John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

crone

who cackled in the streets, full of rage and scorn, her loves and hates as forthright as boulders in the

grass. No doubt

she would, in my place, have struck down Pelias at the

first suspicion,

as would Herakles; or failing that, she’d have schemed

and plotted—

would never have seemed to accept, as I did, his right

to the throne,

or half of it. She’d have schemed and slaughtered,

maintained the honor

of Iolkos’ noble dead, whatever the cost to the living— bloodshed of factions, houses in furor, families divided, chaos for ages to come. I had no doubt that the course I’d chosen was best, my seemingly shameful

compromise.

Absolute passion, absolute glory, was for gods, not men. I could claim the status of a demigod, but the future

was not

with them.

“Yet glaring out toward sea, resolved on a course no man of sense could conceivably mock,

I was filled with a dangerous weariness.

More real than the seven-story fall

that gaped below me, more sharp to my sense than the

quartz-domed tomb

of Alkimede on its high hill north of the temple of Hera, or the figure of Medeia at my back, as heavy as bronze

with anger—

visions of flight would snatch my mind — the Argo’s

prow

bobbing like the head of a galloping horse, half

smothered in foam,

dark shapes looming out of fire-green water, then

vanishing—

the wandering rocks.

“I was protected once by an old Kelt, sired by a bear on a moon-priestess, or so he claimed.

We talked, in his shadowy hall, of freedom. His boy

sat hunched

by the hearthstone, listening, watching with eyes like a

cat’s. From the beams

of the old king’s walls hung the heads of his vanquished

enemies,

and above the fire, nailed firmly to the slats, hung the

leathern arm

of a giant. He said: ‘I see no freedom in peace and

justice.

I see no meaning in freedom that leaves some part of

my soul

in chains. I grant, it’s a noble ideal, this thing you

purpose—

a state well governed, where no man tromps on another

man’s heel,

the oppressed are aided, the orphan and the widow win

justice in the courts,

and each man holds to his place fox the benefit of all.

But I’d lose

my wind in a state so noble. I’d develop maladies— mysterious, elusive, beyond any doctor’s skill. Like a bat in a cage, I’d wither, for no clear reason, and die.’ The

boy

at the hearthstone smiled, sharp-eyed, heart teeming

with thought. The king

with mild blue eyes — cheeks painted, startling on that

dignified face—

shook his head slowly, amused. ‘You speak to me of

gentle apes

in Africa and claim their kinship. Let Argus advise us, who’d studied the world’s mechanics for most of a

century.

Is that indeed our line? — In this colder land we say mankind is a child of the cat, old source of our

crankiness,

our peculiar solitude — for though we may sometimes

hunt in packs,

and share the kill, if necessary, we have never hunted like brotherly wolves or bears.’ He smiled.

‘By another legend, the gods made man from the skull

of a rat,

that grim and deeply philosophical scavenger who picks,

light-footed,

perilously cunning, through houses of the dead, spreads

corpses’ sickness

to all he meets, yet survives himself and laughs at

carnage

and takes bright trinkets from the slaughtered.

“ ‘Be that as it may—‘ The king glanced over at his boy.’—If my

blood’s essence

is not the gentleness and wisdom of Zeus but, whatever

the reason,

has murder in it, as well as devotion and trust like

a boy’s,

then freedom is not for me what it is for Zeus. The

freedom

of the eyes is to see and the ear to hear; the freedom

of the soul

is to love and defend one’s friends, assert one’s power,

behead

one’s enemies, poison their streams.’ He smiled. ‘My

words appall you.

But come! It was not I who proclaimed the supreme

value

of liberty. I might well admire the state you dream of, where nature’s law is replaced by peace and justice—

though I would not

visit the place. But do not mistake these noble goods for freedom.’ He reached his hand to my knee and

smiled again.

Your course will no doubt prosper, Jason. Your

philosophy has

a ring to it, a nobility of glitter that can hardly fail to appeal to the collector rat. Ten thousand years from

now

men will look back to the Akhaians with pious

admiration, and to us,

the treacherous Kelts, as bestial and superstitious,

to whom

good riddance. And they may have a point, I grant. And

yet you’ll not

outlast us, lover of mind. From age to age, while your spires shake in the battery of the sun, we, living

underground,

will gnaw the animal heart, doing business as usual.’ I turned to the boy, a child with the gentleness of

Hylas. I’d heard

him sing, and his voice was sweeter than dawn in a

wheat-filled valley.

The severed heads of enemies hanging on the hall’s dark

beams

shed tears at his song, and the greatest of harpers,

Orpheus himself,

was silenced by the music’s spell. “You, too, believe all

this?’

I asked and smiled. For the Kelts were friends; I was

not such a fool

as to hope to convert their mysterious hearts and brains

by Akhaian

reasoning. The boy said shyly, How can I doubt what I’ve heard from the cradle up? This much at least

seems true

for both of you: You’d gladly fight to the death for

friends,

whatever your theories.’ We laughed. That much was true, no doubt. Medeia smiled and glanced at me.

“But now, standing at the balustrade and gazing

wearily

seaward, I saw all that more darkly. The Keltic king was lighter than I’d guessed. I’d achieved the ideal of

government

I dreamed of then: equal justice for all free citizens, peace in the city. Yet my beast heart yearned, past all

denying,

for violence. I envied Akastos, balanced, alive, on the balls of his feet, riding in that rattling chariot of

war

with the army of Kastor, repelling a wave of invaders

on the plains

of Sparta. In the silence of the star-calm night, I could

hear their shouts,

piercing the hundreds of miles — the snorting and

neighing of horses,

the swish of a javelin hungrily leaping, the tumble of

weighed-down

limbs.

“Medeia said, ‘Jason?’ I turned to her. ‘Tell me your

thought.’

‘No thought,’ I said grimly. She said no more. I saw mad

Idas

dancing with a corpse by the light of the burning gates

of the palace

of Kyzikos. Saw Idmon writhing, his belly ripped open. Saw the great eagle, with pinions like banks of silvery

oars,

sailing to the mountain of Prometheus.

“Hard times those were for Medeia. She tended to the children, kept track of

the household slaves

and hid from me her mysterious illness, or struggled to. I glimpsed it at times: a tightness of mouth, an

abstracted look;

and I remembered her sickness on the Argo. For all her

skill with drugs,

she couldn’t encompass her body’s revolt — now

menstrual cramps,

sharp as the banging of Herakles’ club, and indifferent

to the moon,

now unknown organs rebelling in their dens, now

flashes of fire

in her brains. I would find her standing alone,