theories.
I tell myself I resist for Medeia’s sake. Offend the king and our last hope’s gone, we’re wandering
exiles again.’
I piously mumble: ‘Beware of wounding Medeia’s pride.’
“—All the same, whatever the reason,
I dodged the limetwig, slyly evaded his pretty Pyripta before the old man was aware himself what he planned
for me.
So Pelias comes, nights; stands in the shadows like
a dead tree—
solemn old ramdike trailing vines, mere daddock at
the core—
demanding something — the prince’s head in his hands,
Akastos
whom I loved once — loved as I loved myself, I’d have
said.
Guilt-raised ghosts.
“I know, I think, what they want of me.
Climb back. Redeem your home through Corinth’s
power. Atone.
My mind stretches toward it, trembling, and all at once I’m afraid. Beyond old Pelias’ ghost and that severed
head
There’s darkness, an abyss. — And yet what is it I fear,
I wonder?
Is conquering Jason the slave at last?” He paused, lips
pursed,
and glanced at the seer. “The night has a growl of
winter in it.
Stars like the flicker of corpse-candles, a sparkle of frost on the bronze lich-gate. Over soon. Grain of the valleys winnowed, garnered … whatever claims we’ve made
on the season
silenced, settling in the bin; on the snowed-in storehouse
walls
no lamps but dreaming bats. And for those who’ve made
no claims—”
Again he paused, reflecting, staring at the ground. At
last:
“If I went my way I could make Medeia rich, respected; if not a queen, then mother, at least, of kings — no cost but a night, now and then, alone in her golden bed.
That would not
wreck her, I think. In any case, let this chance slip, let some old enemy of ours snatch Kreon’s throne—
and where are we
then? This too: If I try and lose, that’s one thing.
But to let some fat fool win it by default—
“No, plainer than that.
She’s an Easterner, and a woman. She reasons with
her chest, the roots
of her hair. I should know too well by now where such
reasoning leads
— her brother murdered, betrayed to confound Aietes’
ships;
my uncle carved, strained, boiled by his daughter’s love;
and us
adrift, horrible to men. Late as it is, I should seize my duty as husband and father — the hope that lies in
Akhaian,
masculine brains, detached, remote from the violent
instincts
of child-bearing and giving suck, what women share with the lioness. I’ve left our destiny too long in witchcraft’s hands.” He paused, glanced at the blind
Theban.
“Say what you’re thinking.”
The blind man sat like stone, the light
of torches stirring on his cheek. His sunken eyes stared
out
at darkness beyond the harbor. “Men come for my help
in prayer,”
he said, “or for reading of oracles. What right have I to advise?”
“But say what you think.”
The old black Theban sighed,
continued looking at the night. The end is inevitable,” he said. His eyebrows, silver and thick as frost on rock, drew up, and he groped for Jason’s hand. He found and
held it.
“You want no advice from me, and even if you did,
the end
is destined. I need no help of signs to see that much, heavy as I am with experience. For seven generations I’ve watched the world’s grim processes. I saw the teeth of the dragon Kadmos slew rise up as fierce armed
men; I saw that perfect king and his queen
transmogrified
when Lord Dionysos — power that turns spilt blood to
wine,
unseen master of vineyards — awarded them mast’ry
of the dead.
And I’ve seen things darker still, though the god has
sealed my eyes.
All I have seen reveals the same: Useless to speak. Well-meaning man—” He frowned, looking into
darkness. “You may
see more than you wish of that golden fleece. Good
night.”
But Jason
stayed, questioning. “Say what you mean about the
fleece. No riddles.”
“Useless to say,” the blind man sighed. He shook his
head.
But Jason clung to his hand, still questioning. “Warn
me plainly.”
Again the blind man sighed. “If I were to warn you,
Jason,
that what you’ve planned will hiss this land to darkness,
devour
the sun and moon, hurl seas and winds off course,
kill kings—
would you change your course, confine yourself to your
room like a sick
old pirate robbed of his legs?” Jason was silent. The
black seer
nodded, frowning, face turned earthward. “There will
be sorrow.
I give you the word of a specialist in pains of the soul
and heart,
as you will be, soon. Let proud men scoff — as you scoff
now—
at the idea of the unalterable. There are, between the world and the mind, conjunctions whose violent
issue’s more sure
than sun and rain. So every age of man begins: an idea striking a recalcitrant world as steel strikes flint, each an absolute, intransigent. The collision sparks an uncontrollable, accelerating shock that must arc
through life
from end to end until nothing is left but light, and
silence,
loveless and calm as the eyes of the sphinx — pure
knowledge, pure beast.
Good night, son of Aison.” And so at last Lord Jason
released
the black man’s hand and, troubled, turned again to
the city.
The white stars hung in the branches above Medeia’s
room
like dewdrops trapped in a spiderweb. The garden,
below,
was vague, obscured by mist, the leaves and flowers
so heavy
it seemed that the night was drugged. Asleep, Medeia
stirred,
restless in her bed, and whispered something, her mind
alarmed
by dreams. She sucked in breath and turned her face on the pillow. The stars shone full on it: a
face so soft,
so gentle and innocent, I caught my breath. She opened
her eyes
and stared straight at me, as though she had some faint
sense of my presence.
Then she looked off, dismissing me, a harmless
apparition
in spectacles, black hat, a queer black overcoat…
She came to understand, slowly, that she lay alone, and she frowned, thinking — whether of Jason or of her
recent dream
I couldn’t guess. She pushed back the cover gently and
reached
with beautiful legs to the floor. As if walking in her
sleep, she moved
to the window, drawing her robe around her, and
leaned on the sill,
gazing, troubled, at the thickening sky. Her lips framed
words.
“Raven, raven, come to me:
Raven, tell me what you see!”
There was a flutter in the darkness, and then, on the
sill by her white hand,
stood a raven with eyes like a mad child’s. He walked
past her arm
to peek at me, head cocked, suspicious. And then he too dismissed me. She touched his head with moon-white
fingertips;
he opened his blue-black wings. They glinted like coal.
“Raven,
speak,” she whispered, touching him softly, brushing
his crown
with her lips. He moved away three steps, glanced at
the moon,
then at her. He walked on the sill, head tipped, his
shining wings
opened a little, like a creature of two minds. Then, in a madhouse voice, his eyes like silver pins, he said:
“The old wheel wobbles, reels about;
One lady’s in, one lady’s out.”
He laughed and would say no more. Medeia’s fists closed. The raven’s wings stretched wide in alarm, and he
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