John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

the magic beams

of Athena’s ship were howling in fury at Poseidon.

Orpheus

played, but the sea wouldn’t hear. Then Idmon, younger

of the seers,

stood up, wild-eyed, and clinging to the mast, he yelled

out, ‘Listen!’

We listened, and heard … God only knows. But as if

in a dream

I saw a hand six paces broad rise un from the water and grasp the Argo’s side, and the ship was still as a

stone

despite the terrible wind, the churning, pitch-dark waves. Then a voice heavier than thunder said: ‘Hear me,

Argonauts!

How dare ye, in proud defiance of Almighty Zeus, purpose to carry fierce Herakles to Kolchis? His fate assigns him Argos, where he’s doomed to serve

Eurystheus,

accomplishing for him twelve great tasks; and if, in the

few

remaining, he happens to prevail, he shall go back to

Zeus, his father.

Forget regret. As for Polyphemon, it is his fate that he found a famous city among the Mysians, where

the Kios

disembogues to the sea. He will die, when the gods see

fit.

far from his home, in the broad land of the Khalybes. As for Hylas, a nymph has taken him — too much in love to ask permission of the bold and glorious Argonauts.’ So he spoke. The thunderheads rumbled as if in a laugh.

The huge hand

sank. Dark water swirled around us, broke into foam, tumbled past rails and coamings and hurled us on.

‘Then Telamon

came to me, weeping, and clutched my hand and kissed

it, saying:

‘Forgive me, lord. Do not be angry if in a foolish moment I was blinded by love for dear friends lost. The

immortal gods

know best, I hope. As for my offense, may it blow away with the wind, and let us two, who have always been

friends, be friends

again.’

“I said nothing for a long time, the god’s laughter— soft and dangerous as thunder on the open sea—

still ringing

in my ears. It seemed that only I, of all the Argonauts, or only Idas and I (I saw the madman’s eyes), fully understood that our grand mission was insanity— and Akastos, perhaps, my cousin, Pelias’ son. (He sat, thin arms folded, staring full of sorrow at the grinding

sea.)

It seemed to me that we alone had grasped the message of the voice that came from the storm: Love truth,

love loyalty

so far as it suits our convenience. I’d lose still more of

them.

Such was the prophecy of the seers on the day we’d

left. I’d watch them,

one by one, drift off, slip past recall. And if

I told them now it was all a mistake — those glory-seekers gathered from all Akhaia (Telamon’s brother Peleus, waving proudly to his son, brought down to see us off by Kheiron’s wife, old Kheiron beaming, waving his two huge arms; Hylas, beaming at his hero; Herakles rowing, the muscles of his face like knots) … But I was still

their captain,

the one will that resolves the many, even when the many are mad. Sense may emerge at last, in human labors, or may not. Meanwhile, there must be order, faith in

the mission;

otherwise, deadly absurdity. I couldn’t afford mere humanness, the comfort of admitting confusion.

I would

lose more that way. The eternal gods can afford whimsy. Not us. Not I, as captain.

“I got control and said:

‘Good Telamon, you did indeed insult me grievously when you accused me, here before all these men, of

wronging a loyal

friend. They cut to the quick, those heartless words of

yours.

But I don’t mean to nurse a grudge against you. It was

not some flock

of sheep, some passel of worldly goods you were

quarrelling about,

but a man, a beloved comrade of your own. I like to

think

if occasion arose you’d stand for me against all other

men

as boldly as you did for him.’ Then, not too hastily, like a man setting his rankling wrath aside, I embraced

him.

He wept fiercely, like the child he was. And I too wept, moved by the childlike heart in that towering warlord.

Orpheus

studied his golden instrument, knowing my mind too

well.

“I learned later that all turned out in Mysia exactly as the voice in the storm foretold. Polyphemon built

his city;

Herakles resumed the labors he’d dropped in haste at

the gates

of Mykenai — but before he left, he threatened to lay all Mysia waste if the people failed to discover for him what had become of poor Hylas, alive or dead. The

Mysians

gave him the finest of their eldest sons as blood-bond

hostages

and swore they’d continue the search.

“So much for the steadfast faith

of Herakles.

“All that day, through the following night,

gale winds carried us on. When the time for daybreak

came

there was no light. The wind died suddenly, as if at a

sign

from Zeus. The sky went green. There was hardly air

enough

to breathe. No man on board had the strength to row.

We sat,

soaking in sweat, praying to all the gods we knew. There were voices — sounds from the flat sea, from

passing birds,

the greenness above us: Where’s Herakles? Where’s

Hylas? We started,

prayed with our parched lips to the sixteen powers of

the sea.

It was unjust — insane. ‘What do they want of us?’

I asked the seers.

‘Where’s Herakles? Where’s Hylas?’ they said, but in

voices not

their own. We waited — how many days I couldn’t say. My cousin Akastos sat at my side, on watch, as if to guard me from some grim foe outside, though he

knew pretty well,

like Idas, like Phlias with his hand on my shoulder,

where my enemy lurked.

“In that senseless calm, Orpheus remembered

Dionysos: sang

how Zeus once put on his darker form, the dragon shape of Zeus Katachthonios, called Hades, whom he himself

expelled

from heaven, and went in that evil form to the shadow

of Hera,

the serpent Demeter, deep in the earth, whom Hera

hated

and who was Hera, though both of them had forgotten.

In her

he planted Persephone, later his Underworld queen,

by whom

Hades-Zeus had his son Dionysos, who was born

many times,

always unlucky. At times he was torn apart by Titans, at times by animals, at times by women gone crazy

with wine

and lust. Once, leading virgins on a violent, drunken

hunt,

he captured his quarry and, tearing it apart alive,

discovered

in amazement and terror that the beast had a dark

human face and horns,

that is, it was himself. It was he who invented wine, crown of his father’s creation — Dionysos’ glory, and

his ruin.

“Like Dionysos, the founder of Thebes was midnight

black;

his queen was white as snow. Because their marriage

was perfect,

Zeus came down to their daughter Semele in the guise

of a man

and fed her the heart of his once-again-slain son.

Queen Hera

saw that the girl was pregnant, and in jealous rage

forced Zeus

to visit Semele in his true celestial form — a thunderbolt. The girl was consumed, but not before Zeus had

snatched his child,

whom he sewed into his thigh and carried to the time

of delivery

and then returned to Kadmos and Queen Harmonia.

“Though the matchless couple had seemed so flawless

they could never die,

in time they grew old and short of breath. Then the

child Dionysos

cried out in sorrow to Zeus. The father of the gods

came flashing

out of heaven, and in smoke and flames the two were