John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

lawless tribe,

the Dryopians, fornicating with one another’s wives, maddening themselves by the use of strange distillations

and roots,

scornful of the gods. Unable to find any honest quarrel, Herakles went to the king one day when he was

ploughing, and began

an argument concerning an ox. One moment the king

was laughing,

scornful and clever, enjoying the contest; the next he

lay dead

in the fallow, his skull caved in. He felt no guilt

about it,

Herakles. He took the child from the basket beside the field and brought it up, made the boy his servant—

trained him

as a shepherd trains up a loyal, unquestioning dog.

“Soon Hylas

discovered a spring, tracing the swift stream upward in

the dark

past moonlit waterfalls, majestic trees — it was not the

nearest

of the springs he might take water from; but he was

young, after all.

and the night was beautiful, filled with the sound of

cascades; immense

ramose old trees, motionless, brooding on themselves.

He could stand

on the shelf or rock overlooking the dark, still pool and

feel

he was the only boy on earth. To his left the torrent fell

away,

swifter than you’d guess, swirling and rippling,

murmuring something

that was almost words, and he must have felt that

if he made his mind

quite still — more still than the dark — he might, any

moment, know

what it said. In the forest beside him, bats were

a-flutter; owls

swept silently down the wide avenues of trees; a stately hart stood quiet as a sapling, watching. A fox crept,

sniffing,

in the brush.

“There was in that spring a naiad. As Hylas drew near she was just emerging from the water to sing her

nightly praise

to Artemis. And there, with the full moon shining on

him

from a cloudless sky, she saw him in all his radiant

beauty

and gentleness. Her heart was flooded with desire; she

had to

struggle to gather up her shattered wits. Now the

moonling leaned

to the water to dip his ewer in, and as soon as the

current

was rattling loudly in the ringing bronze, she threw

her left arm

firmly around his neck and eagerly kissed his lips; her right hand snatched his elbow, and down the poor

boy plunged,

sinking with a cry into the current.

“Old Polyphemon, son

of Eilatos, was not far off. He’d left our feast to search

out

Herakles and help him home with his burden. When

he heard

the cry he rushed in the direction of the spring like a

hungry wolf

who hears the bleating of the distant flock and, in his

suffering, races

down to them only to find that the shepherds have

beaten him again,

the sheep are safe, enfolded. He stood on the bank

and roared—

the reboation rang down the gorge from cliff to cliff to the broadening holm below, where the river was

wide and deep—

and he searched the night with his dim eyes; he

prowled the dark woods,

groaning in distress, roaring again from time to time; but there came no answer from the boy. He drew his

heavy sword

and began to search through the place more widely,

on the chance that Hylas

had fallen to some wild beast or been ambushed by

savages.

If any were there, they’d have found that innocent easy

prey.

Then, as he ran along the path brandishing his naked

sword,

he came upon Herakles himself, hurrying homeward

to the ship

through the darkness, the tree on his shoulder.

Polyphemon knew him at once,

and he blurted out, gasping: ‘My lord, I must bring you

terrible news!

Hylas went out after water. He hasn’t come back.

I fear

cruel savages caught him, or beasts are tearing him

apart. I heard him

cry.’

“When Herakles heard those words the sweat

poured down

his forehead and his dark blood boiled. In his fury, he

threw down

the pine and rushed off, hardly aware where his feet were taking

him.

As a bull, maddened by a gadfly’s sting, comes up

stampeding

from the water-meadows, hurls himself crazily, crashing

into trees,

sometimes rushing on, stopped by nothing — the herd

and herdsmen

forgotten now — and sometimes pausing to lift up his

powerful

neck and bellow his pain, so Herakles ran, that night, sometimes pausing to fill the distance with his ringing

cry.

“But now the morning star rose over the topmost

peaks,

and with it there came a sailing breeze. Tiphys

awakened us

and urged us to embark at once, take advantage of the

wind. We scrambled

to the Argo in haste, pulled up the anchoring stones

and hauled

the ropes astern, all swiftly in the shadowy dark. The

wind

struck full; the sail bellied out; and soon we were far

at sea,

beyond Poseidon’s Cape.

“But then, at the hour when clear-eyed

dawn peers out of the east, and the paths stand plain,

we saw

we’d left those three behind. No wonder if tempers

flashed!

We’d abandoned the mightiest and bravest Argonaut of

all! What could

I say? It was my mistake. I’d make plenty more, no

doubt,

before this maniac mission had reached its end.

— All this

for a shag of wool, the right to make dropsical

courtiers bow,

smile with their age-old hypocrisy — or dark-lumped

urchins

stretch for a cure of the king’s evil. I tried to speak but couldn’t. I covered my face with my hands and

wept. Mad Idas

chuckled. Catastrophe suited him, confirmed his ghastly metaphysics.

“But huge Telamon was rabid, uncle

of Akhilles — a man with a temper like that of the boy

who sits

this moment, if what we hear is true, chewing his

knuckles,

stubborn in his tent on the blood-slick plain of Troy.

He said:

‘Who are you fooling with your crocodile tears, sly son

of Aison?

Nothing could suit you better than abandoning Herakles. You planned the whole thing yourself, so that Herakles’

fame in Hellas,

if we make it back, can never eclipse your own. But

why waste

breath on you! We’re turning around, and damned if

I’m asking

permission of the man who helped with your stinking

plot.’ As he finished,

Telamon leaped at Tiphys’ throat, his eyes ablaze with anger. In a minute we’d all have been fighting

our way back to Mysia,

forcing the ship through the rough sea, bucking a stiff

and steady

wind. But then the sons of the North Wind, Zetes and

Kalais,

shot quick as arrows between the two, and checked

Telamon

with a stinging rebuke. Traitor! Mutineer!’ Kalais

shouted.

‘Are you now seizing the command the Argonauts chose

by vote?

Have northern seas made the Argo a ship of barbarians, where loyalty’s muscle, and keeping faith to old vows

is a matter

of size?’ Poor devils! A terrible punishment was coming

to them

when Herakles learned that their words cut short our

search. He killed

the North Wind’s sons when they were returning home

from the funeral games

for Pelias; and he made a barrow over them, and set up

the famous

pillars, one of which sways whenever the North Wind moves across it, struggling to dig up his sons. — But

all that was

later.

“The wind grew stronger, bringing up clouds;

harsh sea-waves

hammered at the Argo, slammed at our gunwales till