Jason and Medeia (6 page)

me,

floating in the dark like a ship. It reached to me,

touched my hand,

and the tree became an enormous door whose upper

reaches

plunged into space—the ring, the keyhole, the golden

hinges

light-years off. Even as I watched the great door grew. I trembled. The surface of the door was wrought from

end to end

with dragon shapes, and all around the immense beasts there were smaller dragons, and even the pores of the

smaller dragons

were dragons, growing as I watched. Slowly, the door

swung open.

I had come to the house of the gods.

Above the cavern where the dark coiled Father of

Centuries

lay bound, groaning, in chains forged by everlasting fire, Zeus sat smiling, serene as the highest of mountaintops, his eyes like an eagle's, aware of the four directions.

Beside him—

stately, magnificent, dreadful to behold—Hera sat,

draped

in snakes. Above her lovely head, like a parasol, a cobra flared its hood. It stared with dusty eyes through changing mists. I tightened my grip on my

guide's hand.

“Goddess, porter, whatever you are,” I whispered,

“shield me!”

“Be still,” she said. I obeyed, trembling, straightening

my glasses,

buttoning up my coat.

The queen of goddesses

had beautiful eyes, as benign and warm as the eyes

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,

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.