by John Gardner
of the snake
were malevolent. Her face was radiant with life,
seductive,
as sensuous as the brow of Zeus was intellectual. The thrones were joined by an arm of gold, and on
that arm
Zeus rested his own. The queen’s arm lay on the king’s, and their fingers were interlaced. On Zeus’s shoulder,
a prodigious
birdlike creature perched, half-lion, half-eagle, watching the snake. “What can all this mean?” I asked. My guide
touched her lips.
Suddenly the hall was filled with a teeming sea of gods. Some were like monsters, some had the shapes of trees
or waterfalls;
some were like bulls, others like panthers, elephants,
monkeys,
and some were like men—like kings, queens, beggars,
saintly hermits.
One came in on a litter of finely wrought ebony set with centaurs of ivory and silver—a beautiful goddess
in a robe
of scarlet, open at the front to reveal great pendulous
breasts.
The mortals, her slaves, wore flowers in their hair—
the white hair tangled,
matted like the hair of mad women. They wept and
moaned
as they walked, limping, half-naked, ragged. Their
ankles
clinked and jangled with tarnished jewelry; the perfume they
wore
yellowed the air like woodsmoke. Their chalkgray feet
were crooked,
their eyes were dim, and beneath the stiffening paint,
their faces
were cities destroyed by fire. But whether the bearers
were women
or men, I could not guess. Quick fluttering sparrows flew like swirling leaves in a graveyard, screeching. My
shadowy guide
smiled and inclined her head.
“Not all gods here are wise,”
she said. “They have all their will, all that a creature
can desire:
They feel no hunger, no thirst, no weariness, no fear of
death,
no pain or sorrow or lonely old age. But the grinding
force
of life still burns in them, endlessly restless, driving,
devouring—
the force that blazes in the eyes of the half-starved lion
or swells
the veins of the terrified deer. They can never be rid
of it.
Some, desiring in a state where nothing is left to desire, sink to the sickness of ennui and wallow in vast self-pity like hogs in mire. Some puff up their power, and delight in smashing the will of the weak. A few, like Zeus, grow
wise.
But very few. Observe how the rest crawl through their
days.
At times, to break the tedium, the gods feast.
At times, to break the tedium, the gods fast.
At times they quarrel like dogs. At times they smile and
kiss.
At times they sue to the king with cantankerous
demands. Watch.”
The goddess in scarlet approached the throne of Zeus
and, descending
from her litter, kneeled before him. “O mighty Lord,”
she said,
“hear the prayer of your sorrowful Aphrodite! Cruelly the Queen of Olympos mocks me and makes me a
laughingstock!
I’m ashamed to be seen among gods. They smirk and
ogle, point at me,
whisper behind my back. I filled Medeia’s heart with love, stirred Jason to manly desire, arranged a
pairing
fit to be remembered through endless time and to the
farthest poles
of space. But Hera has overwhelmed me with her
treachery,
cluttering his heart with desires more base, so that all
I’ve done
is nothing, a cloud dispersed! O Great God, Lord of
Thunder,
make him shake off this wickedness!” Her cheeks were
bright
with anger, her dark eyes flashed; her flowing black
hair gleamed
as if even that were in a rage. Yet out of respect for
Hera,
or remembering that Hera was Zeus’s wife, she
controlled herself.
She stretched out her white left arm, her right hand
daintily pressed
to her breast, just over the roseate nipple, as if to quell the terrible quopping of her heart. “Have I ever denied
her power—
her supreme rule over all things physical: ships, rivers, forests, banquets, marriage beds? She fills the world with beauty, goodness, the excitements of danger. At
her command
Ares stirs up the terrors and joys of war. At a word from her, the gods lure men to the highest pinnacles
of feeling—
treasure-hunting, kingdom-snatching. By her pale light alchemists pawn away all they own to untomb the gold in lead, the wolf hunts the lamb, the shepherd attacks
the wolf,
the adder joyfully strikes at the shepherd’s heel. But
Lord,
O holy father of gods and men, I’ve earned some place in all that hungry rush! Imagine her kingdom with all my power shut down—no joy in the world but the
shoddy glint
of wealth, stern labor, knowledge-grubbing—no gentle
eyes
to drip their sweetness on rich men’s rings, no loving
hands
to smooth the pain from the farmer’s back when his
long day ends,
no dazzled maiden to flood the alchemist’s sulphurous
rooms
with the light of her music, her rainsoft fingers on his
arm! If my work
is meaningless, say so. I’ll trouble your halls no morel”
Bright tears
welled in her eyes and her bosom heaved. Her lips were
taut.
The ghastly creatures attending her gave out goatish
wails.
Hera’s face turned slowly to the king’s. “Beautiful
performance,”
she said, and smiled. The king said nothing. Dark
Aphrodite
glared, her glance like a dart of fire, and the muscles of
her face
trembled like the face of the plains when earthquakes
crack their beams.
A gentler goddess came forward then, a gray-eyed
goddess
with a crown like a city on a shining silver hill. At her
side
philosophers stood, their lean backs bent under thick,
smudged scrolls,
their eyes rolled up out of sight; behind her, nervous
kings,
each with his own set of tics (quick lip-jerks, twists,
winks, nods,
features overcome from time to time by a sudden
widening
of the eyes, like shocked recognition); then fat
merchants, wiping
their foreheads, clucking, wincing with distaste, their
tongues in motion
ceaseless as the sea, wetting their thick, chapped lips;
behind
the merchants, poets and musicians, all looking wry at
the smell
of the merchants, making ingenious jokes at the
merchants’ garish
or grandly funereal dress. —But when, from time to
time,
a merchant, philosopher, or king keeled over, slain by
the light
or brushed by a careless god, the poets and musicians
would praise
the nature of man, abstracted to green, magnificent
song,
&nb
sp; their eyes like waterfalls.
The gray-eyed goddess kneeled
at Zeus’s feet and, speaking softly, eyes cast down, she said, “My Lord, Almighty Ruler of the Universe, most just, most wise, I pray you, do not forget the needs of Corinth, Queen of Cities. I have tended her lovingly, cherished her, guided her gently through stunning
catastrophes.
Throne after throne I have watched kicked down
through the whimsical will
of malicious, barbarous gods—gods who amuse
themselves
like boys pulling wings off butterflies. Yet I’ve kept her
pillars,
shrine of the arts, seat of all taste and nobility. Preserve my work! Give Jason the throne—for the
city’s sake.
Surely a city means more in your sight than one mere
woman!
Pity Athena as she’d have you pity our beloved
Aphrodite!
Grant my request, and grant Aphrodite some other gift still dearer to her.”
Hera smiled, but the gray-eyed Athena
maintained her mask of innocence. Those who
attended her
bowed, heavy with solemnity, and tapped their scrolls, their money-boxes, crowns, and harps. Aphrodite’s cheek burned dark red. Zeus said nothing.
Her head bent
as if in supplication to the Father of the Gods,
Aphrodite
rolled her eyes toward her sister. “Don’t play games
with me,”
she whispered, “immortal bitch! How wonderfully
reasonable
you always make your desires sound! Do you think
they’re fooled,
these gods you play to? They know what you’re after.
Power, goddess!
You want your way no matter what—no matter who
you walk on.
But you can’t come right out and say it, can you? That
wouldn’t be civil,
and the lovely Athena is nothing if not civil!—Well,
so are
sewers! indoor toilets!” She trembled with rage. Athena smiled, as calm and serene as the moon above roiling,
passionate
seas. Suddenly the goddess of love burst into tears, wept like a shepherdess betrayed. The gray-eyed goddess
of cities,
magnificent queen of mind, shot a quick glance at Zeus,
then widened
her eyes as if in amazement. “Why Aphrodite!” she
exclaimed,
“my poor, poor love!” She gathered her sister goddess
gently
in her arms like a child, and Aphrodite cried on
Athena’s breast.
Hera smiled.
But the brow of Zeus was troubled. He looked
from the love-goddess to Athena. “Enough!” he said.
The hall
grew still. The stillness expanded. The eyes of the
Father God
were like thunderheads. After some minutes had passed,
he said,
“You’re clever, Athena. You’d outfox a gryphon. Yet
even so,
you may be wrong, and Aphrodite right. You talk of cities, of how they’re more important than a single
life.
But the city in which that’s true would be not worth
living in.
I’ve known such cities. One by one I’ve ground them
underfoot,
slaughtered their poets and priests and planted their
vineyards to salt.
You pleaded against such a city yourself for Antigone,
goddess!
Has it slipped your mind? ‘Where the dead are left
to the crows,’ you said,
‘where a life means nothing, let the whole white hovel
be crows’ fodder.’
Justice demands that I grant Aphrodite’s wish.” He
was silent.
Then Hera turned to him. Her eyes flamed. “And my
wish, sir?”
she hissed. “I knew I was a fool to leave my business
to Athena!
How can mere reason compete with that?” She pointed.
Aphrodite
covered her bosom, blushing. “I agree, it’s wrong to make cities more important than the
people who live in them.
Cities exist to make possible the splendid life—the life of mind and sense in harmony, fulfilled to the utmost.
Good!
But what of Jason’s life? But that doesn’t matter, of
course. Not to you!
Not with her there, pleading with her big pink boobs!
What counts with you,
O mixed-up Master Planner? You reason by whim, like
the rest of us,
for all your pompous, grandiose pretensions. Fact! You purse your lips, you muse in beatific silence, you
nod,
and you do what you damn well please! Well not to me,
husband!
I want what I want, and I’m not putting elegant names
on it.”
Hardly moving, Zeus glanced at her. The queen’s lips
closed.
Then no one spoke for a long time. The attendant
gods
shifted uncomfortably, sullen, from leg to leg. Yet more than a few in that hall, I thought, would have backed
her if they dared. Athena
gazed demurely at the floor, as if checking a smile.
Zeus sat
with one hand over his eyes.
At length, as if contrite,
Athena said softly, “It’s fair and just that you
upbraid me, Lord.
But my heart spoke truer than my tongue. I gave you,
foolishly,
the reasons I thought expedient. But it was not the
survival
of the city—not that alone—that I meant to beg of you. I plead for a good and patient man, a long-suffering
man,
one who merits what I ask for him. Aphrodite’s madness has chained him too long. Without the assistance of
any god,
he’s seen through it. O kind, wise Lord, don’t frustrate
the climb
of a virtuous man on the rising scale of Good! I claim no special virtues for cities, but this much, surely,
is true:
Virtue tested on rocky islands, country fields, however noble we call it, is virtue of a lesser kind— the virtue that governs the hermit, the honest shepherd.
The common
bee, droning from flower to flower in his garden, can
choose
what’s best for him and for his lowborn, pastoral clan.
The common
horse can be diligent at work, if his hide depends on it. The lion can settle his mind to fight, if necessary, but his virtue, for all his slickness, the speed of his
paws, is no more
than the snarling mongrel dog’s. It’s by what his mind
can do
that a man must be tested: how subtly, wisely he
manipulates
the world: objects, potentials, traditions of his race.
In sunlit
fields a man may learn about gentleness, humility— the glories of a sheep—or, again, learn craft and
violence—
the glories of a wolf. But the mind of man needs more
to work on
than stones, hedges, pastoral cloudscapes. Poets are
made
not by beautiful shepherdesses and soft, white sheep: they’re made by the shock of dead poets’ words, and
the shock of complex
life: philosophers’ ideas, strange faces, antic relics, powerful men and women, mysterious cultures. Cities are not mere mausoleums, sanctuaries for mind. They’re the raw grit that the finest minds are made of,
th
e power
that pains man’s soul into life, the creative word that
overthrows
brute objectness and redeems it, teaches it to sing.”
The goddess
bowed, an ikon of humility, and turned to the queen, stretching an arm in earnest supplication: “O Hera, Queen of Heaven, center of the world’s insatiable will, support my plea! Speak gently, allure as only you can allure great Zeus to the good he would wish,
himself.” She bowed,
and the dew on a fern at dawn could not rival the
beauty of the dew
on Athena’s delicate lashes. Aphrodite wept aloud, shamelessly, melted by Athena’s words. Even Hera was
softened.
As the sea whispers in the quiet of the night when
gentle waves
lap sandy shores, so the great hall whispered with the
sniffling of immortal gods.
But Zeus sat still as a mountain, unimpressed, his hand
covering
his eyes. The gods stood waiting.
At last, with a terrible sigh,
he lowered the hand. From the sadness in his eyes,
the crushed-down shoulders,
you’d have thought he’d heard nothing the beautiful
Athena said. He frowned,
then, darkly, spoke:
“All of you shall have your will,” he said.
“Aphrodite, your cruel and selfish wish is that Jason
and Medeia
be remembered forever as the truest, most pitiful of
lovers, saints
of Aphrodite. It shall be so, in the end. As for you,
Athena,
dearest of my children for the quickness of your mind—
and most troublesome—
you ask that Jason be granted the throne of Corinth,
glittering
jewel in your vain array. So he will, for a time, at least. No king gets more. And as for you, my docile queen— seductress, source of all earthly growth, terrible
destroyer—
you ask that he have all his wish. That he shall, and
more. It’s done.”
With that word, casting away the darkness which
he alone knew,
he called for Apollo and his harp. Apollo came, as
brilliant
as the sun on the mirroring sea. He stroked his harp
and sang.
The gods put their hands to their ears, listening. He
seemed to ignore them.
He looked at Zeus alone, when he looked at anyone, and Zeus gazed back at him, solemn as the night
where mountains tower,
dark and majestic, casting their cold, indifferent shade on trees and glens, old bridges, lonely peasant huts, travellers hurrying home. It seemed to me they shared some secret between them, as if they saw the whole
world’s grief
as plain as a single star in a winter’s sky.