John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

that all this time he’d had no end but one, return

to Ithika

and his dear lost wife. And so, assisted by the

wily Athena,

he explained away his drifting and eluded the sweet,

light clutches

of Nausikaa — but committed himself to the older, half-forgotten prison, and there Alkinoös sent him, laden with gifts on that oarless barque. But though he

reached the hall

itself and learned who was loyal to him, he could

find no way

to win back his power from the suitors there, fierce

men who’d kill him

gladly if he dared to reveal himself. So hour on hour, disguised as a beggar in his own wide hall, he

gnashed his teeth,

watching them eat through the wealth of his pastures

and smile obscenely

at his pale-cheeked, ever more beautiful wife; and

his hands were tied.

She seemed not to know him (though his dear old dog

had died of joy

at sight of him). Yet she it was who suggested the test of the bow, and placed in Odysseus’ hands the

one weapon

with which he might make his play. And play he did!

Such slaughter

was never seen, not even on the Trojan plains. When

it ended,

and the house was cleansed of the stench of blood

by sulphur fumes,

his disloyal servants hanged and those proved loyal

rewarded,

Odysseus, deserving or not, had his kingdom and

wise good wife

and best of sons. Whatever a man could dare to ask if the world were just and orderly, and the gods kind, all that and more, he was given.

“So it is that the lives of men confute each other, and nothing is stable, nothing — nay,

not even misery — sure.

For that reason I abandoned rule,

and abandoned all giving of advice. If I liked, I could

point your ship

in the direction of Aigeus’ land, the kingdom of Theseus’

father,

or give firm reasons for avoiding the place. But I’ve

little heart left

for tedious illusions — not mine, not even some other

man’s.

Life is a foolish dream in the mind of the Unnamable. When he wakens, we’ll vanish in an instant, squeezed

to our nothingness,

or so we’re advised by books. Therefore I devote myself, for all my famous temper, wrecker of my life, to learning to forget this life, drifting, will-less, toward absolute

nothing,

formless land where all paradox, all struggle, melts. A man who’s been totally crushed by life should

understand these things,

a man whose loss has proved absolute. All the more,

therefore,

I wonder what reason Jason may have found—

unless, perhaps,

pure rage, after all these years, has still sufficient power to drive him on, forcing him even now to seek revenge. You say that the yard on your mast is a roost

for ravens.

A dangerous sign; I agree with you. For surely the curse Medeia placed on Jason is there confirmed, death on the Argo. And yet on that selfsame ship he

follows her.

But that, I think, is by no means the worst of

attendant omens.

In your wake come the groans of unheard-of creatures,

and a smell of fire,

and sounds of a vast, unholy war. I need not say

‘Turn back in time, have nothing to do with this

futureless man,’

for the dullest peasant could give such advice. I ask,

instead,

what brings you here? What can it be you’ve grasped—

or what

do you hope for? I am anxious to understand.”

Mad Idas held his hands to the fire, Lynkeus looking sadly through

the walls.

Jason waited, struggling against his restlessness.

Then Idas said:

“All you’ve told me I’ve known from the beginning,

though it’s taken me years

to grasp the thing that, because I am not like other men, I knew. As my brother sees with his lynx’s eyes

more things

than others see, so I, in my madness, am blessed

or cursed

with uncommon sight. In every tree and stone I see the gods warring — not to the death but casually, lightly, to break the eternal tedium. And I see the same in human hearts. It filled me with panic once. Not now. Once, half-asleep with friends who were talking,

telling old stories,

and all signs swore that not a man there could work

up a mood

for quarrelling, I would feel an estrangement in the man

at my side—

fear, mistrust, or some other emotion dividing

his heart—

and I’d know if I let myself look I’d discover the same

in them all,

no stability in any man, no rock to lean on,

all our convictions, all our faith in each other,

an illusion—

reality a pit of vipers squirming, blindly striking, murdering themselves. Cold sweat would rise on

my forehead, and I

would strike out first, their scapegoat; my own. But as

time passed

I got over that; came to accept more calmly the darkness that surrounds and shapes us. I came to accept what you

preach to us now,

the voracious black hole at the core of things. I too

observed

how fine it would be if Herakles were right — some

loving god

attending mankind in every sorrow, demanding merely total devotion, action conformant to His character. Since no such god was there, I let it pass — allowed that Theseus’ way was best, faith by despair. But we had stolen the fleece, we on the Argo, and Theseus

had not.

That was the difference. We’d done the impossible, and

never again

would Theseus’ way suffice. Then Medeia murdered

the sons

of Jason. There’s no way up from that. No way, at least, for Jason himself. For no revenge, however dire, could have any shred of meaning. You see how it is.

No man

could guess such love, such rage at betrayal. She emptied

herself.

All the pale colonnades of reason she blew sky-high, like a new volcano hurled through the heart of the city.

So he,

reason’s emblem, abandoned reason.” He glanced at

Jason,

furtive and quick, his mad smile flashing in the light

of the fire.

“He abandoned the oldest rule in the world. It’s not for

revenge

that he hunts Medeia. Move by move they played out

the game

of love and power, and both of them lost. What

shamelessness,

what majestic madness to claim that it wasn’t a game

after all,

that no rules apply — that love is the god at the heart

of things,

dumb to the structured surface — high ruler of the

rumbling dance

behind the Unnamable’s dream. And does Jason think,

you ask,

that hell overcome that woman’s rage with his maniac

love?

Not for an instant! He thinks nothing, hopeful or

otherwise:

his will is dead, burned to cinders like Koronis’ corpse on her funeral pyre, from whence the healer

Asklepios leaped;

or burned like the Theban princess Semele in lightnings

from Zeus,

out of whose ash, like the Phoenix, the god Dionysos

rose,

god who first crushed from the blood-soaked earth

the wine he brings

to the vineyard’s clawing roots. He has no fear any more, of total destructions, for only the man destroyed

utterly—

only the palace destroyed to its very foundation grits— is freed to the state of indifferent good: mercy without

hope,

power to be just. No matter any more, that life is

a dream.

Let those who wish back off, seek their virtuous

nothingness;

the man broken by the gods — if he’s still alive — is free even of the gods. Dark ships follow us, ghostly armadas baffled by his choice. Sir, do not doubt their reality. I give you the word of a madman, they’re there — vast