John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

man

on all the Argo guessed that this was the very land we’d left, the isle of Kyzikos. As for the

bridegroom-king,

he leaped from his bed at the alarum and rushed to

the shore with his men,

bronze-suited, armed; and, thinking his troubles were

past — the threat

the seer had warned him of — he struck at once,

believing us

raiders — Macrians, maybe — but in any event,

unwelcome,

flotsam jacked from the sea. We met, and the clash

of our implements

boomed in the dark, leaped like the roar when a

forest fire

pounces on brushwood, blowing its bits sky-high. We

pushed them

back, back, back, to the walls of the city — Herakles and Ankaios moving like great black towers, blocking

out stars

ahead of us, the rest of us following like the widening

belly

of a ship, our swords and spears flashing out in the

dark like oars.

They fled through the gates and heaved against them,

straining to close them.

We lashed torches to our spears and hurled. The city

went up

like oil. Ye gods but we were good at it! Mad Idas

shrieked,

dancing with a female corpse. Leodokos, strong as a bull, pushed in the palace doors and we saw white fire inside. And then one struck at my left, and I whirled, and even

as the spear

plunged in, I saw his face, his helmet fallen away: Kyzikos! He sank without a word, and when his

muscles jerked

and his head tipped up, there was sand in his open

eyes. Too late

for shamed explanations now; too late to consider again the warning of the seer! He’d had his span: one more

bird caught

in the wide, indifferent net. Nor was he the only one. Herakles killed, among lesser men, brave Telekles and Megabrontes; Akastos killed Sphodris; and Peleus’ spear brought down Gephyros and Zelos; Telamon brought

down Basileus;

Idas killed Promeus, and Klytius, Hyakinthos, called the Good. And there were more — the men Polydeukes

killed,

fighting with his fists when his spear had snapped, and

the men who were killed

by Kastor, and those that the boy Ankaios killed. There

are stones

on the island, marked with their names — brave men

known far and wide

for skill, unfailing courage.

“So the battle ended, unholy

error. We hurried through fire and smoke, helping the

people,

moving them up to the hills, above where the city

burned.

For three days after that we wept with the Doliones, wailing for the king, his young queen, and their

beautiful palace—

crumbling walls, charred beams. Then built him a

splendid cairn

that moaned in the wind like a widow sick with sorrow,

made

by Argus’ subtle craft. And we gave him funeral games and all the noble old ceremonies that men hand down from age to age — solemn marches as angular as the priests’ hats; dances darker and older than the

hills;

poems to his virtue, the beauty of his queen.

“For twelve days then

there was murderous weather — high winds,

thunderstorms, soot-black rain,

the angry churning of the sea. We couldn’t put out. At

last

one night as I slept — my cousin Akastos standing watch, reasoning out, full of anguish, the whole idea of war, its pros and cons (wringing his fingers, hammering

the rail),

the old seer Mopsos watching and smiling — a halcyon came down and, hovering above my head, announced,

in its piping

voice, the end of the gales. Old Mopsos heard it all and came to me. He woke me and said: ‘My lord,

you must climb

this holy peak and propitiate Hera, Mother of the Gods, and then these gales will cease. So I’ve learned from

a halcyon:

the seabird hovered above you as you slept and, lo! so

it spoke!

The queen of gods rules all this earth, the sea, and

snow-capped

Olympos, home of the gods. Rise up and obey her!

Be quick!’

“With one eye part way open, I studied the graybeard

loon.

His eyewhites glistened, as sickly pale as the albumen of an egg, and his heavy lips, half hidden in beard and

moustache,

shook. He was serious, I saw. I rubbed my eyes with

my fists,

laboring up out of dreams. Then, seeing he gave me

no choice,

I leaped up, feigning belief, and I hurried from cot to

cot,

waking the others, rolling my eyes as seemed proper,

telling

the news, how Mopsos had saved us, he and a halcyon. None of them doubted. Mopsos nodded as I told them

the story,

backing up all I said. And so, within that hour, we started work. The younger of the men led oxen out from the stalls and began to drive them up the steep

rock path

to the top of Bear Mountain (the spider people asleep

at its foot.

sending skyward the unpleasant scent of sixteen-day-old death). The others loosed the Argo’s hawsers from the

rock

and rowed to the corpse-strewn harbor. Leaving four

on watch,

they too climbed through the stench. It was dawn. From

the summit you could see

the Macrian heights and the whole length of the

Thracian coast:

it seemed you could reach out and touch it. You could

see the entrance to the Bosporos

and the Mysian hills, and in the opposite direction the

flowing waters

of Aisepos, and the city on the plain, Adrasteia.

“In the woods

stood a hundred-year-old vine with a massive, shaggy

trunk,

withered to the roots. We chopped it down; then crafty

Argus

hacked out a sacred image of the queen of gods, long

gray hair

flying as he wheeled his axe. He skilfully shaped it,

gray ears

cocked to the whisper of Athena. When he finished, we

set it up

on a rocky eminence sheltered by dark, tall oaks, and

made

an altar of stones nearby. Then, crowned with oakleaves

(night

had fallen now, the dark storm howling around us), we began the sacrificial rites. I poured libations out, shouting to the goddess to send those flogging winds

away.

Mopsos and Orpheus whispered. Then, at Orpheus’

command,

the Argonauts, in all their armor, circled the fire in a high-stepping dance, beating their shields with their

swordhilts, drowning

the noise of the Doliones, far below us, still mourning their king. More wildly than the storm mute Phlias

danced, their leader.

Louder and louder their armor rang in the night, and

the flam

of drums. I could hardly hear myself, yelling to Hera—

much less

hear the howling of the winds, the howl of the

mourners. Then—

strange business! — the trees began shedding their fruit,

and the earth at our feet

magically put on a cloak of grass. Beasts left their lairs, their burrows and thickets, and came to us wagging

their tails. Nor was

that all. There had never been water — there was neither

spring nor pool—

before that time on Bear Mountain. Now, though no one

touched

a spade, a stream came gushing from the earth, a stream

that flows

even now, called Jason’s Well. And so, it seems, the

goddess

heard us. We finished our rites with a feast — all this

according

to ritual. By dawn, the wind had dropped. We could sail.

“Old Mopsos said — we were standing in the woods

alone, when the rest

had walked back down to the harbor—: ‘My son, you did

that well!

Never have I witnessed a more auspicious flush of signs! Such miracles! Surely the goddess Hera loves you, boy! Surely the crew of the Argo is in divinely favored hands!’ I bowed. He studied me, picking at his lip. He