John Gardner: Jason and Medeia

endurance — not

beyond. So I’ve always maintained. What man could

believe in the gods

or worship them, if it were otherwise?” He chuckled

again,

apologetic, as if dismissing his tendency toward bombast. “In any case,” he said, “our luck’s

changing.

I give you my word.” He nodded, frowning, hardly glancing at the husk from which the god peeked

out

as the rim of a winecup peeks from the grave of the

world’s first age.

The spying, black-robed power leered on, wringing his hands in acid mockery of the old servant’s love.

Whatever shadows had crossed

the king’s mind, he stepped out free of them. Tentatively, he smiled once more, his lips like a

woman’s,

faintly rouged, like his cheeks. His bald head glowed like polished stone in the failing light. A breeze, advancing ahead of the storm, tugged at his heavy skirts and picked at his beard. “It’s difficult, God knows,”

he said,

“to put those times behind us: Oidipus blind and wild, Jokasta dead, Antigone dead, high-chambered Thebes yawning down like a ship in flames… Don’t think

I haven’t

brooded aplenty on that. A cursed house, men say; a line fated to the last leaf on the last enfeebled branch. It’s a dreadful thought,

Ipnolebes.

I’m only human. I frighten as easy as the next man. I won’t deny that I’ve sat up in bed with a start,

sometimes,

shaking like a leaf, peering with terrified, weeping eyes at the night and filling the room with a frantic rush

of prayers—

‘Dear gods, dear precious-holy-gods …’ —Nevertheless, I can’t believe it. A man would be raving mad to think the luculent powers above us would doom us willy-nilly, whether we’re wicked or virtuous, proud or not. No, no! With all due respect, with all due love for Oidipus and the rest, such thoughts are the sickness of faulty

metaphysics.”

The king stared at the darkening sky, his soft hands folded, resting on his belly. Again he closed one eye and reached for the old slave’s arm. “I do not mean

to malign

the dead, you understand. But working it through in

my mind

I’ve concluded this: the so-called curse has burned

itself out.”

He paused, thought it over, then added, as if with a

touch of guilt,

“No curse in the first place, actually. They were tested

by the gods

and failed. Much as I loved them all, I’m forced to

say it.”

He shook his head. They were stubborn. So they went

down raging to the grave

as Oidipus rages yet, they tell me, stalking the rocks of his barren island, groping ahead of himself with

a stick,

answering cries of gulls, returning the viper’s hiss, tearing his hair, and the rest. Well, I’m a different breed of cat. Not as clever, I grant — and not as noble,

either—

but fit to survive. I’ve asked far less than those did. I ask for nothing! I do my duty as a king not out of pride in kingship, pleasure in the awesome power

I wield,

but of necessity. Someone must rule, and the bad luck’s

mine.

Would Kreon have hanged himself, like poor Jokasta?

She was

unfortunate, granted. But there have been cases, here

and there,

of incest by accident. She set her sights too high,

it seems.

An idealist. Couldn’t bend, you know. And Antigone

the same.

All that — great God! — for a corpse, a few maggots, a passing flock of crows! Well, let us learn from their

sad

mistakes. Accept the world as it is. Manipulate the possible. “

Strange…

“I’ve wondered sometimes if the gods were aware

at all of those terrible, noble deeds, those fiery

orations—

Oidipus blind on the steps, Antigone in the tomb,

Jokasta

claiming her final, foolish right to dignity.”

He covered his mouth with his hand and squinted.

He said, voice low:

“Compare the story of the perfect bliss of ancient

Kadmos,

founder of the line, with Harmonia, whose marriage

Zeus

himself came down to attend. King Kadmos—

Kosmos, rightly—

loved so well, old legends claim, that after his perfect joy in life — his faultless rule of soaring Thebes, great golden city where for many

centuries

nothing had stirred but the monstrous serpent

Kadmos slew—

the gods awarded him power and Joy after life,

Zeus filled

his palace with lightning-bolts, and the well-matched

pair was changed

to two majestic serpents, now Lady and Lord of all the Dead. So, surely, all who are good get recompense. If Oidipus did not — hot-tempered and vain — or

haughty Jokasta …

— But let it be. I don’t mean to judge them, you

understand.

They behaved according to their natures. Too good for

the world.” He nodded.

The wind came up. The sky overhead was as

dark-robed

as the god. Old Kreon pursed his lips as if the storm had taken him unawares. A spatter of rainfall came, warm drops, and the king hiked up his skirts and ran,

his servant

close behind, for shelter under the portico. The trees bent low, twisting and writhing, their

parched leaves

swaying like graygreen witches in a solemn dance.

The sky

flashed white. A peal of thunder shook the columned

house,

the stamping hoof of Poseidon’s violent horse above, and rain came down with a hiss, splashing the

flagstones. The king

breathed deep, a sigh, stretched out his arms. “Rain!” It was as if the gods had sent down rain for his

pleasure. “God

bless rain!” The king and his servant laughed and

hugged themselves,

watching it fall and listening, breathing the charged air.

Inside the king’s vast house a hundred servants

padded

softly from room to room, busy at trivial chores, scrubbing, polishing, repairing — the unimportant lives reamed out of time by the names of kings. Slaves, the children of far-famed palaces broken by war, moved through the halls of Kreon’s palace carrying

flowers,

filling the smoke-black vases that darkened the royal

chambers,

driving away the unpleasant scents of humanness— sweat, the king’s old age, the stink of beloved dogs, stale wine, chamberpots, cooking. Eyes on the floor,

young men

of fallen houses from Africa to Asia moved silently opening doors to admit the lightning smell—

then,

eyes on the floor, soundless as jungle birds, moved on. The rumble of thunder, the dark murmur of rain,

came in.

A young blond slave with eyes as gray as the

North Sea

paused in the grillwork shadow of columns, his head

lowered,

peering intently, furtively, out toward distant hills where shafts of sunlight burst, serene, mysterious, through deep blue glodes; the shafts lit up the far-off

trees,

the rims of the hills, like silver threads in a tapestry. He stood unmoving except for one hand reaching out, as if for support, to a great white marble chair afire with figures — goddesses, nymphs, dryads, unicorns, heroes of ancient tales whose names were clouded in

mists

long before the sculptor carved the stone. The figures burgeoned from one another — arms, legs, wings, limp

horns—

as if the stone were diseased, as if some evil force inside it meant to consume the high-beamed room with

shapes,

fat-bellied, simpering, mindless — shapes to satisfy a Civilization hip-deep in the flattery of wealth and influence, power to the edges of the

world. The slave

moved his hand, as if in pain, infinite disgust, on fat breasts sweetly nippled, polished buttockses, the dwarf-pear little penises of smiling boys.