by John Gardner
He sang
of the age when great Zeus first overcame the dragons.
The halls
of the gods, he said, were cracked, divoted, blackened
by fire.
All the gods of the heavens sang Zeus’s praise, their
voices
ringing like golden bells, extolling his victory. Elated in his triumph and the knowledge of his power,
Zeus summoned the craftsman
of the gods, Hephaiastos, and commanded that he
build a splendid palace
that would suit the unparalleled dignity of the gods’
great king.
The miraculous craftsman succeeded in building, in a
single year,
a dazzling residence, baffling with beautiful chambers,
gardens,
lakes, great shining towers.
Apollo smiled and looked
at Zeus. He sang:
“But as the work progressed, the demands of Zeus
grew more exacting, his unfolding visions more vast.
He required
additional terraces and pavilions, more ponds, more
poplar groves,
new pleasure grounds. Whenever Zeus came to examine
the work
he developed range on range of schemes, new marvels
remaining
for Hephaiastos to contrive. At last the divine craftsman was crushed to despair, and he resolved to seek help
from above. He would turn
to the demiurgic Mind, great spirit beyond Olympos, past all glory. So he went in secret and presented
his case.
The majestic spirit comforted him. ‘Go in peace,’
he said,
‘your burden will be relieved.’
“Then, while Hephaiastos
was scurrying down once more to the kingdom of Zeus,
the spirit
went, himself, to a realm still higher, and he came
before
the Unnamable, of whom he himself was but a
humble agent.
In awesome silence the Unnamable spirit gave ear,
and by
a mere nod of the head he let it be known that the wish of Hephaiastos was granted.
“Early next morning, a boy
with the staff of a pilgrim appeared at the gate of Zeus
and asked
admission to the king’s great hall. Zeus came at once.
It was
a point of pride with Zeus that he wasn’t as yet
too proud
to meet with the humblest of his visitors. The boy
was slender,
ten years old, radiant with the luster of wisdom. The
king
discovered him standing in a cluster of enraptured,
staring children.
The boy greeted his host with a gentle glance of his dark and brilliant eyes. Zeus bowed to the holy child—and, mysteriously, the boy gave him his blessing. When Zeus had led the boy inside and had offered him wine and
honey,
the king of the gods said: ‘Wonderful Boy, tell me
the purpose
of your coming.’
“The beautiful child replied with a voice as deep
and soft as the slow thundering of far-off rainclouds.
‘O Glorious
King, I have heard of the mighty palace you are
building, and I’ve come
to refer to you my mind’s questions. How many years will it take to complete this rich and extensive
residence?
What further feats of engineering will Hephaiastos be asked to perform? O Highest of the Gods’—the
boy’s luminous
features moved with a gentle, scarcely perceptible
smile—
‘no god before you has ever succeeded in completing
such a palace
as yours is to be.’
“Great Zeus, filled with the wine of triumph,
was entertained by this merest boy’s pretensions to
knowledge
of gods before himself. With a fatherly smile, he asked: Tell me, child, are they then so many—the Zeuses
you’ve seen?’
The young guest calmly nodded. Oh yes, a great
many have I seen.’
The voice was as warm and sweet as milk, but the
words sent a chill
through Zeus’s veins. ‘O holy child,’ the boy continued, ‘I knew your father, and your father’s father, Old
Tortoise Man,
and your great-grandfather, called Beam of Light, and
his father, called Thought,
and the father beyond—him too I know.
“ ‘O King of the Gods,
I have known the dissolution of the universe. I have
seen all perish
again and again! O, who will count the universes passed away, or the creations risen afresh, again and again, from the silent abyss? Who will number
the passing ages
of the world, as they follow endlessly? And who will
search
the wide infinities of space to number the universes side by side—each one ruled by its Zeus and its ladder of higher powers? Who will count the Zeuses in all
of them,
side by side, who reign at once in the innumerable
worlds,
or all those Zeuses who reigned before them, or even
those
who succeed each other in a single line, ascending
to kingship,
one by one, and, one by one, declining?
“ ‘O King,
the life and reign of a single Zeus is seventy-one aeons, and when twenty-eight Zeuses have all expired, one
day and night
have passed in the demiurgic Mind. And the span of the
Mind in such days
and nights is one hundred and eight years. Mind
follows Mind,
rising and sinking in endless procession. And the
universes,
side by side, each with its demiurgic Mind and its Zeus, who’ll number those? Like delicate boats they float
on the fathomless
waters that form the Unnamable. Out of every pore of that body a universe bubbles and breaks.’
“A procession of ants
had made its appearance in the hall while the boy was
saying this.
In a military column four yards wide the tribe paraded slowly across the gleaming tiles. The mysterious boy paused and stared, then suddenly laughed with an
astonishing peal,
but immediately fell into thoughtful silence.
“ ‘Why do you laugh?’
stammered Zeus. “Who are you, mysterious being in
the deceiving guise
of a boy?’ The proud god’s throat and lips were dry,
and his voice
kept breaking. ‘Who are you, shrouded in deluding mists?’
“ ‘I laughed,’
said the boy, ‘at the ants. Do not ask more. I laughed
at an ancient
secret. It is one that destroys.’ Zeus regarded him,
unable to move.
At last, with a new and clearly visible humility, the great god said, ‘I would willingly suffer annihilation for the secret, mysterious visitor.’ The boy smiled and nodded. ‘If so, you have nothing to fear. It is
merely this:
The gods on high, the trees and stones, are apparitions in a fantasy. Without that dream in the Unnamable
Mind
there is neither life nor death, neither good nor evil.
The wise
are attached neither to good nor to evil. The wise
are attached
to nothing.’
“The boy ended his appalling lesson and, quietly,
he gazed at his host. The king of the gods, for all hi
s
splendor,
had been reduced in his own regard to insignificance.
“Meanwhile another amazing apparition had entered
the hall.
He appeared to be some hermit. He wore no clothes.
His hair
was gray and matted except in one place at the back
of his head,
where he had no hair at all, having lain on that one
part
for a thousand years. His eyes glittered, cold as stone.
“Zeus, recovering from his first shock, offered the
old man
wine and honey, but the hermit refused to eat. Zeus
then asked,
falteringly, concerning the old man’s health. The
hermit
smiled. ‘I’m well for a dying man,’ he said, and nodded. Zeus, disconcerted by the man’s stern eyes, could say
no more.
Immediately the boy took over the questioning, asking
precisely
what Zeus would have asked if he could. ‘Who are you,
Holy Man?
What brings you here, and why have you lain in one
place so long
that the hair has worn from your head? Be kind
enough, Holy Man,
to answer these questions. I am anxious to understand.’
“Presently
the old saint spoke. ‘Who am I? I am an old, old man. What brings me here? I have come to see Zeus, for
with each hair
I lose from my head, a new Zeus dies, and when the
last hair falls
I too shall die. Those I have lost, I have lost by lying motionless, waiting for peace. I am much too short
of days
to have use for a wife and son, or a house. Each
eyelid-flicker
of the Unnamable marks the decease of a demiurgic
Mind. Therefore
I’ve devoted myself to forgetfulness. For every joy, even the joy of gods, is as fragile as a dream—a
distraction
from the Absolute, where all individual will is
abandoned
and all is nothing and nothing is everything, and all
paradox
melts. My friend, I was an ant in a thousand thousand
lives,
and in a thousand thousand lives a Zeus, and in others
a king,
a slave, a rat, a beautiful woman. I have wept and torn my hair and longed for death at the graves of a
billion billion
daughters and sons; a billion billion of those I loved have died in wars, plagues, earthquakes, floods. And
with every stroke
of catastrophe, my chest has screamed in pain. All
these
are feeble metaphors—as I am metaphor, a passing
dream,
and you, and all our talk. But this is true: Life seeks to pierce the veil of the dream. I seek forgetfulness,
silence.’
“Abruptly, the holy man ceased and immediately
vanished, and the boy,
in the same flicker of an eyelid, vanished as well.
And Zeus
was in his bed, with Hera in his arms. And he saw,
despite his dream,
that she was beautiful. Then Zeus, King of the Gods,
wept.
At dawn when he opened his eyes and remembered,
Zeus smiled.
He commanded the craftsman to create a magnificent
arbor for Hera,
and after that he demanded nothing more of him.” So the harper of the gods sang, and so he closed. With his last word, the hall of the gods went dark.
I was alone.
“Strange visions, goddess!” I whispered, “stranger and
stranger!” She was gone.
Then, like a sea-blurred echo of Apollo’s harp, I heard the music of Kreon’s minstrel. Soon I saw Kreon’s hall, the sea-kings gathered in their glittering array, and
Kreon himself
at the high table, his daughter beside him, blushing,
shy—
like a spirit, I thought: more child than woman. Beside
her, Jason
stood with his strong arms folded, muscular shoulders
bare,
his cloak a luminous crimson, bound at the waist with
a belt
gold-studded, blacker than onyx. Behind him, to his
left, stood the shadow
of Hera; at his feet sat Aphrodite, and behind his
right shoulder,
lovely as rooftops at dawn, the matchless, gray-eyed
Athena.
“Ipnolebes,” Kreon whispered, “command that the
meal be brought.”
The old king chuckled, patted his hands together,
winked.
Ipnolebes bowed and, moving off quickly, quietly,
was gone.
The hall waited—dim, it seemed to me: discolored as if by age or smoke. The sea-kings’ treasures, piled high
against
walls that seemed, when I first saw them, to be
gleaming sheets
of chalcedony and mottled jade, with beams of ebony, were dark, ambiguous hues, uncertain forms in the
flicker
of torches. There were figures of goldlike substance—
curious ikons
with staring eyes. There were baskets, carpets, bowls,
weapons,
animals staring like owls from their lashed wooden
cages. The hall
was heavy, oppressive with the wealth of Kreon’s
visitors.
The harpsong ended. In a shadowy corner of the great
dim room
dancing girls—slaves with naked breasts—jangled
their bracelets
and fled. A horn of bone sang out. A silence. Then … as flash floods burst in their headlong rush down
mountain flumes
when melting snowcaps join with the first warm
summer rains,
sweeping off all that impedes them, swelling the
gullies and creeks
to the brim and beyond, all swirling, glittering,—so
down the aisles
of Kreon’s hall, filling each gap between trestle-tables, platters held high, hurtling along like boulders and
driftwood,
silver and gold on the current’s crest, came Kreon’s
slaves.
Their trays came loaded with stews and sauces, white
with steamclouds,
some piled high with meats of all kinds; some trailed
blue flame.
A great Ah! like the ocean drawn back from the pebbles
of the shore
welled through the room. Jason, dark head lowered,
smiled.
The huge Koprophoros snatched like a hungry bear at
food.
They mock me,” he whimpered to the man beside him.
They’ll change their tune!”
The torches flickered. Kreon patted his hands together. When I closed my eyes the sound of their eating was
the faraway roar
of dark waves grinding over boulders—ominous,
mindless.
4
Sunset. She sat in the room that opened on the terrace
and garden
watching the red go out of roses, the red-orange flame drain gradually out of the sky. Leaves, branches of
trees,
flowers that an hour before had been sharp with color,
became
all one, dark figures etched into dusk. Shade by shade they became one tone with the night. From Kreon’s
palace above,
its torchlit walls just visible here and there through gaps in the heavy bulk of oaks, occasional sounds came down, a burst of laughter, a snatch of song, the low boom of tab
le chatter, and now and then some nearer voice, a guard, a servant at the gates—all far away, bell-like, ringing off smooth stone walls and walkways, glancing
off pools,
annulate tones moving out through the arch of
distances.
At times, above more muted sounds, I could hear the
drone
of the female slave, Agapetika, putting the children to
bed,
and sometimes a muttered rebuke from the second of
the slaves, the man.
Medeia sat like marble, expressionless, white hands
clamped
on the arms of her chair. It was as if she were holding
the room together
by her own stillness, a delicate balance like that of the
mind
of Zeus o’ervaulting the universe, enchaining dragons by thought. So she sat for a long time. Then, abruptly, she turned—a barely perceptible shift— and looked at the door, listening. Two minutes passed. The breathlike whisper of sandals came from the
corridor.
After a time, the old woman’s form emerged at the
doorway,
stooped, as heavy as stone, her white flesh liver-spotted, draped from head to foot in cinereal gray, her weight buttressed by two thick canes. The slave looked in,
dim-eyed.
Thank you, Agapetika,” Medeia said.
No answer. But slowly—so slowly I found it hard to
be sure
from second to second whether or not she was still
moving—
the old woman came forward. “Medeia, you’re ill again!” A moan like a dog’s. Medeia got up suddenly, angrily, and went out to stand on the terrace, her back to the slave. Another long silence. The sounds coming
down from the palace
were clearer here, like sounds through wintry fog:
the clatter
of plates, laughter like a wave striking. She said, not
turning,
“It’s a strange sound, the laughter of a crowd when
you’ve no idea
what they’re laughing at.” She turned, sighing. “I’m
fiercely jealous,
as you see. How dare the man go up and have dinner
with the king
and leave me wasting?”
The slave did not smile. “You should sleep, Medeia.
She shook her head, refusing her mistress further
speech.
The lids of the old woman’s eyes hung loose as a
hound’s. She said:
“When you came to Pelias’ city bringing the fleece,
your hand
on Jason’s arm—the beautiful princess and handsome
prince,
lady of sunlight, hero in a coal-dark panther skin— that time too your eyes were ice. Oh, everyone saw it, and a shiver went through us. —And yet you’d saved
him, and he’d saved you,