Jason and Medeia

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Jason and Medeia Page 39

by John Gardner

by the shoulder,

  my wild heart pounding, and threw him off balance—

  in the same motion

  snatching my sword from its clasp by the headboard and

  striking. He fell,

  his head severed from his body. Now the room was

  clamoring with guards,

  babbling, shouting, the children and slaves in the

  hallway shrieking,

  the room a-sway in the stench of blood. I snatched up

  the head

  to learn who’d struck at us. For a long moment I stared

  at the face,

  scarlet and dripping, the eyes wide open. Then someone

  said,

  ‘Akastos!’ and I saw it was so. While the palace was

  still in confusion,

  we fled—snatched the children, our two oldest slaves,

  and, covered by darkness,

  sought out the seaport and friends; so made our escape.

  “So ended my rule of the isle of Argos. For all our glory once, for all my famous deeds, my legendary wealth, I became an exile begging asylum from town to town. I became a man dark-minded as Idas, whimpering in anger at the

  gods,

  glancing back past my shoulder in fear. For a time I lost all power of speech—I, Jason of the Golden Tongue. The child of Aietes was baffled by the troubles befallen

  us.

  Why had we fled? Was I not the true, the rightful king

  of Argos, Pelias a usurper, as all men knew? Had I not done deeds no king of Argos had done before me?—

  not only

  capture of the fleece, but temples, waterlocks, rock-firm

  law?

  Like a mute, more crippled than stuttering Pelias, I

  rolled my tongue

  and strained at the cords of my throat, but sound

  refused me. When I closed

  my eyes, I saw Akastos. Though I travelled from temple

  to temple,

  no priest alive could assoil me.

  “And then one morning, groaning, the walls of my skull on fire with evils, I found I could

  say

  his name. Akastos! Akastos, forgive me! I felt no flood of peace, no sudden sweet purgation. But I learned a

  truth:

  I’d loved him, and I learned I was right in my rule of

  Argos. Yet right

  to escape, save Medeia from the citizens’ rage. I’d made

  Medeia

  promises. For love of me she had left her home, the protection of kinsmen, and managed the murder of

  a brother she loved,

  and outraged all that’s human by arranging the

  patricide

  of Pelias’ foolish daughters—and then that cannibal

  feast,

  everlasting shame of Iolkos. I understood that her mind, whatever her beauty and intelligence, was no more like

  ours—

  the minds of the sons of Hellas—than the mind of a

  wolf, a tiger.

  I owed her protection and kindness, and I meant to pay

  that debt.

  But in promising marriage—if marriage means

  anything more than the noise

  of vows—I spoke in futility. If earth and sky

  are marriage partners, or the land and sea, or the

  interdependent

  king and state—if Space and Time are marriage

  partners—

  then Medeia and I are not.

  “In the hills above Iolkos I watched Medeia at her midnight rites. I’ve told you

  the effect.

  I was wide awake as a preying animal—as charged

  with power

  as I’d felt as a boyish adventurer sailing with the

  Argonauts.

  Though I slept no more than a jackal on the hunt, I

  awakened refreshed,

  scornful of Pelias and his idiot daughters, at one with

  Akastos

  riding his war-cart as I rode the clattering state. I

  could do

  the same by the meat of women: shuck off obscurities, considerations, the labored balance of the pondering

  mind.

  A great discovery! Though I meant the state to be

  reasonable,

  I need not famish the animal in me, put away the past, the chaos of a hero’s joys. And so, as a foolish shepherd brings in wolf pups, dubious at first, and runs them

  with the sheep

  for experiment, gradually learning their queer docility, and so progresses in his witless complacence to the

  night when—stirred

  by a minor cut, a droplet of blood that for wolves rolls

  back

  the centuries—he hears a bleating, and rushes to find his herd destroyed, the fruit of his labors in ruin—

  so I

  a foolish king, let passions in, the divinity of flesh. Gradually lessening my reason’s check, I freed Medeia, agent of my own worst passions; I granted a she-dragon

  rein.

  Screams in the palace, the sick-sweet smell of blood.

  I saw,

  once and for all, my wife was her father’s child,

  demonic.

  There could be no possibility now of harmony between

  us;

  no possibility of marriage. We must either destroy each

  other—

  struggling in opposite directions for absolutes, thought

  against passion—

  or part. And there, for a moment, I left it. By arduous

  labor

  I won back the power of speech, won back the control

  of my house.

  Not all my hours on the Argo required such pains. So

  now,

  prepared to deal with the world again, prepared to make

  use,

  as the gods may please, of difficult lessons, I bide my

  time

  in exile, caring for my sons and Medeia.

  “I claim, with conviction, I haven’t outlived all usefulness to the gods. All those who scorn just reason and scoff at the courts of honest

  men,

  men whose ferocious will is revealed by calm like the

  lion’s—

  those who scorn, the gods will deafen with their own

  lamentations;

  their proud pinnacles the gods will shatter and hurl in

  the ocean

  as I myself was torn down once for my foolishness and cast in the trackless seas. Or if not the gods, then

  this:

  the power struggling to be born, a creature larger than

  man,

  though made of men; not to be outfoxed, too old for us; terrible and final, by nature neither just nor unjust, but wholly demanding, so that no man made any part

  of that beast

  dare think of self, as I did. For if living says anything, it’s this: We sail between nonsense and terrible

  absurdity—

  sail between stiff, coherent system which has nothing

  to do

  with the universe (the stiffness of numbers,

  grammatical constructions)

  and the universe, which has nothing to do with the

  names we give

  or seize our leverage by. Let man take his reasoning

  place,

  expecting nothing, since man is not the invisible player but the player’s pawn. Seize the whole board, snatch

  after godhood,

  and all turns useless waste. Such is my story.”

  So Jason ended. The kings sat hushed, as silent as the goddesses.

  19

  Kreon sat pondering, propped on his elbows, eyebags

  puffed,

  protrusive as a toad’s, the table around him as thick

  with flowers

  as a swaybacked bin in the marketplace. He

  remembered himself,

  at last, and rose. Still no one spoke. Athena, stand
ing at Jason’s back, was smiling, serene and wild at once, majestic as the Northern Lights. Beside her Hera stood with hooded eyes, awesome in the flush of victory— for I could not doubt that Athena and she had won.

  The goddess

  of love, by Kreon’s virginal daughter, was wan and

  troubled,

  her generous heart confused. I was tempted to laugh,

  for an instant,

  at how easily they’d confounded her—those wiser

  goddesses,

  Mind and Will. But Aphrodite’s glance at Jason

  stopped me, filled me with sudden alarm.

  The hunger in Aphrodite’s eyes—

  hunger for heaven alone knew what—

  consumed their wisdom, made all the mechanics of

  Time and Space

  foolish, irrelevant. Beyond the invisible southern pole of the universe her feet were set. Her reach went up, like the carved pillars of Kreon’s hall (vast serpent coils, eagles, chariots, fish-tailed centaurs), writhing to the

  darkness

  beyond the star-filled crown of Zeus. Kreon, half-giant, his head drawn back, one eye squeezed shut, addressed

  the sea-kings,

  lords of Corinth and sons of lords:

  “My noble friends, princes gathered from the ends of the earth, we’ve heard

  a story

  stranger than any brought down in the epic songs, and

  one

  more freighted with troublesome questions. As you see,

  the hour is late,

  and the day has been troubled by more than Jason’s

  tale. It therefore

  seems to us fit that we part till tomorrow morning, to

  reflect

  in private. Let us all reassemble to pursue by the light

  of day

  what brings us together here.” He paused for answer,

  and when no one

  spoke, he bowed, assuming assent, and prepared to

  leave.

  He reached for Pyripta’s hand and raised her to her feet;

  then, pausing,

  he glanced at Jason, saying, “Would you care to speak,

  perhaps,

  with Ipnolebes before you go?” He was asking more

  than he spoke

  in words, I saw, for Jason frowned, reluctant, then

  nodded.

  And so they left the central table, Kreon and his

  daughter

  and Aison’s son. And now all the wide-beamed hall

  arose,

  sea-kings murmuring one to another, and slowly made

  way

  to the doors. I pushed through the crowd to keep my

  eye on Jason.

  The sea-kings looked at me, puzzled, perhaps amused.

  They seemed

  to think me, dressed so strangely, some new

  entertainment. None

  addressed me. On the dais, the goddess of love had

  vanished. I searched

  the room, my heart in a whir, to discover what form

  she’d taken.

  I saw no trace of her.

  Then we were standing in a shadowy chamber, plain as a cavern, where slaves moved silently to and fro with sullen, burning eyes. There Ipnolebes stood, alone, quietly issuing commands. Since the time I’d seen him

  last

  he was a man profoundly changed. His skin was ashen,

  his eyes

  remote, indifferent as a murdered man’s. When Jason

  approached him,

  the black-robed slave gazed past him as though he were

  a stranger. Old Kreon

  rubbed his jaw, looked thoughtful, keeping his distance.

  In his shadow

  Kompsis stood, the violent red-headed man who’d

  attacked

  them all when the goddess Hera was in him. By the

  calm of his eyes,

  I thought she had entered him again, but I was wrong.

  It was

  another goddess—as deadly as Hera when the mood

  was on her.

  The son of Aison bowed to the slave and touched his

  shoulder

  as he would the shoulder of an equal he wished to

  console. For all

  his cunning, for all the magic of that golden tongue,

  he could find

  no words. It was thus the slave who broke the silence.

  He said,

  “You knew him, I think—Amekhenos, Northern

  barbarian

  who thought himself a prince in spite of the plain

  evidence

  of welts and chains.”

  “I knew him, yes.”

  “You could have prevented, if it suited you …”

  But Aison’s son shook his head. “No.” His voice was heavy, as weary as the voice of an old,

  old man.

  Ipnolebes sighed and still did not swing his eyes to

  Jason’s.

  “No. It was not, after all, as if you’d sworn him some

  vow.

  There are laws and laws, limitless seas of extenuation eating our acts. Otherwise no man alive would grow old maintaining, in his own opinion, at least, the shreds

  and tatters

  of his dignity.” He forced out a ghastly laugh. “Who

  am I

  to judge? And even if you had, so to speak, let slip some

  vow,

  many years ago—” He paused, wrinkling his brow,

  having lost

  the thread. There are vows and vows,” he mumbled.

  “I merely say …

  I merely say …”He broke off with a shudder and

  turned

  his face. “I find no fault in you,” he said. “Good night.”

  Lips stretched taut in a violent grin, he stared at Jason.

  They spoke no further, and finally Jason withdrew. Old

  Kreon

  followed him, Kompsis at his side. I hurried behind

  them. In the hall

  that opened on the great front door with its thickly

  figured panels,

  its hinges the length and breadth of a man, the old

  king bowed,

  without a word, and they parted. The short, red-bearded

  man

  accompanied Jason, walking out into the night. I kept to the shadows, following behind.

  At the foot of the palace steps red Kompsis paused, and Jason reluctantly waited for

  him.

  “You amaze me, Jason.” He folded his beefy hands and

  smiled,

  malevolent. ‘The hanged boy was a friend of yours.” Jason said nothing. “He was, I think, the son of a king who defended the Argo from ruin by northern

  barbarians.

  He was a mighty chieftain, at that time.

  But later, his luck abandoned him.

  His palace fell to marauders from the South. He himself,

  though old

  and cunning as a dragon, was driven to the hills and

  there surrounded

  by Danaans and slain, still clinging to his two-hand

  sword. His head

  they hacked from his shoulders and threw in the river,

  and all his animals,

  horses and dogs, they slaughtered, in scorn of the habit

  of the Kelts;

  and his son in scorn they christened Amekhenos.

  Shackled as a slave,

  for all his angry pride, they brought him to Corinth.

  Here Kreon

  bought him, believing he could tame that wolfish heart.”

  To all this

  Jason listened in silence, his eyes on the ground. Red

  Kompsis

  laughed, but his voice was violent, his body hunched.

  He said:

  “He recognized you at once, of course. At the first

  chance,

  he spoke with you. I saw your lo
ok of bewilderment

  You’d heard that voice before somewhere, but you couldn’t recall it. Faces, voices, they don’t last

  long

  in the snatching brain of Jason.” He laughed again.

  “You would

  have remembered him soon enough, I think, if you’d

  needed his aid.

  But the shoe was on the other foot. He was not a man

  to press

  for favors owed to his house. Though a single word

  from you

  to Kreon—fond as he is of his mighty adventurer—

  would have freed that prince in the same instant, you

  kept your peace.

  Because of bad memory.” He leaned toward Jason

  fiercely. “—Because of

  shallowness of heart. I name it its name! Your every

  word

  reveals your devilish secret!

  “—Very well, you forgot his name. He must seek his freedom by other means. And so

  escaped,

  slipped—incredible!—even past sleepless Ipnolebes’

  eyes.

  We know better, of course. You saw his rage. For once

  in his life

  the old man chose to blink. —But whatever his

  barbarous courage,

  whatever the cunning of his savage Keltic brain, no

  slave

  escapes from the gyves of Kreon. And so he was missed,

  and hunted,

  and eventually found in—incredible again …”

  “I know. That’s enough!” Jason broke in without meaning to. He stood

  tight-lipped,

  saying no more. Red Kompsis laughed,

  swollen with righteous indignation, godlike scorn.

  “—was found in the chief ship of the Arenians, in command of a

  man

  you once knew well—mad Idas, son of Aphareos.

  Surely it did not escape the wily Jason’s mind that something, somewhere, was amiss! Why would

  Idas, for all his famed

  insanity, give help to a perfect stranger, a dangerous

  Kelt? All the crew was arrested, the runaway slave

  was hanged,

  and still from Jason not a syllable. Though all the

  harbor

  churned up seething in fury at Kreon’s tyranny— grizzly, base-born seadogs with no more nobility of

  blood

  than jackals—still the golden tongue was silent. You

  can

  explain, no doubt. The golden tongue can explain away the moon, the sun, the firmament, explain away birth and death, not to mention marriage—leave all this

  universe pale

  as mist.” So he spoke, lips trembling with anger, and

  while he spoke,

  the sky grew darker, glowering and oppressive. I

  understood

  it was no mere mortal whose anger charged the night,

  but the wrath

  of a goddess whose power was rising. The Father of

 

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