Jason and Medeia (22 page)

heavy sword

and began to search through the place more widely,

on the chance that Hylas

had fallen to some wild beast or been ambushed by

savages.

If any were there, they'd have found that innocent easy

prey.

Then, as he ran along the path brandishing his naked

sword,

he came upon Herakles himself, hurrying homeward

to the ship

through the darkness, the tree on his shoulder.

Polyphemon knew him at once,

and he blurted out, gasping: ‘My lord, I must bring you

terrible news!

Hylas went out after water. He hasn't come back.

I fear

cruel savages caught him, or beasts are tearing him

apart. I heard him

cry.'

“When Herakles heard those words the sweat

poured down

his forehead and his dark blood boiled. In his fury, he

threw down

the pine and rushed off, hardly aware where his feet were taking

him.

As a bull, maddened by a gadfly's sting, comes up

stampeding

from the water-meadows, hurls himself crazily, crashing

into trees,

sometimes rushing on, stopped by nothing—the herd

and herdsmen

forgotten now—and sometimes pausing to lift up his

powerful

neck and bellow his pain, so Herakles ran, that night, sometimes pausing to fill the distance with his ringing

cry.

“But now the morning star rose over the topmost

peaks,

and with it there came a sailing breeze. Tiphys

awakened us

and urged us to embark at once, take advantage of the

wind. We scrambled

to the
Argo
in haste, pulled up the anchoring stones

and hauled

the ropes astern, all swiftly in the shadowy dark. The

wind

struck full; the sail bellied out; and soon we were far

at sea,

beyond Poseidon's Cape.

“But then, at the hour when clear-eyed

dawn peers out of the east, and the paths stand plain,

we saw

we'd left those three behind. No wonder if tempers

flashed!

We'd abandoned the mightiest and bravest Argonaut of

all! What could

I say? It was my mistake. I'd make plenty more, no

doubt,

before this maniac mission had reached its end.

—All this

for a shag of wool, the right to make dropsical

courtiers bow,

smile with their age-old hypocrisy—or dark-lumped

urchins

stretch for a cure of the king's evil. I tried to speak but couldn't. I covered my face with my hands and

wept. Mad Idas

chuckled. Catastrophe suited him, confirmed his ghastly metaphysics.

“But huge Telamon was rabid, uncle

of Akhilles—a man with a temper like that of the boy

who sits

this moment, if what we hear is true, chewing his

knuckles,

stubborn in his tent on the blood-slick plain of Troy.

He said:

‘Who are you fooling with your crocodile tears, sly son

of Aison?

Nothing could suit you better than abandoning Herakles. You planned the whole thing yourself, so that Herakles'

fame in Hellas,

if we make it back, can never eclipse your own. But

why waste

breath on you! We're turning around, and damned if

I'm asking

permission of the man who helped with your stinking

plot.' As he finished,

Telamon leaped at Tiphys' throat, his eyes ablaze with anger. In a minute we'd all have been fighting

our way back to Mysia,

forcing the ship through the rough sea, bucking a stiff

and steady

wind. But then the sons of the North Wind, Zetes and

Kalais,

shot quick as arrows between the two, and checked

Telamon

with a stinging rebuke. Traitor! Mutineer!' Kalais

shouted.

‘Are
you
now seizing the command the Argonauts chose

by vote?

Have northern seas made the
Argo
a ship of barbarians, where loyalty's muscle, and keeping faith to old vows

is a matter

of size?' Poor devils! A terrible punishment was coming

to them

when Herakles learned that their words cut short our

search. He killed

the North Wind's sons when they were returning home

from the funeral games

for Pelias; and he made a barrow over them, and set up

the famous

pillars, one of which sways whenever the North Wind moves across it, struggling to dig up his sons. —But

all that was

later.

“The wind grew stronger, bringing up clouds;

harsh sea-waves

hammered at the
Argo,
slammed at our gunwales till

the magic beams

of Athena's ship were howling in fury at Poseidon.

Orpheus

played, but the sea wouldn't hear. Then Idmon, younger

of the seers,

stood up, wild-eyed, and clinging to the mast, he yelled

out, ‘Listen!'

We listened, and heard … God only knows. But as if

in a dream

I saw a hand six paces broad rise un from the water and grasp the
Argo's
side, and the ship was still as a

stone

despite the terrible wind, the churning, pitch-dark waves. Then a voice heavier than thunder said: ‘Hear me,

Argonauts!

How dare ye, in proud defiance of Almighty Zeus, purpose to carry fierce Herakles to Kolchis? His fate assigns him Argos, where he's doomed to serve

Eurystheus,

accomplishing for him twelve great tasks; and if, in the

few

remaining, he happens to prevail, he shall go back to

Zeus, his father.

Forget regret. As for Polyphemon, it is his fate that he found a famous city among the Mysians, where

the Kios

disembogues to the sea. He will die, when the gods see

fit.

far from his home, in the broad land of the Khalybes. As for Hylas, a nymph has taken him—too much in love to ask permission of the bold and glorious Argonauts.' So he spoke. The thunderheads rumbled as if in a laugh.

The huge hand

sank. Dark water swirled around us, broke into foam, tumbled past rails and coamings and hurled us on.

‘Then Telamon

came to me, weeping, and clutched my hand and kissed

it, saying:

‘Forgive me, lord. Do not be angry if in a foolish moment I was blinded by love for dear friends lost. The

immortal gods

know best, I hope. As for my offense, may it blow away with the wind, and let us two, who have always been

friends, be friends

again.'

   “I said nothing for a long time, the god's laughter— soft and dangerous as thunder on the open sea—

still ringing

in my ears. It seemed that only I, of all the Argonauts, or only Idas and I (I saw the madman's eyes), fully understood that our grand mission was insanity— and Akastos, perhaps, my cousin, Pelias' son. (He sat, thin arms folded, staring full of sorrow at the grinding

sea.)

It seemed to me that we alone had grasped the message of the voice that came from the storm:
Love truth,

love loyalty

so far as it suits our convenience.
I'd lose still more of

them.

Such was the prophecy of the seers on the day we'd

left. I'd watch them,

one by one, drift off, slip past recall. And if

I told them now it was all a mistake—those glory-seekers gathered from all Akhaia (Telamon's brother Peleus, waving proudly to his son, brought down to see us off by Kheiron's wife, old Kheiron beaming, waving his two huge arms; Hylas, beaming at his hero; Herakles rowing, the muscles of his face like knots) … But I was still

their captain,

the one will that resolves the many, even when the many are mad. Sense may emerge at last, in human labors, or may not. Meanwhile, there must be order, faith in

the mission;

otherwise, deadly absurdity. I couldn't afford mere humanness, the comfort of admitting confusion.

I would

lose more that way. The eternal gods can afford whimsy. Not us. Not I, as captain.

“I got control and said:

‘Good Telamon, you did indeed insult me grievously when you accused me, here before all these men, of

wronging a loyal

friend. They cut to the quick, those heartless words of

yours.

But I don't mean to nurse a grudge against you. It was

not some flock

of sheep, some passel of worldly goods you were

quarrelling about,

but a man, a beloved comrade of your own. I like to

think

if occasion arose you'd stand for me against all other

men

as boldly as you did for him.' Then, not too hastily, like a man setting his rankling wrath aside, I embraced

him.

He wept fiercely, like the child he was. And I too wept, moved by the childlike heart in that towering warlord.

Orpheus

studied his golden instrument, knowing my mind too

well.

“I learned later that all turned out in Mysia exactly as the voice in the storm foretold. Polyphemon built

his city;

Herakles resumed the labors he'd dropped in haste at

the gates

of Mykenai—but before he left, he threatened to lay all Mysia waste if the people failed to discover for him what had become of poor Hylas, alive or dead. The

Mysians

gave him the finest of their eldest sons as blood-bond

hostages

and swore they'd continue the search.

“So much for the steadfast faith

of Herakles.

“All that day, through the following night,

gale winds carried us on. When the time for daybreak

came

there was no light. The wind died suddenly, as if at a

sign

from Zeus. The sky went green. There was hardly air

enough

to breathe. No man on board had the strength to row.

We sat,

soaking in sweat, praying to all the gods we knew. There were voices—sounds from the flat sea, from

passing birds,

the greenness above us:
Where's Herakles? Where's

Hylas?
We started,

prayed with our parched lips to the sixteen powers of

the sea.

It was unjust—insane. ‘What do they want of us?'

I asked the seers.

‘Where's Herakles? Where's Hylas?' they said, but in

voices not

their own. We waited—how many days I couldn't say. My cousin Akastos sat at my side, on watch, as if to guard me from some grim foe outside, though he

knew pretty well,

like Idas, like Phlias with his hand on my shoulder,

where my enemy lurked.

   “In that senseless calm, Orpheus remembered

Dionysos: sang

how Zeus once put on his darker form, the dragon shape of Zeus Katachthonios, called Hades, whom he himself

expelled

from heaven, and went in that evil form to the shadow

of Hera,

the serpent Demeter, deep in the earth, whom Hera

hated

and who
was
Hera, though both of them had forgotten.

In her

he planted Persephone, later his Underworld queen,

by whom

Hades-Zeus had his son Dionysos, who was born

many times,

always unlucky. At times he was torn apart by Titans, at times by animals, at times by women gone crazy

with wine

and lust. Once, leading virgins on a violent, drunken

hunt,

he captured his quarry and, tearing it apart alive,

discovered

in amazement and terror that the beast had a dark

human face and horns,

that is, it was himself. It was he who invented wine, crown of his father's creation—Dionysos' glory, and

his ruin.

   “Like Dionysos, the founder of Thebes was midnight

black;

his queen was white as snow. Because their marriage

was perfect,

Zeus came down to their daughter Semele in the guise

of a man

and fed her the heart of his once-again-slain son.

Queen Hera

saw that the girl was pregnant, and in jealous rage

forced Zeus

to visit Semele in his true celestial form—a thunderbolt. The girl was consumed, but not before Zeus had

snatched his child,

whom he sewed into his thigh and carried to the time

of delivery

and then returned to Kadmos and Queen Harmonia.

    “Though the matchless couple had seemed so flawless

they could never die,

in time they grew old and short of breath. Then the

child Dionysos

cried out in sorrow to Zeus. The father of the gods

came flashing

out of heaven, and in smoke and flames the two were

transmogrified, changed

to a dragon and a monstrous snake, now rulers of the

dead, chief thanes

of Dionysos. Thus began Hera's rage at Thebes, and

the sorrows

of Kadmos' line: Oidipus weeping blood, Jokasta hanged, Antigone buried alive.

“So Orpheus sang

the age-old riddle of things, and it seemed that the still

sea listened.

   “Then, for no reason, there was air again, and the sail

bellied out,

and the ship began to move. Toward noon, we spotted

land.

   “As we beached the ship, a huge old man came out

to us,

his arms folded on his chest, his gray beard brustling

from his chin

like a bush. Without even bothering to ask what race

we were

or what had brought us to his shore, he said: ‘Listen,

sailormen: