Jason and Medeia (45 page)

squarely on the forehead,

and Kaanthos, astounded, fell, and his life ran out.

Nor was that

the least of my men to be lost on sandswept Libya. As for Herakles, we found no trace. They all returned; we prepared to set sail for home.

   “And then came Mopsos' time, foreseen by him from the beginning, thanks to his

birdlore. He was

the noblest of seers, for all his peculiarity— his whimsy, the grime on his fingers, the bits of dried

food in his beard—

but little good his wisdom did him when his hour

arrived.

   “An asp lay sleeping in the sand, in shelter from the

midday sun,

a snake too sluggish to attack a man who showed no

sign

of hostility, or fly at a man who jumped back. It meant no harm to anything alive, though even a drop of its

venom

was instant passage to the Underworld. Old Mopsos,

chatting

and strolling with Medeia and her maidens, while the

rest of us worked on the ship,

by chance stepped lightly, with his left foot, on the

tip of the creature's

tail. In pain and alarm, the asp coiled swiftly around the old man's shin and calf and struck, sinking its fangs to the gums. Medeia and her maidens shrank in horror.

Old Mopsos

clenched his fists in sorrow. The pain was slight enough, but he knew he was past all hope. He lifted his foot to

free

the asp. Already he was paralyzed, numb. A dark mist clouded his sight, and his heavy limbs fell. In an instant,

he was cold,

his flesh corrupting in the heat of the sun, his hair

falling out

in patches. We dug him a grave at once and buried him. Then went down to the ship, full of woe.

   “With Ankaios dead, no sure helmsman among us, our chances of reaching

Akhaia

were slim. But Peleus took the oar, the father of

Akhilles,

and we drew the hawsers in. There must surely be

some escape

from the wide Tritonian lagoon, we thought. Having no

aim,

we drifted, helpless, the whole day long. The
Argo's

course,

as we nosed now here, now there, for an outlet, was

as tortuous

as the track of a serpent as it wriggles along in search

for shelter

from the baking sun, peeping about him with an angry

hiss

and dust-flecked eyes, till he slips at last through a dark

rock cleft

to freedom. And so we too found freedom. Once in the

open,

we kept the land on our right, hugging the coast. The

sun

was kinder now, though fierce enough. We slept in the

shadow

of rocks by day, and drove the
Argo
by the power of our

backs

from twilight till dawn's first glance. And so wore out

by stages

the curse of Helios.”

   Here Jason paused, looked down, his dark eyebrows knit. The hall was silent, waiting, Kreon leaning on his arms, his gaze intent. I could feel their dread of the man's conclusions.

   He said: “Except, of course, that no man—no house—wears out a curse by his own

power.

We may with luck propitiate the gods, live through our

trials;

but the offense is still in the blood, and our sons

inherit it,

and our sons' sons, and shadow progeny arching to the

end

of time. I half understood them now, those ghostships

riding

the
Argo's
wake. By some inexplicable accident we were, ourselves, the point of no turning back. We

closed

an age. The Golden Age,' men will call it. They'll honey

it with lies

and hone for it, with languishing looks, and bemoan

their fall

and curse my name and treason…. Their curses will

not much stir

my dust. I was there; I saw the truth. A childish age of easy glory in petty marauding, of lazy flocks on bluegreen hills where every stream had its nymphs,

each wood

its men half-goat; where the rightful monarch of a

sleepy throne

could be set aside, as was I at Iolkos, and given the

choice

of fighting for his right like a long-horned ram

dispossessed of his gray

indifferent ewes, or accepting the slight humiliation and moving on. I changed the rules—declined the

gauntlet,

made deals, built cunning alliances, ambitious in

secret,

with always one thought foremost: keep to the logic

of nature.

Be true, within reason, to friends, with enemies ruthless.

Be just,

but not beyond reason. Honor the gods and men and

the stones

of the earth, but not to excess. Have faith sufficient to

fight;

beware all expectations.

   “For there is no power on earth but treaty, no love but mutual consent—whatever the

relative

power of those consenting. Not even the gods are firm of character; much less, then, men. The promise I make, I make to a man who may change, become anathema

to me.

Therefore, be just, recall no vows still meet, but know we sail among wandering rocks. By these few

principles—

some known to me at the start, some not—I organized the Akhaians. It would be, from that day forward, powers pitted against powers, the labor of monstrous

machines—

at best, a labor for universal good; at worst, perhaps, exploiters faceless as forests, and the cringing exploited,

the forests'

beasts.

   “So riding by night, my hand on Medeia's, I watched the shadowy ships like mountains that followed in our

wake. As before,

Time washed over us in waves. I dreamed it was stars

we sailed,

and our oars stirred dust on the moon, or our shadow

stretched out, prow

to stern, in the shadows that tremble and float down

Jupiter.

At times stiff birds passed over us, roaring, and

mountains took fire.

Medeia, watching at my side, said nothing, and whether

or not

she understood these visions, I could not guess. I told

her

the words I'd heard in my dream, off the isle of Phineus: You
are caught in irrelevant forms. Beware the

interstices.

She studied me, child of magic; could tell me nothing.

Gently,

I covered her hand. Sooner or later, I knew, I'd grasp

that mystery.

I'd pierced a part of it already: it was there at the

intersections

of the billion billion powers of the world that the danger

lay,

and the hope; the gaps between gods, or men, or gods

and men;

the gaps between minds—my own and Aiaian Medeia's.

Invisible

gaps at the heart of connectedness, where love and will leaped out, seek to span dark chambers, and must not

fail. I seemed

for an instant to understand her, as when one knows

for an instant

a tiger's mind; the next, saw only her face, her radiant, wholly mysterious eyes. I was not as I was, however, with Hypsipyle on the isle of Lemnos. It was not mere

fondness,

shared isolation that I felt. I put my arms around her as a miser closes his arms, half in joy, half in fear,

around

his treasure sacks—as a king walls in his city, or a

mother

her child. As the raging sun reaches for the pale-eyed, vanishing moon, so Medeia's burning

heart

reached for my still, coiled mind; as the moon reforms

the light

of the sun, abstracts, refines it, at times refuses it,

yet lives by that light as memory lives by harsh deeds

done,

or consciousness lives by the mindless fire of sensation,

so I

locked needs with Medeia, not partner, as I was with

Hypsipyle,

but part. She returned the embrace, ferocious: a wild

off-chance.

Thus as Helios' wrath withdrew we staked our claims, all our curses smouldering still in our blood.

   “And so we came at last by the will of the deathless

gods to Akhaia.

18

“It wasn't easy, sharing the rule with senile Pelias.

All real power in the kingdom was mine. It was not for

love

of the stuttering, wrinkled old man that Argus devised

the palace

that made us the envy of Akhaia, or built the waterlocks that transformed barrenness to seas of wheat, or built,

above,

the shining temple to Hera that soared up tower on

tower,

mirrored by lakes, surrounded by majestic parks. It was

not

for love of Pelias that Orpheus brought in the mysteries of Elektra to Argos, and made our city of Iolkos chief of the sacred cities of the South. Nor was it for him

that Phlias

created the great dance of Heros Dionysos, which

brought us glory

and wealth and favor of the god of life and death. I

shared

all honors with Pelias, though I'd changed his kingdom

of pigs and sheep

to a mighty state; and I did not mind the absurdity

of it.

And yet he was thorn, a hedge of thorn, and I might

have been glad to be rid of him.

I could move the assembly by a few words to

magnificent notions—

things never tried in the world before. I could have

them eating

from my hand, and then old Pelias would rise, wrapped

head to foot

in mufflers and febrile opinions. His numerous chins

a-tremble,

blanched eyes rolling, the tip of his nose bright red, like

a berry

in a patch of snow, he'd stutter and stammer,

slaughterer of time,

and in the end, as often as not, undo my work with a

peevish

No.
Nor was he pleased, God knows, to share the rule with me. He hadn't forgotten the oracle that warned,

long since,

that he'd meet his death by my hand. He couldn't decide,

precisely,

whether to hate and fear me outright—whatever my

pains

to put him at ease—or feign undying devotion,

avuncular

pride in my glorious works. At times he would snap like

a mongrel,

splenetic, critical of trifles—insult me in the presence

of the lords.

I was patient. He was old, would eventually die. His

barbs were harmless,

as offensive to all who heard them as they were to me.

My cousin

Akastos would roll his eyes up, grinding his teeth in fury at his father's ridiculous spite. I would smile, put my

hand on Akastos'

arm, say, ‘Never mind, old friend.' It drew us closer, his shame and rage at his bumbling father's stupidity. He had, himself, more honor with the people than his

father had,

having sailed to the end of the world with us—a

familiar now

of Orpheus, Leodokos, and the mighty brothers Peleus and Telamon. He'd become, through us, a friend of the hoary centaur Kheiron, and come to

know

the child Akhilles, waxing like a tower and handsome as

a god.

What had Akastos to do with a snivelling, whining old

man,

Akastos who'd stood at the door of Hades, listened to

the Sirens,

braved the power of Aietes and the dangerous Kelts?

The old man

hinted that after his death Akastos should follow him as my fellow king. It was not in the deal; I refused.

Akastos

was furious—not at me. And now he seldom came to the palace, bitterly ashamed. He remained with

Iphinoe, at home,

or travelled with friends, supporting their courtships

or wars.

   “At times Pelias would drop his peevishness, put on, instead, a pretense of cowering love. He'd sit with his head to

one side,

lambishly timid, and he'd ogle like a girl, admiring me. ‘Noble Jason,' he'd call me, with lips obscenely wet, and he'd stroke my fingers like an elderly homosexual, his head drawn back, as if fearing an angry slap. His

desire

to please, in such moods, was boundless. He couldn't

find honors enough

to heap on me. He gave me gifts—his ebony bed (my father's, in fact), jewels, the sword of Atlantis—

but with each

gift given, his need—his terror of fate—was greater

than before.

In the end he gave me the golden fleece itself as proof that all he owned was mine, I need not murder him. He was mad, of course. I had no intention of murdering

him.

And still he cringed and crawled, all bootlicking love.

That too

I tolerated, biding my time.

   “Not all on Argos shared or understood my patience. On the main street, on the day of the festival of Oreithyia—our chariot

blocked

by the milling, costumed crowd—a humpbacked

beggarwoman

in fetid rags, a shawl hiding all but her hawkbill nose and piercing eyes—a coarse mad creature who sang

old songs

in a voice like the carrion crow's and stretched out

hands like sticks

for alms—leaped up at sight of me, raging, ‘Alas for

Argos,

kingless these many years! Thank God I'm sick with

age

and need not watch much longer this shameful travesty! We had here a king to be proud of once, a man as

noble beside these pretenders

as Zeus beside two billygoats!

That king and his queen had a son, you think? He

produced what seemed one—

an arrogant, cowardly merchantry-swapper with no

more devotion

than a viper. The father's throne was stolen—boldly,