John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

our lives mere dice?”

Ipnolebes wrung his hands. “I’m a foolish old man,

my lord.

It seems improbable …” “If it’s true, then Koprophoros’

way’s the best:

Seize existence by the scrotum! Cling till it shakes you

loose,

hurls you out with an indifferent horn toward emptiness! I refuse to believe it’s true!” But his eyes snapped shut,

and he whispered,

“Gods, dear-precious-holy-gods!” I looked at Corinth’s

towers,

baffled by the sudden change in him. I looked, in my

vision,

at the parks, academies, sculptured walkways, houses

of the people

(white walls, gardens, children in the streets) — a city

as bright

as Paris, greener than London, as awesome in its power

for good

or evil as rich New York; and suddenly I knew what

shattered him:

Thebes on fire. (Berlin, San Francisco, Moscow,

Florence …

New York on fire. Babylon is fallen, fallen.. .)

The slave shook his head,

rueful. “My lord, what got you back onto this? We

should think

of the present, be grateful for the gifts the generous

gods give now!”

For a long time Kreon was silent, looking at the sea.

Below him

the city, blazing in the sunlight, teemed with tiny

figures

moving like busy insects through the streets. The tents of the marketplace were shimmering patches of color.

By the walls

stood hobbled donkeys, loaded with goods — bright cloth,

rope, leather,

great misshapen bags of grain, new wineskins,

implements;

above it all, like the tinny hum that rises from a hive, the sound of the people’s voices buying and selling,

begging,

trading — people of every description, thieves, jewellers, shepherds driving their bleating sheep and goats, sailors up from the ships in the harbor, zimmed and

clean-shaved spintries—

shocking as parrots — and prostitutes, old leathery

priests …

The old king pointed down at them, touching

Ipnolebes’ arm.

“See how they live off each other,” he said. “Shoes for

baskets,

honey for wine, filigree for gold, a few pennies for a prayer. Picture of the world — so Jason claims.

Picture

of the Argo, gods and men all ‘arm in arm,’ so to

speak:

no one exactly supreme. If Antigone and I had been like that, more willing to give and take …” Ipnolebes

scowled

but kept his thoughts to himself. When Kreon glanced

at him

he saw at once that something festered in the old slave’s

mind.

“Don’t keep your thoughts from me, old friend,” he said.

His look

had a trace of anger in it. Ipnolebes nodded, avoiding the king’s eyes. His gnarled hands trembled on the

white of his beard

and it came to me that, for all their talk of friendship,

they were

slave and master. Ipnolebes touched his wrinkled lips with two bent fingers and mumbled, as if to himself,

“I was thinking—

trying to think — the old brain’s not what it used to be,

my lord — thinking …

from Aietes’ point of view… how he felt when the Argo —every man at his task, the south wind

breathing

his steady force in the sails — came gliding to the

Kolchian harbor

to steal the fleece, bum ships, seduce his daughter—

destroy

his house.” Suddenly he laughed — the laugh of a

halfwit harmless

slave. King Kreon looked at him, his small eyes wider, glinting. “Aietes was wrong,” he said. The gods were

against him.”

Ipnolebes nodded, looking at the ground. They must

have been.

But what was his error, I wonder?” King Kreon glanced

away.

“Who knows?” he said. Tyranny perhaps. Or he

slighted some god—

who knows? It’s none of our business.” He closed his

mouth. It became

a thin, white line, perspiring at the upper lip. “Who

knows?”

He shot a glance at Ipnolebes, but the old man’s face was vacant. His mind had wandered — a trick of Athena,

at his back—

and Kreon pressed him no more. Ipnolebes excused

himself,

mumbling of work, and the king released him, frowning

slightly.

When the slave was gone, he stood on the balcony alone,

thinking.

All around him, gods stood watching his mind work, slyly disguised as crickets, spiders, a lone eagle ringing slowly sunward, on Kreon’s left

Below,

Ipnolebes paused on the stairway, listening. A frail

old woman,

slave from the south, was singing softly:

“On ivory beds

sprawling on divans,

they dine on the tenderest lambs from the flock

and stall-fattened veal;

they bawl to the sound of the minstrel’s harp

and invent unheard-of instruments of music;

they drink their wine by the bowlful, use

the finest oil for anointing themselves;

death they do not sing of at all.

and death they do not think of at all;

But the sprawlers’ revelry is over,”

Without a word, Ipnolebes descended, thinking.

On a bridge in the palace gardens, Pyripta stood looking

down

at fernlike seaweed, the wake of a swan, the blue-white

pebbles

below. She stood till the water was still and her reflection — pensive, silk-light hair falling over

her bosom—

looked back at her. She seemed to be trying to read the

face

as she would the face of a stranger. The face said

nothing — as sweet

and meaningless as a warm spring day. She pouted,

frowned,

experimented with a smile. She glanced away abruptly, with a frightened look, alarmed by art. I hurried nearer, picking my way through flowers. Aphrodite appeared

beside her,

faintly visible on the bridge, like a golden haze, and

touched

Pyripta’s arm. The princess stared at the water once

more

and sighed, shook back her hair. “I won’t,” she

whispered. “Why must I?

Later! Please, gods, later! I need more time!” The

goddess

moved her hand on Pyripta’s hair. The girl looked

down,

posing, as before. The flowers of the garden rimmed the

pool

like a wreath of yellows and pinks. The swans moved

lazily,

like words on the delicate surface of a too-calm dream.

Above,

on the palace roof, a songbird whistled its warning to

the sky,

the encroaching leaves: Take caret Take care! Take

care up there!”

As I raised my foot, stepping over a flower, the garden vanished.

I stood in the shadow of Jason’s wall. There were vines, the scent of black earth, old brick. I went to the open

window,

cleaned my glasses on the sleeve of my coat and,

standing on tiptoe,

peeked through the louvers. He was dressed to go out,

standing at the mirror,

his back to Medeia, brushing his long black hair.

She said:

“Don’t go, Jason.” He said nothing, brushing, his arm

and shoulder

smooth, automatic as a lion’s. He put down the brush

and took

his cape from the slave. Except for his eyes, he seemed

relaxed.

His eyes had blue-black glints like sparks.

But he swung the cape to his shoulders gently, graceful

as a dancer.

“Jason,” she whispered, “for the love of God, don’t

make me beg!”

He turned to the door. She paled. “Don’t go,” she said.

“Don’t go!”

She went past him, blocking the door, and her eyes were

wild. “Jason!”

He moved her aside like a child and walked from the