Gods had withdrawn
his check on her. The houses of heaven had changed.
Then quietly Jason spoke, his gaze groundward. He stood like a spur of rock when gale winds pound it from all directions
and trees
roll crazily, torn up by the roots. “It seems an easy thing to claim a man should react like a loyal dog, leap out fangs bared, whatever the attacker, and die at the swipe
of a club,
true to the last to his instincts. I cannot defend myself from the charge that I haven’t behaved like a loyal
dog—except
that once, by the leap of instinct, I killed my cousin.
I might
have saved the slave, as you claim, by a careful word
or two
to Kreon; I might by a well-framed speech have rescued
Idas
and all his men from prison. I might. You know well
enough
the risk. Old Kreon’s a stubborn man. He does not like his judgment doubted or his will crossed. Be sure, if
I’d won
those favors from him, I’d then and there have
exhausted the old man’s
love of me. Whatever good I might hope to do for all the enslaved, for all my friends, for future
generations,
that good I’d have traded for an instant’s sweet
self-righteousness.
Though all the harbor rose up in rage at an immoral
act—
a thousand, three, five thousand men?—I do not find that the evil deed was rectified, or the sentence undone.
A good man out of power is worth
a pine-seedling in the Hellespont!
Such are the brutal realities, my friend.
Do not be such a fool, Kompsis, as to think man’s
choice
lies between evil and good. All serious options are
moral,
and all serious choices inherently risky, if not, for the heart that’s pure, impossible.” So Jason spoke, and I could not doubt, listening in the shadow of the
colonnade,
that his words came not from guilt but from honest
intent. His heart
was heavy, his purpose firm. But the god in human
shape
was scornful. Kompsis grinned, his eyes like thunder
blooming
in the low, black night. “However, the house you owed
your life
hangs motionless there in the marketplace, food for
crows. Consider:
No grand law will preserve your state if fools succeed
you;
and every line comes down, soon or late, to fools. Create the noblest constitution the mind of man can frame: eventually fools will crumple it. You plan for the
splendid
future, though decay is certain; and you let the present
rot
though a single word could cleanse it. Do as you must.
I warn you,
heaven is against you. Trouble is coming to the man
who builds
his town on blood, or founds his kingdom on crimes
unavenged.
Like a shepherd rescuing a couple of legs or a bit of an
ear
from the lion’s mouth, you salvage justice murdered.”
As Jason
turned in fury, his blood in his face,
the last man living to be tricked by the jangle of
rhetoric,
he saw that the stones where Kompsis had stood were
bare, and knew
he’d spoken with a god. His cheeks went white, as if
lightning-struck,
and his muscles locked in rage and frustration. “It’s the
truth,” he shouted.
He lifted his face to the midnight sky, his features
anguished,
and raised his fists. He seemed to struggle for speech.
The cords
of his throat stood out and his temples bulged. Then
suddenly
from his chest came the bellow of a maddened bull.
“I’ve been cheated enough!
I’ve told you nothing but the truth!” So he raged, then
clutched his head
as if shocked by searing pain. The sky was silent.
Later— it was nearly dawn—I saw him in the windswept
temple of Apollo,
hissing angrily, on his knees before the seer. The blind
man
listened in silence, his filmed eyes wandering, out of
control.
“The gods are many. Who knows how many? They
endlessly contradict each other like aphorisms. Tell me what to fear!
I’ve honored the gods both known and unknown,
emptied my coffers on temples, images, hillside
shrines. Not from conviction—I grant that too.
Is a man made holy by boldfaced lies?
There was a time I believed that the skies could open,
make horses stagger,
the soldier throw up his arms in fear. I believed, in fact, I’d seen such things. But the world changed, or my
vision changed.
What possible good in denying the fact? I could see no
proof
that Hypsipyle was evil, whatever the magic of Argus’
cloak,
tradition-trick, subtle distorter of patent truth
not, in itself, allegorical.
I saw when we beached at Samothrace
and watched the mysteries, how man’s mind
(Herakles swelling to what he believed was a god-sent
power)
was all that the mind could be sure of, how even my
own conversion
if such it was, had no sure cause in the universe.
And so descended from death to death;
learned on the isle of the Doliones
the fallacy of faith in technique and faith in perception;
learned
by the death of Hylas and loss of Herakles—the stupid
and yet unassailable assertion of Amykos—
old murderer—and the deadly confusion in Phineus’
heart—
the fundamental absurdity of the world itself, mad gods
in all-out war. I did not
shrink from these grim discoveries. Neither did I whine,
renounce
my quest, though I knew no reason for the quest.
I slogged on
toward Kolchis. What reason could hammer no
justification for,
I justified by groundless faith. Slog on or die,
abandon hope—the hope of eventual clarity.
Those were the choices. I bowed to the gods I could
not see—
or could not trust if I happened to see them, as I saw
Apollo,
striding, astounding, when we’d rowed our blood to a
state of exhaustion—
bowed because life unredeemed by the gods would be
idiocy,
bowed, yet refused to lie, claim to see things invisible.
Let the future judge me. I give you my grim prediction,
seer:
Famine is coming, deadliest of droughts.
Mankind will stagger from sea to sea, from north to
east,
seeking the word of some god and failing to find it.
“But yes, I bowed, dubious, true to my nature yet granting its
limits.
What more can heaven demand of a man?
Tell me what to fear!
I’ve walked, cold-bloodedly honest, to the rim of the
pit. I’ve affirmed
Justice, compassion, decency. When granted power
I’ve used it to benefit man. I’ve fiercely denied that life is bestial—having seen in my own life the l
eer of the
ape.
Yet the sky turns dark, and gods threaten me. If the
universe
is evil, then let me be martyred in battle with the
universe.
If not, then where am I mistaken?”
In silence, the seer of Apollo stretched out his arms to Jason, touching his shoulders.
The night
hung waiting. “Lord Jason, you ask me to speak as a court counsellor, a prince of wizards, a philosopher
versed
in the subtleties of old, cracked scrolls. Such things I
cannot be.
Though you teach horned owls to sing, by your cunning,
or make lambs laugh in the dragon’s nest,
I can speak only what Apollo speaks.
I can say to you:
The man of high estate will be tinder,
his handiwork a spark.
Both will burn together,
and none will extinguish them.”
“Explain!” Jason said. But the seer would say no more.
In her room, Pyripta, princess of Corinth, wept. The words of Jason
had changed her: for all the smoothness of her face,
the innocence
of her clear eyes, the tale had aged her, filled her with
sorrow
beyond her years. She clung to her knees, sobbing in the
bed
of ivory, and prayed no more for purity of spirit but mourned her loss. The princess had learned her
significance.
She spoke not a word; but I saw, I understood. No hope of clinging now to childhood, the sweetness of virginity.
Let shepherds’ daughters worship in the groves of the
huntress! She was
a wife already, sullied with the knowledge of
compromise,
faults in nobility, flickering virtue in the flesh-fat heart. She knew him too well, the husband each tick of the
universe
brought nearer, whatever her wish. She was no fool.
Admired
the courage of his mind. But she could not walk in
bridal radiance
to a future unknown and clean, the gradual discovery
of a past
sacred, intimate, hallowed by slow revelations of love.
Yet knew, because a princess, that she would walk,
wear white;
knew she would serve, covenant of Corinth, accept the
bridegroom
chosen for her, for the city’s sake. Perhaps she loved
him.
It had nothing to do with love, had to do with loss.
Her loss
of the limitless; descent to the leaden cage of enslaving humanity. Joy or sorrow, no matter. Loss.
The dark-eyed slave at her bedside watched in
compassion and grief
and touched Pyripta’s hand. “The omens are evil,” she
said.
“Resist this thing they demand of you. The city is
troubled,
the night unfriendly, veiled like a vengeful widow. Men
talk
of fire in the palace, wine made blood.” The princess
wept,
unanswering. I understood her, watching from the
curtains.
I remembered the tears of Medeia, lamenting her
childhood’s loss.
By the window another, a princess carried in chains out
of Egypt—
eyes of an Egyptian, the forehead and nose and the full
lips
of the desert people—whispered softly, angrily to the
night;
“Increase like the locust,
increase like the grasshopper;
multiply your traders
to exceed the number of heaven’s stars;
your guards are like grasshoppers,
your scribes and wizards are like a cloud of insects.
They settle on the walls
when the day is cold.
The sun appears,
and the locusts spread their wings, fly away.
They vanish, no one knows where.”
At the door one whispered—a woman of Ethiopia,
who smiled and nodded, gazing at the princess with
friendly eyes:
“Woe to the city soaked in blood,
full of lies,
stuffed with booty,
whose plunderings know no end!
The crack of the whip!
The rumble of wheels!
Galloping horse,
jolting chariot,
charging cavalry,
flash of swords,
gleam of spears . ..
a mass of wounded,
hosts of dead,
countless corpses;
they stumble over the dead.
So much for the whore’s debauchery,
that wonderful beauty, that cunning witch
who enslaves nations by her debauchery,
enslaves the houses of heaven by her spells!”
Another said—whispering in anger by the wall, cold
flame:
“Are you mightier than Thebes
who had her throne by the richest of rivers,
the sea for her outer wall, and the waters for
ramparts?
Her strength was Ethiopia and Egypt.
She had no boundaries.
And yet she was forced into exile, sorrowful
captivity;
her little ones, too, were dashed to pieces
at every crossroad;
lots were drawn for her noblemen,
all her great men were loaded with chains.
You too will be encircled at last, and overwhelmed.
You too will search
for a cave in the wilderness
refuge from the wrath of your enemies.”
On the dark of the stairs an old woman hissed, her
wizened face
a-glitter with tears like jewels trapped:
“Listen to this, you cows of Corinth,
living on the mountain of your treasure heap,
oppressing the needy, crushing the poor,
saying to your servants, ‘Bring us something to
drink!’
I swear you this by the dust of my breasts: The days are coming
when you will be dragged out by nostril-hooks,
and the very last of you goaded with prongs.
Out you will go, each by the nearest breach in the
wall,
to be driven to drink of the ocean.
This I pledge to you.”
So in Pyripta’s room and beyond they whispered,
seething,
kindled to rage by the death of the boy Amekhenos, or troubled by some force darker. For beside Pyripta’s
bed
there materialized from golden haze the goddess
Aphrodite.
Sadly, gently, she touched Pyripta’s hair. Then the room was gone, though the goddess remained, head bowed.
We stood alone
in a pine-grove silver with moonlight. I heard a sound—
a footstep
soft as a deer’s—and, turning in alarm, I saw a figure striding from the woods—a youth, I thought, with the
bow of a huntsman
and a tight, short gown that flickered like the water in
a brook. As the stranger
neared, I saw my error: it was no man, but a goddess, graceful and stern as an arrow when it drops in
soundless flight
to its mark. Aphrodite spoke: ‘Too long we’ve warred,
Goddess,
moon-pale huntress. I come to your sacred grove to
make
amends for that, bringing this creature along as a
witness,
a poet from the world’s last age—no age of heroes, as
you know,
/>
and as this poor object proves. Don’t expect you’ll heat
him speak.
He’s timid as a mouse in the presence of gods and
goddesses;
foolish, easily befuddled, a poet who counts out beats on his fingers and hasn’t got fingers enough. But he
understands Greek,
with occasional glances at a book he carries—in secret,
he thinks!
(but the deathless gods, of course, miss nothing). He’ll
have to do.”
The love goddess smiled almost fondly, I thought. But
as for Artemis,
she knew me well, stared through me. The goddess of
love said then:
“I come to you for a boon I believe you may gladly
grant
when you’ve heard my request. Not long ago a murderer buried his victim in secret, in this same
grove
sacred to the moon. As soon as the body was hidden,
he fled
with the woman he claimed to love, Medeia, the
daughter of Aietes.
I protected them—their right, as lovers. But now the
heart
of the son of Aison has hardened against his wife. He
means
to cast her aside for the virgin Pyripta, daughter of
Kreon
of Corinth. So at last our interests meet, it seems to me.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, chaste goddess. I can see no
other way
than to throw myself on your mercy, despite old
differences.
Set her against him firmly, and I give my solemn
pledge,
I’ll turn my back on the daughter of Kreon forever, no
more
stir love in her bosom than I would in the rocks of Gaza.
Just that,
and nothing more I beg of you. Charge Pyripta’s mind with scorn of Jason, and even in Zeus’s hall I’ll praise your name and give you thanks.” So the goddess spoke.
And Artemis
listened and gave no answer, coolly scheming. I did not care for the glitter of ice in the goddess of purity’s eye, and I glanced, uneasy, at the goddess of love. She
appeared to see nothing
amiss. Then Artemis spoke. “I’ll go and see.” That was
all.
She turned on her heel, with a nod inviting me to
follow, and strode
like a man to the place where her chariot waited, all
gleaming silver.
As soon as I’d set one foot in it, we arrived at the house of Jason. The chariot vanished. I was down on my
hands and knees