(I alone saw them—
their look triumphant and wary at once, Aphrodite
glaring,
furious at Jason for the love he feigned, scornful of
her power),
Kreon — with an endless rambling speech — allusions
to Oidipus,
Jokasta, Antigone — transferred his sceptre and power
to Jason.
Great lords of Corinth unfastened the cloak from the
old king’s shoulders
and draped it on Aison’s son, its wide flow covering
the cape
Argus had made at Lemnos. Attended by lords, he took the central chair on the dais. His kingship was ratified
by vows
to Zeus and Hera and the chief gods of the pantheon, such vows as no man on earth would break. And high
in the rain
some saw Zeus’s eagle, they thought, though others
thought not.
The assembled kings, his equals, came to him,
confirming alliances
promised to Kreon in the past, and one by one they
bowed to him,
taking his hands, and bowed to Pyripta beside him,
his queen.
Again there were drums and trumpets, and slaves
poured wine.
And then a thing so strange took place that no one felt certain,
afterward,
whether it had happened or not. All in gold, the Asian,
Koprophoros,
stood before Jason, solemn. He bowed to the ground
in the fashion
of the Orient, then bowed to Pyripta in the same manner. When he spoke, his voice was as deep and soft as the
slow thundering
of far-off rainclouds, a voice so changed I was filled
with alarm.
“So the game is ended at last, good prince,” he said,
and smiled.
“All you were robbed of in life, you have now back in
hand, though opposed
by more than you dreamed.” He turned to the kings
around him. “Let men
report it to the world’s last age that once, in a palace
called Akhaia,
a man, by cunning and tenacity, out-fought the gods
of the Underworld for a city and princess, though the
gods of Death
were granted their prey in advance by fate. Yet lose
they did,
for the moment, playing too lightly — as the mighty will
do sometimes.
But fate, after all, is inexorable, whatever man’s power. The dagger blade has already cut deep in the
shimmering veil;
the dream is nearly done. Fear now no god, Jason. Fear things human, and infinitely more terrible. He smiled his scarcely perceptible smile. “If my words
seem strange,
ponder them after I’m gone. And so, good-day.”
With that
he tapped the stone floor lightly with his foot. In a flash,
where he’d stood
there loomed an enormous serpent whose wedge-shaped
head struck the roof
and whose coils were thicker than an ancient oak—
a female serpent
obscenely bloated with eggs; and I thought of Harmonia, noblest of queens, transformed by the Master of
Life and Death
to Queen of the Dead. She vanished.
While the hall still stared, dumbfounded, Paidoboron bowed to the throne. His words were stern
and brief:
“Now all escape is sealed.” And immediately he, too,
vanished,
and there in his place stood a dragon who filled all the
palace with fire,
and his scales were like plates of steel. Each nail on
his saurian claws
was longer than a man, and his two bright fangs were
massive stalactites,
children of the world’s first cave. Then the dragon too
was gone.
Kreon, pale as a sea-ghost, clutched at his chest,
shaking,
and even Jason was trembling. The nobles around him
swore
it was Hades himself he’d contended with, or his
surrogate, Kadmos,
man-god ruler of the dead. They swore that Death
and his wife
had come for their sport and had made long-winded
mockery
of Kreon’s fears and Jason’s desires and the hopes of
the sea-kings,
the whole fierce struggle a sardonic joke. The princess
suddenly
cried out, waking from a vision. But at once, though
his throat was working
and dark blood rushing to his face, the son of Aison
seized
his new bride’s hand and calmed her. When his tongue
would work, he said,
“Don’t be afraid! I swear all this terror will prove
some trick
of Medeia’s. If not, you’ve heard what the two ghosts
say: The gods
have retired from the conflict. It’s now no more than
mere human craft
we must guard against. — Yet I’m certain it’s only as
I said at first,
some heartless illusion by Medeia, designed to
terrify us.”
At once they believed him, for surely the gods play
no tricks so base,
not even the gods of the Underworld. So they told
themselves,
and so, little by little, their calm was restored.
His thick fear
hidden in the deepest, darkest of abditoriums,
Jason spoke lightly, driving out shadows as, long ago, he’d lightened the hearts of the Argonauts when hope
seemed madness.
He praised King Kreon’s long wise rule and swore
to uphold
his principles, and praised his visitors and vassals.
Of those things
nearest his heart — Idas in the dungeon, his own wife
and children
banished — he spoke not a syllable, biding his time.
His eyes
moved, as he spoke, from rafter to rafter through
Kreon’s hall,
secretly watching omens, a silent invasion: ravens.
23
Dressed exactly as he always dressed, not in regal array but hooded and wrapped against rain — for it still fell
fierce and fiery—
Jason went down, alone, to the vine-hung house where
Medeia
and the Corinthian women sewed. He rang the great
brass ring
and waited, restless but patient. At last the male slave
came
and, seeing his master, said he would bring out Medeia.
He returned
to the house, and after a time the princess of Aia
came out.
She stood in the shelter of the rainwashed eaves, and
he called to her
and asked her to unlock the high, wide gate.
Medeia said only,
“Speak from there.” He seized the bars of the
small window
in the gate and called, “You prove once more what
I should have remembered:
a stubborn disposition’s incurable. A home here
in Corinth
you might have yet if only you’d endure old Kreon’s will with at least some show of meekness. But no, you
must hurl wild words.
So you’re banished — thrown out of Corinth as a
dangerous madwoman.
And rightly, no doubt. Not that I too much care,
for myself.
Rail all you please at vilest Jason. Often as the old man’s fear of you rose, I struggled to check it.
I would have had
you stay. But still in your obstinate folly you must
curse and revile
the royal house; so it’s banishment for you — and lucky
no worse.
But despite all that, more faithful than you think,
I’ve prevailed so far
as to see that you’ll not lack gold or anything else