John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

claimed,

from the deeps of space, noctivagant beings shackled to

earth,

dark shadow of oaks and stones, for some guilt long

forgotten.

They waited and watched the heavens as a prisoner

stares at fields

beyond his cell’s square bars. They studied the wobbling

night,

and if some faraway star went wrong they sacrificed an eldest son to it, and made it right.

The king

spoke softly, as if some god were speaking out of him— a man no more made of flesh and blood than

Koprophoros, I’d swear:

stiff as a puppet, a figure in some old electrical game at the penny arcade, mindlessly obstructing — such was

the impression

the black king gave with his ponderous, vaguely

funereal manner;

and yet there was anger in his manner too, such

old-man fury

at all Koprophoros spoke, I could hardly believe it was

not

some hellish joke between them. Solemn as death, he

said:

“You advertise your talents, my bloated friend, as if you intended to put them on sale. No doubt you’d

soon find a buyer!”

He smiled, full of scorn for the listening crowd. “How

nice to think

— a man can outfox the fates by his clever wits, outbox the wind, outgrapple the fissures that open when

earthquakes strike!

Mere childish dreams. Forgive me for saying so. We’ve

stood—

my kingdom — a thousand years. We dreamed like you,

at first,

a thousand thousand years ago. But stone cliffs collapsed on us, seas overran us, monsters crawled from the deep and claimed our herds. And winds—

such violent winds

as you’ve never seen thus far in these playful hills—

so dark

they blanked out sun and moon for seven full years,

so thick

they snatched away all our breath like tons of earth

falling—

cliffs and seas, monsters from the deep, and those

terrible winds

taught us our power was not what we first supposed.

A man

can kill a man, if he will, or some beast less than a man, some beast that shares, in its own way, our

humanness—

hunger, the rage to rule, our pleasure in thought.

(I have seen

elderly wolves sit thinking, smiling to themselves.)

But a man

can tyrannize nothing beyond himself, his own frail

kind.

If you’ve smiled at bears who pompously, foolishly lord

it over

lesser bears but shake like mice at the tucket and boom of heaven, then smile at Koprophoros! How many storms have you tilted up like a chair and deprived of its legs?”

He laughed,

the cackle of an old, old man. The black of his hair was

dye,

I understood only now. His face was wrinkled like a

mummy’s.

Surely, I thought, the man’s long years past fathering

a child!—

yet here he stands, contending for a wife! (No one in

the hall,

or no one besides myself, it seemed, was amazed.)

He said:

“ I shiver and shake at your leastmost leer, O dangerous

friend,

but the hills are cool to both of us, and the thunder

laughs.

You hold your throne by discreet and tasteful violence. As for me, I hold mine — apart. I sit in dreary silence no man envies, no man steals. What little I need to eat I plant myself and harvest alone. For talk, for the stimulation of other men’s minds, I have old

hymns

and a thousand years of figures carved in stone. I go on, and my race goes on, the prey of no one but the gods.

To a man

new to his glories, blind to the ghostly stelliscript, knowing not whence he comes or whither he goes—

immortal

as the asphodel, he thinks — that may seem a trifling

thing,

a man full of hope, unaware of the gods’ deep scorn

of man,

a founder like you, Koprophoros.” He moved his gaze from table to table slowly. It came to rest at last on Kreon. The old man sat leaning forward, watching

intently,

waiting as if in alarm. Paidoboron smoothed his beard, as black and thick as the fur of a bear in winter. He

said:

“If I were, for instance, the last king in a doomed line, I’d run to the rim of the world, taking any child I had, and I’d house myself in stone, and I would propitiate the gods, my surest foe, with prayers and deodands.” His words died away to silence in the rafters of the hall.

The stillness

clung like a mist, as though the black-bearded

Northerner

had silenced the crowd by a spell.

Then fat Koprophoros spoke, rising from his seat, bowing, all grace, to the princess

and king.

The deep-red jewel on his forehead gleamed like fire

through wine.

Symbols of the soul those jewels, I remembered. But

the blood-red light

trapped inside fell away and away into nothingness like magnitude endlessly eating its shadow, consuming

all space.

“He speaks with feeling,” Koprophoros said, then

suddenly cackled.

“A man without interest in the throne of busy Corinth

and all

her wealth! Pray god we may all be as wise when we’re

all as poor

as Paidoboron!” He beamed, unable to hide his pleasure in his own sly play. The princess laughed too, the

innocent peal

of a child, and then all the great hall laughed till it

seemed that the very

walls would tumble from weakness. Paidoboron, grave,

said nothing.

His eyes were fierce. Yet his fury, it seemed to me

again, rang false.

I glanced at the goddesses, reclining at ease near Jason,

on the dais.

If the two kings were engaged in some treachery,

the goddesses too

were fooled by it.

The chief of the Argonauts watched the Northerner as though he had scarcely noticed Koprophoros’ trick.

He said

when the laughter in the hall died down, “Tell me,

Paidoboron,

why have you come? I knew you long ago, and I know your gloomy land. Koprophoros has his joke, but perhaps his nimble wits have betrayed him, this once. What

wealth can a man

bring down from a land like yours? And what can

Corinth offer

that you’d take even as a gift? I know you better,

I think,

than Koprophoros does. There’s no duplicity in you,

no greed

for anything Kreon can give. Yet there you stand.”

Paidoboron

bowed. “That’s true. Even so, I may have suitable gifts for a king.” He said no more, but smiled.

Jason laughed,

then checked himself, musing. “You’ve seen something

in the stars, I think,”

he said at last. Paidoboron gave him no answer. “I think the stars sent you — or so you imagine — sent you for

something

you’ve no great interest in, yourself.” He tapped his

chin,

thinking it through. Suddenly I saw in his eyes that his

thought

had darkened. He said: “If Zodiac-watchers were always

right,

we’d all be wise to abandon this hall at once.” He

smiled.

Kreon looked flustered. “What do you mean?” When

Jason was silent,

he turned to Ipnolebes. “What does he mean?” The

slave said nothing.

The old king pursed his lips, then puffed his cheeks

out, troubled.

“Fiddlesticks!” he said. Then, brightening: “Wine! Give

everyone here

more wine!” The slaves hurried in the aisles, obeying.

But Jason

pondered on, and the sea-kings watched him as Kreon

did,

Time suspended by Jason’s frown. The game was ended, I thought, incredulous. He’d understood that the fates

themselves

opposed him, through Paidoboron.

Then one of the shadowy

forms beside him vanished — Hera, goddess of will, and the same instant a man with a great red beard