John Gardner - Jason and Medeia

mistress to report what she’d seen.

Quickly, silently, the princess arose, her heart pounding like a drawn kestrel’s, and, moving more softly than

a huntress in the night,

she went to discover for herself if the message were

true. Alone,

her quick mind rushing more swiftly than her small

and silent feet,

she entered the hall where Jason paced. He saw her

coming

and paused, his eyes averted from the shimmer of hex

gown. She spoke

in a whisper, a-tremble with the thought that she

might be discovered with him,

a-tremble with the thought that she might say more

than she ought to say.

Speaking, she half by accident reached out shyly for

his hand.

“My lord, what can this mean, that you stay when all

others have gone,

pacing the floor like a man tormented by doubts?

Though we’ve asked you

on many occasions to stay with us here, you have always

refused us,

insisting on duties elsewhere. So now you make me fear that my father and I have offended you, stirred up

some cause

for grief you can neither suppress nor, because of your

well-known kindness,

reproach us with. Or perhaps your heart is still troubled

by the cruel

and shameful behavior of Koprophoros. If it’s so, let me

soothe you

with my father’s own words not an hour ago: There’s

no man in Corinth

not shocked to the soles of his feet by that fat swine’s

treachery.”

As she spoke, her fears melted, and she gazed at him

only with tenderness,

like a loving sister. She was unaware that her servant

had gone

to Kreon, propelled by duty perhaps, perhaps by cruelty, and told of Pyripta’s meeting with Jason in the

moonlit hall.

As fast as his feet would carry him, the king ran down and now stood, barefoot and in sleeping dress, peeking

from the doorway,

slyly observing their mutual temptation and blessing

heaven

for his rare good luck.

He held her hand, aware of her virginal fear of him, and answered softly, “Princess, you

need not

frighten yourself with such gloomy thoughts. If I

tell you the truth,

I remain here for no other reason than pleasure in

the place.” He smiled,

looked down at her. “But now — you’re right — I must

go find some bed.

Forgive me for giving you a moment’s alarm.” He

had not missed,

I knew by his half-checked smile, the fact that she

spoke in a whisper,

not sorry to be caught here alone with him. Nor did

he miss

her searching look now, desire she newly understood.

He met

her gaze and, after a moment, kissed her. Her hands

moved hungrily

on Jason’s back. The pillared room hung frozen like

a crystal

in the light of the vengeful moon. The princess

whispered in his ear.

He frowned, as if torn, and studied her, and could give

her no answer.

The hall gleamed dully. She whispered again, sweet

blue-eyed princess,

with the voice of a child, a curious droplet of moonlight

shining

on her forehead. And again he gave no answer, but

held her in his arms,

looking at her, listening thoughtfully, biding his time.

__________

* Greek, zatrikion.

The oak where I clung with my eyes tight shut like

a terrified lizard,

bruised and battered, kicked like old rubbish from

pillar to post,

went flat suddenly in the screaming gale, and I lost

my hand-hold—

I pressed up closer and hunched my back, but there

was nothing to cling to.

The rough-barked tree became a road of stone on a steep

rock mountain,

endless — the labor of emperors — but humbled by

pebbles,

cluttered at the sides with bramble bushes and with

shining scree.

And now all around me a slum lurched up till it

blocked out the darkness—

or became the darkness — staggering, skewbald. No

longer did the wind

come raging like a lion at the canyon mouth, or

dancing, as if

under pines and cedars, or flying swiftly, whistling and

wailing,

spluttering its anger, or crashing like thunder, whirling,

tumbling

in confusion, shaking rocks, striking trees — no longer

was the wind

so godly, nor the night so godly that sent it; but

rattling it came,

wheeling, violent, from wynds and alleys, poking in

garbage cans,

stirring up the dust, fretting and worrying. It crept into

holes

and knocked on doors, scattered sand and old plaster,

swirled ashes,

muddled in the dirt and tossed up bits of filth. It sidled through tenement windows, crept under double- and

triple-locked doors

of furnished rooms. I huddled, raising my collar

against it,

clamping my lips against street dust and holding my

poor battered hat on.

And then all at once I was lurching in a rickety

vehicle

through streets so crowded the horses pulling had

nowhere to move—

fat black warhorses with ears laid flat and with

steep-rolling eyes,

snorting and stamping irritation at the crowd, but

obedient to the driver.

Staring at his back, I knew by the tingle at the nape

of my neck

that I’d seen him before and should fear him. He turned

his head and I saw

his thick spectacles and smile — my mirror image,

my double!

With the crowd packed tight around us, I had nowhere

to flee.

Despite the ragged, churning horde, the chariot was making

some headway.

It rolled in silence, the wheels climbing over small

stones, bits of rubble,

as if struggling onward with conscious effort, the driver

never swerving

to the left or right, like stoop-shouldered, cool-eyed

Truth in a frayed

black coat and hat. We ascended a hill made strange

by haze,

its upper part not dazzling, exactly, its lower region not exactly obscure — dimly visible, impossible to name, changing, shadowy, deep as the ancestor of all

that lives,

awesome and common. The chariot wheels seemed to

move in old ruts;

the wind, the smell of the horses, the writing on the

chariot walls—

hieroglyphs smoothed down to nothing, as if by blind

men’s fingers—

had all a mysterious sameness.

“You’re enjoying your vision?” he said and smiled again, showing all his teeth.

The strangest vision that ever was seen in this world,”

I said.

He laughed. “No doubt it seems so,” he said. “So each

man’s vision

seems to him. And no doubt it seems a profound

revelation?”

“Yes indeed!” I said, inexplicably furious. He grinned,

tipped his hat,

icily polite. Then, seeing my swollen hand, he remarked, The vision has rules, I hope?” He smiled. “It’s not one

of those maddening—”

“Certainly not!” I said. “It’s an absolute tissue of rules, though not all of them, of course, at this stage—”

“Yes, of course, of course.”

He seemed both myself and, maddeningly, my superior, and deadly. He tapped his chin. “So you’re piercing to

the heart of things.”

“Exactly,” I said. He beamed. “Excellent! — And there’s

something there?

The heart of the matter is not, as we’ve feared …”

He smiled, mock-sheepish.

I tried in panic to think what it was that it was

teaching me,

and my head filled with ideas that were clear as day,

but jumbled—

images that had no words for them. Somewhat

disconcerted,