Jason and Medeia (16 page)

to see if she too understood. But I couldn't tell. No sign. She watched him fold the cloth and lay it on the carved

bench.

They went up. I found myself shaking. Who remembers

the elegant speeches

he makes to his wife, the speeches she laughingly

mocks herself,

but clings to more than she thinks? If I were Jason and

saw

the fleece, and remembered the words of the blind old

seer of Apollo,

I too, blindly—like a mad fool, from the point of view of the old, all-seeing gods … I checked myself. They

were phantoms,

dead centuries ago if they ever lived. It was all absurd. I remembered:
The wise are attached neither

to good

nor to evil. The wise are attached to nothing.
I laughed.

Christ send me

wisdom!

Still trembling, I went to the door, then out to the

garden

to walk, examine the plants and read the grave-markers. I could hear the city waking—the clatter of carts on

stones,

the cry of donkeys and roosters, the brattle of dogs

barking.

I sat for a long time in the cool, wet grass, and as the day warmed, and the children's voices came down

from the house—

soft, lazy as the butterflies near my shoes— I fell asleep.

7

Kreon beamed—propped up, plump, on scarlet pillows— wedged in, hemmed on all sides by slaves, some feeding

him,

some manicuring his nails, some waving fans, great gleaming plumes. His cheeks and bare dome

dazzled,

newly oiled and perfumed, as bright as the coverture of indigo, gold, and green. The pillars of the royal bed were carved with a thousand liquid shapes: fat serpent

coils,

eagles, chariots, fish-tailed centaurs, lions, maidens … Writhing, twisting, piled on top of one another, the

forms

climbed up into the shadows beyond where the sunlight

burst

like something alive—a lion from the golden age—past

spacious

balconies, red drapes.

“He was magnificent!”

the king said. The slave in black, standing at his

shoulder,

smiled, remote. “Poor Koprophoros!” the king exclaimed, and laughed till the tears ran down. The slave by the

bed laughed with him.

“And poor Paidoboron,” he said, and looked more sober

for an instant;

but then, unable to help himself, he laughed again. You'd have sworn he was ten years younger today, his

cares all ended.

His laughter jiggled the bed and made him breathless.

The dog

at the door rolled back his eyes to be certain that all was

well,

his head still flat on his paws. When the fit of laughter

passed,

the old king patted his stomach and grew philosophical. “Well, it's not over yet, of course.” Ipnolebes nodded, folded his hands on his beard. King Kreon lowered his

eyebrows,

closed one eye, and pushed out his lower lip. “Make no mistake,” he said, “that man knows whom he's speaking

to—

This for the princess, that for the king; this for the

Keltai,

this for the Ethiopians.' ” He closed his left eye tighter still, till the right one gleamed like a jewel.

“And what

does he offer for Kreon and Ipnolebes?” Abruptly, the

bed

became too little span for him. He threw off the cover— slaves leaped back—reached pink feet to the floor and

began

to pace. They dressed him as he walked (somewhat

frailly, eating an apple).

This, certainly, whatever else: the trick of survival may not lie, necessarily, in heroic strength or even heroic nobility, heroic virtue— consider Herakles and Hylas, for instance. The world's

complex.

There's the more serious side of what's wrong with

Koprophoros.

Graceful, charming, ingenious as he is (we can hardly

deny

he's that), his faith's in himself, essentially. The

strength of
his
muscles,

the force of
his
intellect. We know from experience,

you and I,

where that can lead. Oidipus tapping his way through

the world

with a stick, more lonely and terrible, more filled with

gloom

than Paidoboron himself. Or worse: Jokasta hanging

from a beam.

Or Antigone.” He paused and leaned on the balustrade

that overlooked

the city, the sea beyond, the visitors' ships. “Antigone,” he said again, face fallen, wrecked. He raised the apple to his mouth and discovered he'd eaten it down to the

pits. He was silent.

He stared morosely seaward. Ipnolebes stood head

bowed,

as though he knew all too well what molested his

master's thought.

The king asked, testy, his eyes evasive, “Tell me,

Ipnolebes,

what do the people say now about that time?” The slave stiffened, disguising his feelings, then quickly relaxed

once more,

grinning, casually picking at his arm. But if there was

cunning

in what he said, or if some god had entered his spirit, no one there could have known it. “My lord, what
can
they say?” he said at last. “No one was

wrong …

it seems to me … though what would I know, mere

foolish old slave?”

Kreon turned his bald head slightly, lips pursed,

eyebrows

low, dark, thick as a log-jam. His neck was flushed—old

rage

not yet burned out. Ipnolebes said: “With Oidipus blind, self-exiled, Queen Jokasta dead, the city of Thebes surrounded, you had no choice but to seal the gates.

That stands—”

He paused, looked baffled for a moment. That

stands … to reason. And of course

Antigone had no choice but to break your law, with

her brothers

unburied, food for vultures. So it seems … It was a terrible time, yes yes, but no one…” His voice

trailed off.

Kreon's mouth tightened. “I should have relented sooner.

I was wrong.

To think otherwise … Would you have me consider

our lives mere dice?”

Ipnolebes wrung his hands. “I'm a foolish old man,

my lord.

It seems improbable …” “If it's true, then Koprophoros'

way's the best:

Seize existence by the scrotum! Cling till it shakes you

loose,

hurls you out with an indifferent horn toward emptiness! I refuse to believe it's true!” But his eyes snapped shut,

and he whispered,

“Gods, dear-precious-holy-gods!” I looked at Corinth's

towers,

baffled by the sudden change in him. I looked, in my

vision,

at the parks, academies, sculptured walkways, houses

of the people

(white walls, gardens, children in the streets)—a city

as bright

as Paris, greener than London, as awesome in its power

for good

or evil as rich New York; and suddenly I knew what

shattered him:

Thebes on fire.
(Berlin, San Francisco, Moscow,

Florence
…

New York on fire. Babylon is fallen, fallen ..
.)

The slave shook his head,

rueful. “My lord, what got you back onto this? We

should think

of the present, be grateful for the gifts the generous

gods give now!”

For a long time Kreon was silent, looking at the sea.

Below him

the city, blazing in the sunlight, teemed with tiny

figures

moving like busy insects through the streets. The tents of the marketplace were shimmering patches of color.

By the walls

stood hobbled donkeys, loaded with goods—bright cloth,

rope, leather,

great misshapen bags of grain, new wineskins,

implements;

above it all, like the tinny hum that rises from a hive, the sound of the people's voices buying and selling,

begging,

trading—people of every description, thieves, jewellers, shepherds driving their bleating sheep and goats, sailors up from the ships in the harbor, zimmed and

clean-shaved spintries—

shocking as parrots—and prostitutes, old leathery

priests …

The old king pointed down at them, touching

Ipnolebes' arm.

“See how they live off each other,” he said. “Shoes for

baskets,

honey for wine, filigree for gold, a few pennies for a prayer. Picture of the world—so Jason claims.

Picture

of the
Argo,
gods and men all ‘arm in arm,' so to

speak:

no one exactly supreme. If Antigone and I had been like that, more willing to give and take …” Ipnolebes

scowled

but kept his thoughts to himself. When Kreon glanced

at him

he saw at once that something festered in the old slave's

mind.

“Don't keep your thoughts from me, old friend,” he said.

His look

had a trace of anger in it. Ipnolebes nodded, avoiding the king's eyes. His gnarled hands trembled on the

white of his beard

and it came to me that, for all their talk of friendship,

they were

slave and master. Ipnolebes touched his wrinkled lips with two bent fingers and mumbled, as if to himself,

“I was thinking—

trying to think—the old brain's not what it used to be,

my lord—thinking …

from Aietes' point of view… how he felt when the
Argo
—every man at his task, the south wind

breathing

his steady force in the sails—came gliding to the

Kolchian harbor

to steal the fleece, bum ships, seduce his daughter—

destroy

his house.” Suddenly he laughed—the laugh of a

halfwit harmless

slave. King Kreon looked at him, his small eyes wider, glinting. “Aietes was wrong,” he said. The gods were

against him.”

Ipnolebes nodded, looking at the ground. They must

have been.

But what was his error, I wonder?” King Kreon glanced

away.

“Who knows?” he said. Tyranny perhaps. Or he

slighted some god—

who knows? It's none of our business.” He closed his

mouth. It became

a thin, white line, perspiring at the upper lip. “Who

knows?”

He shot a glance at Ipnolebes, but the old man's face was vacant. His mind had wandered—a trick of Athena,

at his back—

and Kreon pressed him no more. Ipnolebes excused

himself,

mumbling of work, and the king released him, frowning

slightly.

When the slave was gone, he stood on the balcony alone,

thinking.

All around him, gods stood watching his mind work, slyly disguised as crickets, spiders, a lone eagle ringing slowly sunward, on Kreon's left

Below,

Ipnolebes paused on the stairway, listening. A frail

old woman,

slave from the south, was singing softly:

“On ivory beds

sprawling on divans,

they dine on the tenderest lambs from the flock

and stall-fattened veal;

they bawl to the sound of the minstrel's harp

and invent unheard-of instruments of music;

they drink their wine by the bowlful, use

the finest oil for anointing themselves;

death they do not sing of at all.

and death they do not think of at all;

But the sprawlers' revelry is over,”

Without a word, Ipnolebes descended, thinking.

On a bridge in the palace gardens, Pyripta stood looking

down

at fernlike seaweed, the wake of a swan, the blue-white

pebbles

below. She stood till the water was still and her reflection—pensive, silk-light hair falling over

her bosom—

looked back at her. She seemed to be trying to read the

face

as she would the face of a stranger. The face said

nothing—as sweet

and meaningless as a warm spring day. She pouted,

frowned,

experimented with a smile. She glanced away abruptly, with a frightened look, alarmed by art. I hurried nearer, picking my way through flowers. Aphrodite appeared

beside her,

faintly visible on the bridge, like a golden haze, and

touched

Pyripta's arm. The princess stared at the water once

more

and sighed, shook back her hair. “I won't,” she

whispered. “Why must I?

Later! Please, gods, later! I need more time!” The

goddess

moved her hand on Pyripta's hair. The girl looked

down,

posing, as before. The flowers of the garden rimmed the

pool

like a wreath of yellows and pinks. The swans moved

lazily,

like words on the delicate surface of a too-calm dream.

Above,

on the palace roof, a songbird whistled its warning to

the sky,

the encroaching leaves: Take caret Take care! Take

care up there!”

As I raised my foot, stepping over a flower, the garden vanished.

I stood in the shadow of Jason's wall. There were vines, the scent of black earth, old brick. I went to the open

window,

cleaned my glasses on the sleeve of my coat and,

standing on tiptoe,

peeked through the louvers. He was dressed to go out,

standing at the mirror,

his back to Medeia, brushing his long black hair.

She said:

“Don't go, Jason.” He said nothing, brushing, his arm

and shoulder

smooth, automatic as a lion's. He put down the brush