John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

course, he was better,

as plainly superior to me as the sun to a mill wheel.

And yet

I resented him, and I burned like a coal at their

feigned delight,

their self-delusion, in choosing me. I had half a mind to quit, sulking, and crawl away to some forest and live like a hermit. Screw them all! At the same time,

however,

I wanted to lead them, whether or not I was worthy—

I was,

God knew (and I knew), ambitious. All my life I’ve hated standing in somebody’s shadow. So, with as good a grace as possible, I blinded myself to the obvious.

I accepted. Orpheus smiled, studying his fingernails.

“ ‘Second detail,’ I shouted, and cleared my throat—

looking

guilty as sin, no doubt. ‘If you do indeed trust me with this honorable charge—’ It came to me I was

putting it on

a trifle thick, and I hastily dropped the orbicular style. “We’ve two things left, and we may as well start on

both of them

at once. The first is the sacrifice to the gods — a feast to Phoibus, for warm, clear days, to Poseidon for

gentle seas,

and to Hera, who’s been my special friend — thanks to

Pelias’

scorn of her. Also an altar on the shore to Apollo, the god of embarkation. And while we’re waiting for

the slaves

to pick out oxen from the herd and drive them down

to us,

I suggest that we drag the Argo down into the water

and haul

our tackle on, and cast lots for the rowing benches.’ They all agreed at once and I turned, ahead of them

all—

to show my fitness as a leader, I suppose, or escape

their eyes—

and threw myself into the work. They leaped to their

feet and followed.

“We piled our clothes on a smooth rock ledge which

long ago

was scoured by seas but now stood high and dry. Then, at Argus’ suggestion, we strengthened the ship by

girding her round

with tough new rope, which we knotted taut on

either side

so her planks couldn’t spring from their bolts but would

stand whatever force

the sea might hurl against them. We hollowed a runway

out,

wide enough for the Argo’s beam, and we gouged it into the sea as far as the prow would reach, deeper and

deeper

as the trench advanced, below the level of her stem.

Then we laid

smooth rollers down, and tipped her up on the first of

the logs.

We swung the long oars inside out — the whole crew

moved

like a single man with a hundred legs — and we lashed

the handles

tight to the tholepins of bronze, leaving nearly a foot

and a half

projecting, to give us a hold. We took our places then on either side, and we dug in with our feet and put our chests to the oars. Then Tiphys, king of all

mariners, leaped

on board, and when he shouted, ‘Heave; we echoed

the shout

and heaved, putting our backs into it, pushing till

our necks

were swelled up like a puff-adder’s, and our thick legs

shook

and our groins cried out. ‘Ah!; the Argo whispered. ‘Ah!’ At the first heave we’d shifted the ship from where

she lay,

and we strained forward to keep her on the move.

And move she did!

Between two files of huffing, shouting Akhaians,

the craft

ran swiftly down to the sea. The rollers, ground and

chafed

by the mighty keel, wheezed like oxen at the ship’s

weight

and sent up a pall of smoke. The ship slid in and gave a cry and would have been off on her own to that

land of promise

if Herakles hadn’t leaped in and seized her, the rest of

us shouting,

straining back on the hawsers with all our might.

She rocked,

gentle on the tide, singing, and we watched that

gentle roll,

and my heart was hungry for the sea.

“No need to tell you more.

We piled up shingle, there on the beach, working

together

like one man with a hundred hands, and we made

an altar

of olive wood. The herdsmen came to us, driving

the oxen

and we hailed them, praising their choice. A few of us

dragged the great

square beasts to the altar, and others came with

lustral water

and barleycorns, and I called to Apollo, god of my

fathers,

as I would have called to a man I knew — that’s how

I felt

that morning, with the Argo singing, the men all

watching me,

arm in arm — I’d completely forgotten my resentment

now;

‘O hear us, Lord, Great God Apollo, you that dwell in Pegaisai, in Aison’s city, you that promised to be my guide! Lord, bring our ship to Kolchis and back, and my friends all safe and sound! We’ll bring you

countless gifts,

some in Pytho, some in Ortygia. O, Archer King, accept the sacrifice we bring you, payment in advance

for passage

safe to the fleece and home! Give us good luck as

we cast

the ship’s cable; and send fair weather and a gentle

breeze.’

“I sprinkled the barleycorns in the fire, and Herakles and mighty Ankaios girded themselves for their work

with the beasts,

the child Ankaios, twelve feet tall, still wearing his

bearskin.

The first ox Herakles struck on the forehead with his

club, and it fell

where it stood. Dark blood came dribbling from its nose

and mouth. The second

Ankaios smote with his huge bronze axe — blood sprayed

and steamed—

and the ox pitched forward onto both its horns. The

men around them

slit the animals’ throats, and flayed them, chopped

them up

with swords, and carved the flesh. They cut off the

sacred parts

from the thighs and heaped them together and, after

wrapping them

in fat, burned them on the faggots. I poured libations

out,

old unmixed wine. And Idmon the seer, with Mopsos

at his back,

both of them wise in the ways of the gods, watching

intently,

smiled and nodded, agreeing as surely as two heads

ruled

by a single mind, for the flames were bright that

surrounded the meat,

and the smoke ascended in dark spirals, exactly as it

should.

‘All’s well for you,’ they said, ‘though not for us all,

and not

without some troubles, and terrible dangers later.’ It was enough, God knows, for the moment. The crew was

jubilant.

“We finished our duties to the other gods in the

same spirit.

It seemed to us that they all stood around us smiling,

unseen,

like larger figures of ourselves, all arm in arm, as

we were,

some with their hands on our shoulders, sharing our

joy. Great Zeus,

the very sea and hills, it seemed, locked arms and

shared

our joy, our eagerness to go! I wouldn’t have given

much

that moment for the holy hermit’s life in his sullen

woods

or stalking the barren island conversing with gulls

and snakes

praying, clenching his teeth against the civilities of man!

“Then we all cast lots for the benches, choosing our

oars—

or all of us but Herakles, for the whole crew said, and rightly, that a giant like that should take the midships seat, and the boy Ankaios

beside him;

and Tiphys, they all agreed, should be our helmsman,

the man

who knew when a swell was coming from miles away.

It was settled.

“The time of day had come when, after his midday

rest,

the sun begins to stretch out shadows of rocks over

fields,

and trees are dark at the base but bright above. We’d

spent

too long at our preparations. But no use fretting now. We strewed the sand with a thick covering of leaves