Jason and Medeia Read online

  He sang

  of the age when great Zeus first overcame the dragons.

  The halls

  of the gods, he said, were cracked, divoted, blackened

  by fire.

  All the gods of the heavens sang Zeus’s praise, their

  voices

  ringing like golden bells, extolling his victory. Elated in his triumph and the knowledge of his power,

  Zeus summoned the craftsman

  of the gods, Hephaiastos, and commanded that he

  build a splendid palace

  that would suit the unparalleled dignity of the gods’

  great king.

  The miraculous craftsman succeeded in building, in a

  single year,

  a dazzling residence, baffling with beautiful chambers,

  gardens,

  lakes, great shining towers.

  Apollo smiled and looked

  at Zeus. He sang:

  “But as the work progressed, the demands of Zeus

  grew more exacting, his unfolding visions more vast.

  He required

  additional terraces and pavilions, more ponds, more

  poplar groves,

  new pleasure grounds. Whenever Zeus came to examine

  the work

  he developed range on range of schemes, new marvels

  remaining

  for Hephaiastos to contrive. At last the divine craftsman was crushed to despair, and he resolved to seek help

  from above. He would turn

  to the demiurgic Mind, great spirit beyond Olympos, past all glory. So he went in secret and presented

  his case.

  The majestic spirit comforted him. ‘Go in peace,’

  he said,

  ‘your burden will be relieved.’

  “Then, while Hephaiastos

  was scurrying down once more to the kingdom of Zeus,

  the spirit

  went, himself, to a realm still higher, and he came

  before

  the Unnamable, of whom he himself was but a

  humble agent.

  In awesome silence the Unnamable spirit gave ear,

  and by

  a mere nod of the head he let it be known that the wish of Hephaiastos was granted.

  “Early next morning, a boy

  with the staff of a pilgrim appeared at the gate of Zeus

  and asked

  admission to the king’s great hall. Zeus came at once.

  It was

  a point of pride with Zeus that he wasn’t as yet

  too proud

  to meet with the humblest of his visitors. The boy

  was slender,

  ten years old, radiant with the luster of wisdom. The

  king

  discovered him standing in a cluster of enraptured,

  staring children.

  The boy greeted his host with a gentle glance of his dark and brilliant eyes. Zeus bowed to the holy child—and, mysteriously, the boy gave him his blessing. When Zeus had led the boy inside and had offered him wine and

  honey,

  the king of the gods said: ‘Wonderful Boy, tell me

  the purpose

  of your coming.’

  “The beautiful child replied with a voice as deep

  and soft as the slow thundering of far-off rainclouds.

  ‘O Glorious

  King, I have heard of the mighty palace you are

  building, and I’ve come

  to refer to you my mind’s questions. How many years will it take to complete this rich and extensive

  residence?

  What further feats of engineering will Hephaiastos be asked to perform? O Highest of the Gods’—the

  boy’s luminous

  features moved with a gentle, scarcely perceptible

  smile—

  ‘no god before you has ever succeeded in completing

  such a palace

  as yours is to be.’

  “Great Zeus, filled with the wine of triumph,

  was entertained by this merest boy’s pretensions to

  knowledge

  of gods before himself. With a fatherly smile, he asked: Tell me, child, are they then so many—the Zeuses

  you’ve seen?’

  The young guest calmly nodded. Oh yes, a great

  many have I seen.’

  The voice was as warm and sweet as milk, but the

  words sent a chill

  through Zeus’s veins. ‘O holy child,’ the boy continued, ‘I knew your father, and your father’s father, Old

  Tortoise Man,

  and your great-grandfather, called Beam of Light, and

  his father, called Thought,

  and the father beyond—him too I know.

  “ ‘O King of the Gods,

  I have known the dissolution of the universe. I have

  seen all perish

  again and again! O, who will count the universes passed away, or the creations risen afresh, again and again, from the silent abyss? Who will number

  the passing ages

  of the world, as they follow endlessly? And who will

  search

  the wide infinities of space to number the universes side by side—each one ruled by its Zeus and its ladder of higher powers? Who will count the Zeuses in all

  of them,

  side by side, who reign at once in the innumerable

  worlds,

  or all those Zeuses who reigned before them, or even

  those

  who succeed each other in a single line, ascending

  to kingship,

  one by one, and, one by one, declining?

  “ ‘O King,

  the life and reign of a single Zeus is seventy-one aeons, and when twenty-eight Zeuses have all expired, one

  day and night

  have passed in the demiurgic Mind. And the span of the

  Mind in such days

  and nights is one hundred and eight years. Mind

  follows Mind,

  rising and sinking in endless procession. And the

  universes,

  side by side, each with its demiurgic Mind and its Zeus, who’ll number those? Like delicate boats they float

  on the fathomless

  waters that form the Unnamable. Out of every pore of that body a universe bubbles and breaks.’

  “A procession of ants

  had made its appearance in the hall while the boy was

  saying this.

  In a military column four yards wide the tribe paraded slowly across the gleaming tiles. The mysterious boy paused and stared, then suddenly laughed with an

  astonishing peal,

  but immediately fell into thoughtful silence.

  “ ‘Why do you laugh?’

  stammered Zeus. “Who are you, mysterious being in

  the deceiving guise

  of a boy?’ The proud god’s throat and lips were dry,

  and his voice

  kept breaking. ‘Who are you, shrouded in deluding mists?’

  “ ‘I laughed,’

  said the boy, ‘at the ants. Do not ask more. I laughed

  at an ancient

  secret. It is one that destroys.’ Zeus regarded him,

  unable to move.

  At last, with a new and clearly visible humility, the great god said, ‘I would willingly suffer annihilation for the secret, mysterious visitor.’ The boy smiled and nodded. ‘If so, you have nothing to fear. It is

  merely this:

  The gods on high, the trees and stones, are apparitions in a fantasy. Without that dream in the Unnamable

  Mind

  there is neither life nor death, neither good nor evil.

  The wise

  are attached neither to good nor to evil. The wise

  are attached

  to nothing.’

  “The boy ended his appalling lesson and, quietly,

  he gazed at his host. The king of the gods, for all hi
s

  splendor,

  had been reduced in his own regard to insignificance.

  “Meanwhile another amazing apparition had entered

  the hall.

  He appeared to be some hermit. He wore no clothes.

  His hair

  was gray and matted except in one place at the back

  of his head,

  where he had no hair at all, having lain on that one

  part

  for a thousand years. His eyes glittered, cold as stone.

  “Zeus, recovering from his first shock, offered the

  old man

  wine and honey, but the hermit refused to eat. Zeus

  then asked,

  falteringly, concerning the old man’s health. The

  hermit

  smiled. ‘I’m well for a dying man,’ he said, and nodded. Zeus, disconcerted by the man’s stern eyes, could say

  no more.

  Immediately the boy took over the questioning, asking

  precisely

  what Zeus would have asked if he could. ‘Who are you,

  Holy Man?

  What brings you here, and why have you lain in one

  place so long

  that the hair has worn from your head? Be kind

  enough, Holy Man,

  to answer these questions. I am anxious to understand.’

  “Presently

  the old saint spoke. ‘Who am I? I am an old, old man. What brings me here? I have come to see Zeus, for

  with each hair

  I lose from my head, a new Zeus dies, and when the

  last hair falls

  I too shall die. Those I have lost, I have lost by lying motionless, waiting for peace. I am much too short

  of days

  to have use for a wife and son, or a house. Each

  eyelid-flicker

  of the Unnamable marks the decease of a demiurgic

  Mind. Therefore

  I’ve devoted myself to forgetfulness. For every joy, even the joy of gods, is as fragile as a dream—a

  distraction

  from the Absolute, where all individual will is

  abandoned

  and all is nothing and nothing is everything, and all

  paradox

  melts. My friend, I was an ant in a thousand thousand

  lives,

  and in a thousand thousand lives a Zeus, and in others

  a king,

  a slave, a rat, a beautiful woman. I have wept and torn my hair and longed for death at the graves of a

  billion billion

  daughters and sons; a billion billion of those I loved have died in wars, plagues, earthquakes, floods. And

  with every stroke

  of catastrophe, my chest has screamed in pain. All

  these

  are feeble metaphors—as I am metaphor, a passing

  dream,

  and you, and all our talk. But this is true: Life seeks to pierce the veil of the dream. I seek forgetfulness,

  silence.’

  “Abruptly, the holy man ceased and immediately

  vanished, and the boy,

  in the same flicker of an eyelid, vanished as well.

  And Zeus

  was in his bed, with Hera in his arms. And he saw,

  despite his dream,

  that she was beautiful. Then Zeus, King of the Gods,

  wept.

  At dawn when he opened his eyes and remembered,

  Zeus smiled.

  He commanded the craftsman to create a magnificent

  arbor for Hera,

  and after that he demanded nothing more of him.” So the harper of the gods sang, and so he closed. With his last word, the hall of the gods went dark.

  I was alone.

  “Strange visions, goddess!” I whispered, “stranger and

  stranger!” She was gone.

  Then, like a sea-blurred echo of Apollo’s harp, I heard the music of Kreon’s minstrel. Soon I saw Kreon’s hall, the sea-kings gathered in their glittering array, and

  Kreon himself

  at the high table, his daughter beside him, blushing,

  shy—

  like a spirit, I thought: more child than woman. Beside

  her, Jason

  stood with his strong arms folded, muscular shoulders

  bare,

  his cloak a luminous crimson, bound at the waist with

  a belt

  gold-studded, blacker than onyx. Behind him, to his

  left, stood the shadow

  of Hera; at his feet sat Aphrodite, and behind his

  right shoulder,

  lovely as rooftops at dawn, the matchless, gray-eyed

  Athena.

  “Ipnolebes,” Kreon whispered, “command that the

  meal be brought.”

  The old king chuckled, patted his hands together,

  winked.

  Ipnolebes bowed and, moving off quickly, quietly,

  was gone.

  The hall waited—dim, it seemed to me: discolored as if by age or smoke. The sea-kings’ treasures, piled high

  against

  walls that seemed, when I first saw them, to be

  gleaming sheets

  of chalcedony and mottled jade, with beams of ebony, were dark, ambiguous hues, uncertain forms in the

  flicker

  of torches. There were figures of goldlike substance—

  curious ikons

  with staring eyes. There were baskets, carpets, bowls,

  weapons,

  animals staring like owls from their lashed wooden

  cages. The hall

  was heavy, oppressive with the wealth of Kreon’s

  visitors.

  The harpsong ended. In a shadowy corner of the great

  dim room

  dancing girls—slaves with naked breasts—jangled

  their bracelets

  and fled. A horn of bone sang out. A silence. Then … as flash floods burst in their headlong rush down

  mountain flumes

  when melting snowcaps join with the first warm

  summer rains,

  sweeping off all that impedes them, swelling the

  gullies and creeks

  to the brim and beyond, all swirling, glittering,—so

  down the aisles

  of Kreon’s hall, filling each gap between trestle-tables, platters held high, hurtling along like boulders and

  driftwood,

  silver and gold on the current’s crest, came Kreon’s

  slaves.

  Their trays came loaded with stews and sauces, white

  with steamclouds,

  some piled high with meats of all kinds; some trailed

  blue flame.

  A great Ah! like the ocean drawn back from the pebbles

  of the shore

  welled through the room. Jason, dark head lowered,

  smiled.

  The huge Koprophoros snatched like a hungry bear at

  food.

  They mock me,” he whimpered to the man beside him.

  They’ll change their tune!”

  The torches flickered. Kreon patted his hands together. When I closed my eyes the sound of their eating was

  the faraway roar

  of dark waves grinding over boulders—ominous,

  mindless.

  4

  Sunset. She sat in the room that opened on the terrace

  and garden

  watching the red go out of roses, the red-orange flame drain gradually out of the sky. Leaves, branches of

  trees,

  flowers that an hour before had been sharp with color,

  became

  all one, dark figures etched into dusk. Shade by shade they became one tone with the night. From Kreon’s

  palace above,

  its torchlit walls just visible here and there through gaps in the heavy bulk of oaks, occasional sounds came down, a burst of laughter, a snatch of song, the low boom of tab
le chatter, and now and then some nearer voice, a guard, a servant at the gates—all far away, bell-like, ringing off smooth stone walls and walkways, glancing

  off pools,

  annulate tones moving out through the arch of

  distances.

  At times, above more muted sounds, I could hear the

  drone

  of the female slave, Agapetika, putting the children to

  bed,

  and sometimes a muttered rebuke from the second of

  the slaves, the man.

  Medeia sat like marble, expressionless, white hands

  clamped

  on the arms of her chair. It was as if she were holding

  the room together

  by her own stillness, a delicate balance like that of the

  mind

  of Zeus o’ervaulting the universe, enchaining dragons by thought. So she sat for a long time. Then, abruptly, she turned—a barely perceptible shift— and looked at the door, listening. Two minutes passed. The breathlike whisper of sandals came from the

  corridor.

  After a time, the old woman’s form emerged at the

  doorway,

  stooped, as heavy as stone, her white flesh liver-spotted, draped from head to foot in cinereal gray, her weight buttressed by two thick canes. The slave looked in,

  dim-eyed.

  Thank you, Agapetika,” Medeia said.

  No answer. But slowly—so slowly I found it hard to

  be sure

  from second to second whether or not she was still

  moving—

  the old woman came forward. “Medeia, you’re ill again!” A moan like a dog’s. Medeia got up suddenly, angrily, and went out to stand on the terrace, her back to the slave. Another long silence. The sounds coming

  down from the palace

  were clearer here, like sounds through wintry fog:

  the clatter

  of plates, laughter like a wave striking. She said, not

  turning,

  “It’s a strange sound, the laughter of a crowd when

  you’ve no idea

  what they’re laughing at.” She turned, sighing. “I’m

  fiercely jealous,

  as you see. How dare the man go up and have dinner

  with the king

  and leave me wasting?”

  The slave did not smile. “You should sleep, Medeia.

  She shook her head, refusing her mistress further

  speech.

  The lids of the old woman’s eyes hung loose as a

  hound’s. She said:

  “When you came to Pelias’ city bringing the fleece,

  your hand

  on Jason’s arm—the beautiful princess and handsome

  prince,

  lady of sunlight, hero in a coal-dark panther skin— that time too your eyes were ice. Oh, everyone saw it, and a shiver went through us. —And yet you’d saved

  him, and he’d saved you,