John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

sprouting like barley.

The black earth bristled with bucklers, double-headed

spears, and helmets

whose splendor flashed to Olympos. They shone like a

night full of stars

when snow lies deep and wind has swept off the clouds.

But Jason

remembered the counsel of Medeia of the many wiles:

picked up

a boulder from the field — a rock four men would have

strained to budge—

and staggering forward with the rock in both arms,

he bowled it toward them,

and at once crouched behind his shield, unseen, full

of confidence.

The Kolchians gave a tremendous shout, and Aietes

himself

was astonished to see that great ball thrown. But the

earthborn men

fell on one another in a froth, and beneath each other’s

spearpoints

toppled like pines uprooted in a violent gale. And now, like a thunderstone out of heaven, pursued by its fiery

tail,

the son of Aison came, spear flashing, and the dark

field streamed

with blood. Some fell while running, some still

half-emerged,

their flanks and bellies showing, or only their heads.

So Jason

reaped with his murderous sickle that unripe grain.

Blood flowed

in new-ploughed furrows like water in a ditch.

“Such was the scene

the Lord of the Bulls surveyed, and such was his rage

and grief.

For he knew well enough whence came this miraculous

power in the man.

He went back numbed with fury to the city of the

Kolchians.

So the day ended, and so Lord Jason’s contest ended.

The witch slept, and in dreams the goddess Hera filled her heart with agonizing fears. She trembled like a fawn

half hidden

in a copse at the baying of hounds. Her eyeballs burned;

her ears

filled with a roar like the crashing of a tide. She played

again

(it was no mere game) with the thought of some

deathwort painless and swift.

Far better that than the vengeance her father would

devise. (She’d seen him,

a shadowy form in her sorcelled mirror, seated with

his nobles,

preparing his treacherous stroke.) She groaned,

awakened in terror,

the shadow of a crow on the moon. She slipped her feet

down, groping,

moving in silence to the box where her potions were

locked, then paused,

remembering the stranger’s words. It was not possible,

perhaps—

and yet, perhaps in that kinder world … In haste, half

swooning,

Medeia kneeled down and kissed her bed, her eyes

streaming,

and kissed the posts at each side of the folding doors,

and the walls.

She snipped a lock of her hair for her mother to

remember her by,

and then, to no one in the darkness, whispered,

Farewell, Mother.

Farewell Khalkiope; farewell my home, my beloved

brother,

farewell sweet rooms, old fields…’ She could say no

more, sobbed only,

‘Jason, I wish you had drowned!’ Then weeping like a

newly captive

slave torn roughly from her home by the luck of war,

she fled

in silence swiftly through the palace. The doors,

awakening

to her hasty spells, swung open of their own accord.

So onward

barefoot she ran down narrow alleys, her right hand

raising

the hem of her skirt, her left hand holding her mantle

to her forehead,

hiding her face. Thus swiftly, fearfully, she crossed

the city

by lightless streets, and passed the towers on the wall

unseen

by the watch. The moon sang down, cool

huntress-goddess, grim:

‘How many times have you blocked my rays by your

incantations,

to practice your witchery undisturbed — your search for

corpses,

noxious roots? How many times have you terrified

innocents,

raising up devils, the shadow of wolves, along country

lanes?

Go then, victim of the mischief god! Seek out thy light, sweet Jason, life-long heartache! Clever as you are,

you’ll find

there’s deadlier craft than witchcraft stalking the night

Go! Run!’

“Thus sang the moon. But Medeia rushed on, and

arrived at last

at the high earth sconce by the river and, looking

across it, caught

the bloom of the Argonauts’ bonfire, kept all night,

celebration

of victory. She sent a clear call ringing through the dark to Melas, Phrixos’ son, on the further bank. He heard and recognized her, as Jason did. They spoke to the

others.

The Argonauts were speechless with amazement and

dread. Three times

she called; three times they shouted back, rowing toward

her.

“Before they’d shored or cast off the hawsers, Jason

leaped

light-footed from the Argo’s deck, and after him

Phrixos’ sons.

At once she wrapped her arms around Jason’s knees,

imploring:

‘Save me, I beg you, from Aietes’ wrath — and save

yourselves.

Our tricks are discovered; there’s nothing we can do.

Let us sail away

before he can reach his chariot I’ll give you, myself, the golden fleece. I have spells that can bring down

sleep on the serpent.

— But first, before all your men, you must call on the

gods to witness

your promises to me. You must vow you will not

disgrace me when I

am far from home and in no dear kinsmen’s protection.’

She spoke

in anguish, fallen at his feet. But the words she spoke

made Jason’s

heart leap high, whether for joy at her beauty — now

granted

as a gift to him — or joy at her promise of the fleece, she

could not

tell, study his eyes as she might. He raised her to her

feet,

embracing her. Then, to comfort her: ‘Beautiful

princess,

I swear — may Olympian Zeus and his consort Hera,

Goddess

of Wedlock, witness my words — that when we’re safe in

Hellas,

I’ll make you my wedded wife.’ And he took her hand

in his.

She believed him, and said, ‘I have nothing to promise

in return but this:

‘I’ll be faithful to you. Wherever you go, I will go.’

“So to the ship, and at once, with all speed, to the

sacred wood

in hopes that while night still clung they might capture

and carry away

the treasure, in defiance of the king. The oars with their

pinewood blades

skirled water, awakening the dark. As the boat slid out

from shore

like a nearly forgotten dream, Medeia gasped, wide-eyed, and stretched out her arms to the land, full of wild

regret. But Jason,

never at a loss, spoke softly, and her mind was calmed.

She turned

like a charmed spirit, and gazed toward the isle of the

serpent.

“The Argo

glided landwards, the mast tip blazing with dawn’s first

glance,

and, guided by Medeia, the Argonauts leaped to the

rockstrewn, windless

beach — a muffled jangle of war-dress, and then vast

stillness.

A path led straight to the sacred wood. They advanced,

silent;

and so they came within sight of the mammoth oak,

and high

in its beams, like a cloud incarnadined by the fiery

glance

of morning, they saw the fleece. They stood stock-still,

amazed.

It hung, magnificent, above them, like a thing

indifferent

to the petty spleen of Aietes, courage of Jason, or the

beating

of Medeia’s confounded heart. It seemed a thing

indifferent

to Time itself: Virtue, Beauty, Holiness, Change— all were revealed for an instant as paltry children’s

dreams,