Jason and Medeia Read online

  of the snake

  were malevolent. Her face was radiant with life,

  seductive,

  as sensuous as the brow of Zeus was intellectual. The thrones were joined by an arm of gold, and on

  that arm

  Zeus rested his own. The queen’s arm lay on the king’s, and their fingers were interlaced. On Zeus’s shoulder,

  a prodigious

  birdlike creature perched, half-lion, half-eagle, watching the snake. “What can all this mean?” I asked. My guide

  touched her lips.

  Suddenly the hall was filled with a teeming sea of gods. Some were like monsters, some had the shapes of trees

  or waterfalls;

  some were like bulls, others like panthers, elephants,

  monkeys,

  and some were like men—like kings, queens, beggars,

  saintly hermits.

  One came in on a litter of finely wrought ebony set with centaurs of ivory and silver—a beautiful goddess

  in a robe

  of scarlet, open at the front to reveal great pendulous

  breasts.

  The mortals, her slaves, wore flowers in their hair—

  the white hair tangled,

  matted like the hair of mad women. They wept and

  moaned

  as they walked, limping, half-naked, ragged. Their

  ankles

  clinked and jangled with tarnished jewelry; the perfume they

  wore

  yellowed the air like woodsmoke. Their chalkgray feet

  were crooked,

  their eyes were dim, and beneath the stiffening paint,

  their faces

  were cities destroyed by fire. But whether the bearers

  were women

  or men, I could not guess. Quick fluttering sparrows flew like swirling leaves in a graveyard, screeching. My

  shadowy guide

  smiled and inclined her head.

  “Not all gods here are wise,”

  she said. “They have all their will, all that a creature

  can desire:

  They feel no hunger, no thirst, no weariness, no fear of

  death,

  no pain or sorrow or lonely old age. But the grinding

  force

  of life still burns in them, endlessly restless, driving,

  devouring—

  the force that blazes in the eyes of the half-starved lion

  or swells

  the veins of the terrified deer. They can never be rid

  of it.

  Some, desiring in a state where nothing is left to desire, sink to the sickness of ennui and wallow in vast self-pity like hogs in mire. Some puff up their power, and delight in smashing the will of the weak. A few, like Zeus, grow

  wise.

  But very few. Observe how the rest crawl through their

  days.

  At times, to break the tedium, the gods feast.

  At times, to break the tedium, the gods fast.

  At times they quarrel like dogs. At times they smile and

  kiss.

  At times they sue to the king with cantankerous

  demands. Watch.”

  The goddess in scarlet approached the throne of Zeus

  and, descending

  from her litter, kneeled before him. “O mighty Lord,”

  she said,

  “hear the prayer of your sorrowful Aphrodite! Cruelly the Queen of Olympos mocks me and makes me a

  laughingstock!

  I’m ashamed to be seen among gods. They smirk and

  ogle, point at me,

  whisper behind my back. I filled Medeia’s heart with love, stirred Jason to manly desire, arranged a

  pairing

  fit to be remembered through endless time and to the

  farthest poles

  of space. But Hera has overwhelmed me with her

  treachery,

  cluttering his heart with desires more base, so that all

  I’ve done

  is nothing, a cloud dispersed! O Great God, Lord of

  Thunder,

  make him shake off this wickedness!” Her cheeks were

  bright

  with anger, her dark eyes flashed; her flowing black

  hair gleamed

  as if even that were in a rage. Yet out of respect for

  Hera,

  or remembering that Hera was Zeus’s wife, she

  controlled herself.

  She stretched out her white left arm, her right hand

  daintily pressed

  to her breast, just over the roseate nipple, as if to quell the terrible quopping of her heart. “Have I ever denied

  her power—

  her supreme rule over all things physical: ships, rivers, forests, banquets, marriage beds? She fills the world with beauty, goodness, the excitements of danger. At

  her command

  Ares stirs up the terrors and joys of war. At a word from her, the gods lure men to the highest pinnacles

  of feeling—

  treasure-hunting, kingdom-snatching. By her pale light alchemists pawn away all they own to untomb the gold in lead, the wolf hunts the lamb, the shepherd attacks

  the wolf,

  the adder joyfully strikes at the shepherd’s heel. But

  Lord,

  O holy father of gods and men, I’ve earned some place in all that hungry rush! Imagine her kingdom with all my power shut down—no joy in the world but the

  shoddy glint

  of wealth, stern labor, knowledge-grubbing—no gentle

  eyes

  to drip their sweetness on rich men’s rings, no loving

  hands

  to smooth the pain from the farmer’s back when his

  long day ends,

  no dazzled maiden to flood the alchemist’s sulphurous

  rooms

  with the light of her music, her rainsoft fingers on his

  arm! If my work

  is meaningless, say so. I’ll trouble your halls no morel”

  Bright tears

  welled in her eyes and her bosom heaved. Her lips were

  taut.

  The ghastly creatures attending her gave out goatish

  wails.

  Hera’s face turned slowly to the king’s. “Beautiful

  performance,”

  she said, and smiled. The king said nothing. Dark

  Aphrodite

  glared, her glance like a dart of fire, and the muscles of

  her face

  trembled like the face of the plains when earthquakes

  crack their beams.

  A gentler goddess came forward then, a gray-eyed

  goddess

  with a crown like a city on a shining silver hill. At her

  side

  philosophers stood, their lean backs bent under thick,

  smudged scrolls,

  their eyes rolled up out of sight; behind her, nervous

  kings,

  each with his own set of tics (quick lip-jerks, twists,

  winks, nods,

  features overcome from time to time by a sudden

  widening

  of the eyes, like shocked recognition); then fat

  merchants, wiping

  their foreheads, clucking, wincing with distaste, their

  tongues in motion

  ceaseless as the sea, wetting their thick, chapped lips;

  behind

  the merchants, poets and musicians, all looking wry at

  the smell

  of the merchants, making ingenious jokes at the

  merchants’ garish

  or grandly funereal dress. —But when, from time to

  time,

  a merchant, philosopher, or king keeled over, slain by

  the light

  or brushed by a careless god, the poets and musicians

  would praise

  the nature of man, abstracted to green, magnificent

  song,

&nb
sp; their eyes like waterfalls.

  The gray-eyed goddess kneeled

  at Zeus’s feet and, speaking softly, eyes cast down, she said, “My Lord, Almighty Ruler of the Universe, most just, most wise, I pray you, do not forget the needs of Corinth, Queen of Cities. I have tended her lovingly, cherished her, guided her gently through stunning

  catastrophes.

  Throne after throne I have watched kicked down

  through the whimsical will

  of malicious, barbarous gods—gods who amuse

  themselves

  like boys pulling wings off butterflies. Yet I’ve kept her

  pillars,

  shrine of the arts, seat of all taste and nobility. Preserve my work! Give Jason the throne—for the

  city’s sake.

  Surely a city means more in your sight than one mere

  woman!

  Pity Athena as she’d have you pity our beloved

  Aphrodite!

  Grant my request, and grant Aphrodite some other gift still dearer to her.”

  Hera smiled, but the gray-eyed Athena

  maintained her mask of innocence. Those who

  attended her

  bowed, heavy with solemnity, and tapped their scrolls, their money-boxes, crowns, and harps. Aphrodite’s cheek burned dark red. Zeus said nothing.

  Her head bent

  as if in supplication to the Father of the Gods,

  Aphrodite

  rolled her eyes toward her sister. “Don’t play games

  with me,”

  she whispered, “immortal bitch! How wonderfully

  reasonable

  you always make your desires sound! Do you think

  they’re fooled,

  these gods you play to? They know what you’re after.

  Power, goddess!

  You want your way no matter what—no matter who

  you walk on.

  But you can’t come right out and say it, can you? That

  wouldn’t be civil,

  and the lovely Athena is nothing if not civil!—Well,

  so are

  sewers! indoor toilets!” She trembled with rage. Athena smiled, as calm and serene as the moon above roiling,

  passionate

  seas. Suddenly the goddess of love burst into tears, wept like a shepherdess betrayed. The gray-eyed goddess

  of cities,

  magnificent queen of mind, shot a quick glance at Zeus,

  then widened

  her eyes as if in amazement. “Why Aphrodite!” she

  exclaimed,

  “my poor, poor love!” She gathered her sister goddess

  gently

  in her arms like a child, and Aphrodite cried on

  Athena’s breast.

  Hera smiled.

  But the brow of Zeus was troubled. He looked

  from the love-goddess to Athena. “Enough!” he said.

  The hall

  grew still. The stillness expanded. The eyes of the

  Father God

  were like thunderheads. After some minutes had passed,

  he said,

  “You’re clever, Athena. You’d outfox a gryphon. Yet

  even so,

  you may be wrong, and Aphrodite right. You talk of cities, of how they’re more important than a single

  life.

  But the city in which that’s true would be not worth

  living in.

  I’ve known such cities. One by one I’ve ground them

  underfoot,

  slaughtered their poets and priests and planted their

  vineyards to salt.

  You pleaded against such a city yourself for Antigone,

  goddess!

  Has it slipped your mind? ‘Where the dead are left

  to the crows,’ you said,

  ‘where a life means nothing, let the whole white hovel

  be crows’ fodder.’

  Justice demands that I grant Aphrodite’s wish.” He

  was silent.

  Then Hera turned to him. Her eyes flamed. “And my

  wish, sir?”

  she hissed. “I knew I was a fool to leave my business

  to Athena!

  How can mere reason compete with that?” She pointed.

  Aphrodite

  covered her bosom, blushing. “I agree, it’s wrong to make cities more important than the

  people who live in them.

  Cities exist to make possible the splendid life—the life of mind and sense in harmony, fulfilled to the utmost.

  Good!

  But what of Jason’s life? But that doesn’t matter, of

  course. Not to you!

  Not with her there, pleading with her big pink boobs!

  What counts with you,

  O mixed-up Master Planner? You reason by whim, like

  the rest of us,

  for all your pompous, grandiose pretensions. Fact! You purse your lips, you muse in beatific silence, you

  nod,

  and you do what you damn well please! Well not to me,

  husband!

  I want what I want, and I’m not putting elegant names

  on it.”

  Hardly moving, Zeus glanced at her. The queen’s lips

  closed.

  Then no one spoke for a long time. The attendant

  gods

  shifted uncomfortably, sullen, from leg to leg. Yet more than a few in that hall, I thought, would have backed

  her if they dared. Athena

  gazed demurely at the floor, as if checking a smile.

  Zeus sat

  with one hand over his eyes.

  At length, as if contrite,

  Athena said softly, “It’s fair and just that you

  upbraid me, Lord.

  But my heart spoke truer than my tongue. I gave you,

  foolishly,

  the reasons I thought expedient. But it was not the

  survival

  of the city—not that alone—that I meant to beg of you. I plead for a good and patient man, a long-suffering

  man,

  one who merits what I ask for him. Aphrodite’s madness has chained him too long. Without the assistance of

  any god,

  he’s seen through it. O kind, wise Lord, don’t frustrate

  the climb

  of a virtuous man on the rising scale of Good! I claim no special virtues for cities, but this much, surely,

  is true:

  Virtue tested on rocky islands, country fields, however noble we call it, is virtue of a lesser kind— the virtue that governs the hermit, the honest shepherd.

  The common

  bee, droning from flower to flower in his garden, can

  choose

  what’s best for him and for his lowborn, pastoral clan.

  The common

  horse can be diligent at work, if his hide depends on it. The lion can settle his mind to fight, if necessary, but his virtue, for all his slickness, the speed of his

  paws, is no more

  than the snarling mongrel dog’s. It’s by what his mind

  can do

  that a man must be tested: how subtly, wisely he

  manipulates

  the world: objects, potentials, traditions of his race.

  In sunlit

  fields a man may learn about gentleness, humility— the glories of a sheep—or, again, learn craft and

  violence—

  the glories of a wolf. But the mind of man needs more

  to work on

  than stones, hedges, pastoral cloudscapes. Poets are

  made

  not by beautiful shepherdesses and soft, white sheep: they’re made by the shock of dead poets’ words, and

  the shock of complex

  life: philosophers’ ideas, strange faces, antic relics, powerful men and women, mysterious cultures. Cities are not mere mausoleums, sanctuaries for mind. They’re the raw grit that the finest minds are made of,

  th
e power

  that pains man’s soul into life, the creative word that

  overthrows

  brute objectness and redeems it, teaches it to sing.”

  The goddess

  bowed, an ikon of humility, and turned to the queen, stretching an arm in earnest supplication: “O Hera, Queen of Heaven, center of the world’s insatiable will, support my plea! Speak gently, allure as only you can allure great Zeus to the good he would wish,

  himself.” She bowed,

  and the dew on a fern at dawn could not rival the

  beauty of the dew

  on Athena’s delicate lashes. Aphrodite wept aloud, shamelessly, melted by Athena’s words. Even Hera was

  softened.

  As the sea whispers in the quiet of the night when

  gentle waves

  lap sandy shores, so the great hall whispered with the

  sniffling of immortal gods.

  But Zeus sat still as a mountain, unimpressed, his hand

  covering

  his eyes. The gods stood waiting.

  At last, with a terrible sigh,

  he lowered the hand. From the sadness in his eyes,

  the crushed-down shoulders,

  you’d have thought he’d heard nothing the beautiful

  Athena said. He frowned,

  then, darkly, spoke:

  “All of you shall have your will,” he said.

  “Aphrodite, your cruel and selfish wish is that Jason

  and Medeia

  be remembered forever as the truest, most pitiful of

  lovers, saints

  of Aphrodite. It shall be so, in the end. As for you,

  Athena,

  dearest of my children for the quickness of your mind—

  and most troublesome—

  you ask that Jason be granted the throne of Corinth,

  glittering

  jewel in your vain array. So he will, for a time, at least. No king gets more. And as for you, my docile queen— seductress, source of all earthly growth, terrible

  destroyer—

  you ask that he have all his wish. That he shall, and

  more. It’s done.”

  With that word, casting away the darkness which

  he alone knew,

  he called for Apollo and his harp. Apollo came, as

  brilliant

  as the sun on the mirroring sea. He stroked his harp

  and sang.

  The gods put their hands to their ears, listening. He

  seemed to ignore them.

  He looked at Zeus alone, when he looked at anyone, and Zeus gazed back at him, solemn as the night

  where mountains tower,

  dark and majestic, casting their cold, indifferent shade on trees and glens, old bridges, lonely peasant huts, travellers hurrying home. It seemed to me they shared some secret between them, as if they saw the whole

  world’s grief

  as plain as a single star in a winter’s sky.