John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

present

of whichever pair you like. Bind them on your hands,

and when

I’ve proved myself, tell all your friends — if you’ve still

got a jaw—

how clever I am at cutting hides and … staining them.’ ” With a quiet smile and no answer, Polydeukes took

the pair

at his feet. His brother Kastor and his old friend Talaos

came

and bound the gauntlets on. The old man’s friends

did the same.

“What can I say? It was absurd. They raised their

heavy fists,

and the gibbous old man came leering, all confidence,

drooling in his beard,

his eyes as wild as a wolf’s, and went up on his toes like

someone

felling an ox, and brought down his fist like a club.

Polydeukes

stepped to the right, effortlessly, and landed one

lightning

blow Just over the old king’s ear, smashing the bones inside. The crazy old man looked startled. In a minute

he was dead,

twitching and jerking in the wheat stubble. We stared.

No match

at all! We hadn’t even shouted yet — neither we nor they!

‘The Bebrykes gave a wail, an outraged howl at

something

wider than just Polydeukes. They snatched up their

spears,

their daggers and clubs, and rushed him as if to avenge

themselves

on the whole ridiculous universe. We leaped up, drawing our swords, running in to help. Kastor came down with

his sword

so hard that the head of the man he hit fell down on

the shoulders,

to the right and left. Polydeukes took a running jump at the huge man called Itymoneus, and kicked him in

the wind

and dropped him. The man died, jerking and trembling,

in the dirt.

Then another came at him. Polydeukes struck him with

his right,

above the left eyebrow, and tore the lid off, leaving the

eyeball

bare. A man struck Talaos in the side — a minor wound—

and Talaos turned on him,

sliced off his head like a blossom from a tender stem.

Ankaios,

using the bearskin to shield his left arm, swung left and

right

with his huge bronze axes, and the brothers Telamon

and Peleus,

Leodokos and I behind them, jabbed through backs and

bellies,

limbs and throats with our swords. They scattered like

a swarm of bees

when the keeper smokes them from the hive. The

remnants of the fight fled inward,

bleeding, spreading the news of their troubles. And

that same hour

they found they had new and even worse troubles. The

surrounding tribes,

as soon as they learned that the fierce old man was

dead, gathered up

and flooded in to attack them, no more afraid of them. They swarmed to the vineyards and villages like locusts,

dragged off

cattle and sheep; seized women and children, to make

them slaves;

then set fire to the barns. We stood and watched it all, almost forgetting to snatch a few sheep and cows

ourselves.

The ground was bloodslick, the sky full of smoke from

the burning villages.

We watched in shock. Who’d ever heard of such

maniacs?

We walked here and there among them, rolling them

over on their backs

to pick off buckles, swords with bejewelled hilts, new

arrows,

and, best, the beautifully figured bows that no one can

fashion

as the craftsmen among the Bebrykes could do, in their

day.

A splendid haul.

“But Polydeukes sat staring seaward—

black waves quiet as velvet, under a blood-red sky— brooding. He pounded his right fist into his flat left hand again and again. I touched his shoulder. ‘Stupid,’

he hissed,

never shifting his eyes from the sea. ‘God damned old

clown!’

‘Ah well,’ I said. ‘And all that talk!’ he said. ‘—Free will, survival! I ought to have taken his big black teeth

out one

by one! I ought—’ ‘Ah well,’ I said. His eyes were as

calm,

as ominous green as the sky those days when the air

went dead.

‘If Herakles were here,’ he said, ‘you know what I’d do?’ I shook my head. ‘I’d kill him,’ he said. ‘Or try.’ He

grinned,

but his eyes looked as crazy to me as the eyes of the

man he’d killed.

‘He wouldn’t approve. You’re supposed to be his friend,’

I said.

‘I’d smash in his brains for good. “Defend your head

or die!”

I’d tell him. And no mere joke. Because I am his friend.’ I let it pass. Boxers are all insane, I thought.

Like everyone.

“Late that night, when the Argonauts

were all sitting in a crowd on the beach, gazing at the

fire,

Orpheus sang a song of the wonderful skill and power of Polydeukes’ fists. He sang of the age-old hunger of

the heart

for some cause fit to die for, some war certainly just, some woman certainly virtuous. He sang the unearthly,

unthinkable joy

of Zeus in his battle with the dragons. Then sang of Hylas, gentler than morning, gazing at his father’s

killer

with innocent love and awe. As he sang, the hero of his

song,

Polydeukes, rose, bright tears on his cheeks, and left

our ring

to walk alone in the woods, get back his calm, we

thought.

That was the last we saw of him.”

Then Jason told

of Phineus: spoke like a man in a dream. The sea-kings

listened,

leaning on their fists. Not a man in the hall even

coughed. They sat

so still you’d have thought some god had cast his spell

on them.

Old Kreon stared into his wine, blood-red in its jewelled

cup,

and even when Jason’s tale scraped painful wounds—

the fall

of Thebes, the tragedy of Oidipus — the king showed

nothing.

His daughter Pyripta twisted the rings on her fingers

and sighed.

Surely the chief of the Argonauts must be aware, I

thought,

how queer the tale as he told it now must seem to them. The Asian, fat Koprophoros, smiled. He did not mask his pleasure at seeing the Argonaut show his quirky

side.

Athena leaned close to the left shoulder of Aison’s son, warning him, struggling to guide him, her beautiful

gray eyes flashing;

Hera leaned close to his right, her lithe form moving

a little,

weaving like a snake. The story was not what they’d

hoped for at all,

this version turbulent with unresolved doubts, key

changes not

familiar, chords that clashed, a version of well-known

tales

gone crooked, quisquous, trifling matters better off

forgotten

blown up out of proportion, and matters of the keenest

interest

dropped, passed over in silence as if from obsessive

concern

with moments that made no sense. That was no way

to win

a throne. Not even Paidoboron, indifferent to thrones, would wander off like that. Athena and Hera looked

flustered,

losing control. Sweet Aphrodite, fond, dim-witted, hovering over Pyripta, was close to tears — so filled with pity for the hero as he teased the story of his life

for meaning,

she dropped all thought of Medeia, for the moment, and

charged the heart

of the princess with tender affection, innocent

compassion for the man.

He said:

“At dawn we stowed the ship with our booty, loosed the hawsers, hauled up sail, and pushed toward Phineus’

land,

riding the swirling Bosporos, driven by wind. The day was ordinary except for this: around mid-afternoon a wave came in out of nowhere, and even Tiphys,

who knew

the ways of seas and rivers like the back of his hand,