Jason and Medeia (27 page)

the Black Cape too, and the outfall of the river Phyllis where Phrixos once put down with the golden ram.

Through all

that day and through all the windless night we labored

at the oar,

to Orpheus' hurrying beat. We worked like oxen

ploughing

the dark, moist earth. The sweat pours down from flank

and neck,

their rolling eyes glare out askance from the creaking

yoke,

hot blasts of breath come rumbling from their mouths,

and all day long

they plough on, digging their sharp hooves into the

soil. So we

ploughed on, goaded by the lyre. (I understood well

enough

his meaning. So poets too can govern ships. That was no news.) Near dawn—at the time of day when the sun has not yet touched the heavens, though

the darkness fades—

we reached the harbor of the lonely island of Thynias and crawled ashore exhausted, gasping for air. All at

once

the lyre was still, and the man at the lyre looked up,

strange-eyed,

and lo and behold, we saw the god Apollo striding like a man. His golden locks streamed down like

swirling sunlight,

his silver bow half blinding. The island trembled beneath his feet, and the sea ran high on the grassy shore. We

stood

stock-still and dared not meet his eyes. He passed

through the air

and was gone.

“Then Orpheus found his voice. ‘O Argonauts,

let us dedicate this island to holy Apollo, lord of peace, and song, and healing, and let us sing together and swear our lasting brotherhood, and build him a

temple

to be called the Temple of Concord as long as the world

may last.'

We did so—poured libations out and, touching the

sacrifice,

swore by the solemnest oaths that we'd stand by one

another

forever. A moving ceremony. I did not say as much as I thought to Orpheus after he'd ended it.

   “We travelled on, young Orpheus stroking his lyre as

though

it counted for more than the sails. And did he expect to

stir up

rancor in me by his proof that art may also serve morale? Then that was a difference between us. I use

what means

I can to achieve my ends; I no more resented his help than the wind's. If the quality of acts concerns him, the

smell and taste,

the moment to moment morality of it, let him take care of those. What he'd done to show me up, make a fool

of me,

was just what I'd sought myself. So who was the fool?

But I

was Captain, and not required to give explanations.

“And so

we came to the river Lykos and the Anthemoeisian lagoon. The
Argo's
halyards and all her tackle quivered as we flashed along; but during the night the wind died

down,

and at dawn we moored at the Cape of Akherusias, a towering headland with sheer rock cliffs that blindly

stare out

across the Bithynian Sea. Beneath the headland, at sea

level,

a solid platform of smooth-swept rock where rollers

endlessly

break and roar; at the crown of the headland, plane

trees rising

stretching their great, dark beams to blot out the sun.

We went in.

I watched our pilot. He was restless, too silent.

I remembered the words

of Orpheus. I took Idmon aside, younger of the seers, and spoke to him. Said: ‘Idmon, look over at Tiphys,

there.

Tell me what you see.' He turned his head away quickly,

refused

to hear. Then he said, ‘If you've come for hopeful news,

you've come

to the wrong man. There is no hopeful news—not on

that

or anything.' He tipped his face. He was weeping.

I frowned,

baffled again, and left him. How could I have guessed

what grief

the poor man had on his mind? We had work, in any

case—

the usual repairs, the usual gathering of wood and

leaves. …

   “On the landward side, the vaulting sea-naes sloped

away

to a hollow glen, a cave with overhanging trees and

rocks,

the Cavern of Hades. From its pitchdark hollows an icy

breath

comes up each morning, covering rocks, trees, ferns

with sparkling

rime that clings three hours, then melts in the sun.

We listened.

A rumble like voices, the far-off murmur of rollers

breaking

at the foot of the cliff, the whisper of leaves as the wind

from the cave

pressed by, and perhaps some further voice, like a

voice in a dream,

a memory. We stood at the mouth of the cave looking

down

at darkness, musing. Shoulder to shoulder we stood,

peering in,

Ankaios, the boy in the bearskin; old Mopsos; wise old

Argus,

artificer; huge Telamon; Orpheus; Tiphys (his breathing was short and quick); myself, all the others… . We

stood peering in,

shoulder to shoulder, each one of us, that instant, alone, thinking of his personal dead, his private death. But

Idas

widened his eyes, leered wildly, whispering, ‘Ghosts!'

He clung

to my arm, clowning even here. I shook him free.

My cousin

Akastos touched my shoulder to calm my wrath.

“Not long

thereafter, one of our number would go down through

that door

alive, in search of his love, as Theseus had gone already for a friend, when both of them were young. It's said

that Orpheus

willingly moved past Briareos, with his hundred

whirling arms,

moved past the terrible nine-headed Hydra and the great

flame-breathing

dragon, encountered the colossal giant Tityus, whose great, black, bloated body sprawled across nine

full acres,

and came to the midnight palace of Lord Dionysos

himself,

prince of terror, bull-god, huntsman whom nothing

escapes.

Majestically then, without words, a mere nod, old

Kadmos the Dark

granted what he asked, but after the nod set this

condition:

The harper must lead the way, and Euridike follow—

a woodnymph,

gentlest, most timid of all creatures, a heart more

quickly alarmed

than a deer's (not two men living have ever seen her

kind:

they vanish in a splinter of light at the sound of a

footfall). She must follow,

and the harper never look back. (How like the gods,

I thought,

when I learned of it, to end his pains with a joke.)

But he agreed.

No choice, of course. Began his slow way back through

the dimness,

stepping past pits where blue-scaled snakes rolled

coil on coil,

their hatchet heads hovering, floating, the whole dark

trogle alive

with rattling and hissing and the seething of the

sulphurous pits. He listened,

harping the guardian serpents to sleep—the horned

cerastes,

the basilisk with its lethal eyes—and he heard her step, timid, behind him, and so, chest pounding, continued.

Moved past

terrors to make a man sick—much less a nymph,

coming after him,

alone. And still he gazed forward. Imagine it! Shrieks,

screams, cackles,

flashes of light, sudden forms, quick wings, sharp hisses

of air,

bright skulls
(Was that my Euridike's scream?) …

How the gods must have howled,

rolled in the dirt on their bellies. —However, he'd agreed, one capable of death, therefore of dignity, and so, solemn in the Funhouse (behind him the

beautiful woodnymph,

white arms reaching, yellow hair streaming in the

cavern's wind,

eyes like a fawn's), he moves past grisly shapes,

indecent

allegories—
Grief, Avenging Care,
and (look!) there's
Pale Disease,
the back of his hand to his forehead

(woe!),

and lo, there's
Melancholy Age,
his hand on his pecker,

shrunk

to a stick. Step wider, Orpheus! That's
Hunger
there! Snaps like a dog! And by him,
Fear,
trembling, pressed

close

to
Pain
and
Poverty
and
Death!
So past them all they

moved,

those lovers, and he saw the first faint light of day.

They'd made it!

No more horrors, not even a spider, a hornèd ant between where he stood and the green-edged light of

freedom! He turned.

She ran toward him … and vanished. He stared in grief

and rage

and then, with a groan, remembered. And so he left the

Funhouse,

walked out into the light. He died soon after, a wreck. Go there now and you'll see two shades together, alone on a flat rock ledge, holding hands. There are sounds

of dripping springs,

faint moans farther in, the whisper of spiders walking.

“A tale

most spiritual, most moving. And yet I'll tell you the

truth:

He wouldn't have done it at forty, or even at thirty.

He'd have wept

and ordered a monument for her, or started a fund.

Shall we say

hooray for youth, inexperience? Shall we grieve our

loss,

splendor in the grass, mourn that we've passed

twenty-three? I've seen

small boys tease snakes, dive into torrents, eat poison, planning to survive. The innocent are fools, and the wise are cowards. Between those

two grim lots

we construct, out of paper and false red hair, our

dignity.

“Never mind. We stood by the cave, looking in. Old

Mopsos said:

‘Shade you'd care to converse with, lord of the

Argonauts?'

He was smiling, food in his beard. I shook my head.

He turned

to Tiphys, and his smile was wicked now. ‘Maybe you

then, Tiphys!

Something tells me you're eager to see inside.' But

Idmon,

younger of the seers, broke in. ‘Old witch, enough of

this!'

His voice cracked. He was enraged. Bright tears

splashed down his cheeks.

His fists were clenched, and if Telamon hadn't reached

out and restrained him—

he and the boy, Ankaios—we might have lost Mopsos

right then.

I spoke up quickly: ‘We've wood to gather.' We turned

away.

And so, at that Cape, we passed six days. Unprofitably.

   “We left two graves on the island. We saw the first

night that Tiphys

was not himself—irritable, testy, unable to keep warm though sweat stood out on his forehead. From old King

Lykos' city,

nearby, we called physicians. They came—great fat old

mules.

With their fingertips they opened the sick man's eyes,

peeked in

and solemnly shook their heads. ‘Here's a dying man,'

they said.

We watched with him, praying to Apollo, god of healing.

But Idmon,

younger of the seers, refused to come close. He knew

that his time

had come, and he meant to stay far from the thing, give

fate the slip.

He would not walk in the woods with us, nor go where

there might be

vipers, spiders, bees. He went out to a wide, low field and set up an altar to Apollo and, wailing, threw

himself over it,

moaning, pleading for mercy; his face and chest were

bathed

in tears. Not all his prophetic lore, not all his prayers could save him. By a reedy stream at the edge of the

water-meadow

there lay a white-tusked boar—he was big as an ox—

cooling

his huge belly and his bristly flanks in the mud. He lived alone, too old for sows; an isolate. There young Idmon went, cutting reeds for his altar fire. The boar rose up with a jerk, a grunt of annoyance; with one quick,

casual tusk,

opened the young seer's thigh. He fell to the ground,

shrieking.

Those who were nearest him rushed to his aid. Too late,

of course.

The boar had opened his belly now, from the bowels to

the chest.

Peleus let fly his javelin as the boar retreated; he turned, charged again. And now crazy Idas wounded

him,

and unsatisfied when the boar went down on his knees,

impaled,

Idas threw himself over him, screaming like a boar

himself,

seized the boar by the knife-sharp tusks and twisted till

he broke

its neck. Moaning, they carried Idmon to the ship, and

there,

in Idas' arms, he died. Idas raged, beat the planks with

his fists.

He didn't remember then that he'd wanted to kill poor

Idmon

once. We dug the grave. Where Tiphys lay, the

physicians

talked. One spoke of a curious case. He sat in the

corner,

fingers interlaced on his belt, his eyes half shut. He said, droning, blinking his red-webbed eyes, familiar with

death:

‘… a case of decay of the extremities. On the hands the tipjoints and in part even the second joints of the fingers were wanting, having rotted off, and the remaining stumps of the fingers were much swollen and in part nearly ready to fall off. The right-hand knuckle joint of the youngest child's forefinger was already rotting away, and the feet of the two older brothers were in still a more horrible state. They were mere shapeless masses surcharged with foreign matter, with several deep, consuming sores going down to the bone and discharging bloody, putrid water. The children's arms and legs had lost all sense of feeling below the elbows and knees. Some fellow before me, in order to ascertain the insensibility of the members, had pierced one boy through the hand up the arm with a long needle to a point where pain was felt, which occurred at the elbow. The patients' exhalations were positively unbearable, the true odor of putrescence. The digestion was utterly prostrated.'