidence, ‘sure of our ground,' he said. I smiled. But gave

the order.

I knew well enough what uncertainty he had in mind, on my back the sky-blue cape from Lemnos' queen,

a proof

of undying love, she said; and all around me on the

Argo,

slaves of Herakles' strength, if not of his idiot ideas; betrayers, as I was myself, of vows of faithfulness. Trust was dead on the
Argo,
though no one spoke of it. We had at least our manners … perhaps mere mutual

compassion.

“We glided in where the water was dark, reflecting

trees,

the steering-oar turning in Tiphys' hands like a part of

himself,

the rowers automatic, the laws of our nautical art in

their blood.

And so came in to our mooring place, where vestal

virgins

waited in the ancient attire, and palsied, white-robed

priests

stood with their arms uplifted, figures like stone. We

waded

in, and told them our wish. They bowed, then moved,

formulaic

as antique songs, to the temple. And so that night we

saw

the mysteries. Impressive, of course. I watched, went

through

the motions. Maybe, as the priests pretended, the land

had mysterious

powers; and maybe not. All the same to me. Sly magic, communion with gods—it made no difference. Tell me

the fire

that bursts, sudden and astounding, in the huge dark

limbs of an oak,

lighting the ground for a mile, is some god visiting us, and I answer, “Welcome, visitor! Have some meat!'

Politely.

What's it to me if the gods fly to earth, take nests

in trees?

Black Idas scornfully lifted his middle finger to them, daring their rage. Not I. I wished the gods no ill. No more than I wished the grass any ill, or passing

salamanders.

Herakles pressed his forehead to the ground and wept,

vast shoulders

swelling with power, a gift of the holy visitor, he

thought.

I wished him well, though I might have suggested to

the hero, if I liked,

that terror can trigger mysterious juices in the fleeing

deer,

and the scent of blood makes lions unnaturally strong.

More tricks

of chemistry. But live and let live. Idmon and Mopsos, the
Argo's
seers, were respectful. Professional courtesy,

maybe;

or maybe the real thing. Of no importance. Orpheus watched like a hawk. As for myself, I made the intruder welcome, since he was there, if he was. I might have

been happy

to learn the principles of faith between men—husbands

and wives,

fellow adventurers—or the rules of faith between one

man's mind

and heart, if any such rules exist. I'd been, all my life, on a mission not of my own choosing (the fleece no

more

than an instance), a mission I was powerless to choose

against. Such rules

would perhaps have been of interest. But they did not

teach them there.

Elsewhere, perhaps. I'll leave it to you to judge. We

learned,

there, that priests can do strange things; that

worshippers have

a certain stance, expressions, gestures submissive to

reason's

analysis—as the worshipped is not. We learned what

we knew:

politeness to gods is best. Then sailed on. over the gulf of Melas, the land of the Thracians portside, Imbros

north,

o starboard.

“We reached the foreland of the Khersonese,

where we met strong wind from the south. We set our

sails to it

and entered the current of the Hellespont. By dawn