I was not as
free in my comings and goings as he seemed to think.
He said,
“Good, good!” and nodded, thankful to be rid of me. I said, “I can tell you of Kreon’s death.” He started,
indignant.
But after a moment my words registered,
and he scowled, standing quite still, as if carefully
balancing.
“He’s dead, then,” he said. I said: “A horrible death. I
saw it.”
He wiped his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me about it. Kreon
was dead
from the beginning.” He mulled it over. ‘That was the
difference between us.”
There, to my surprise, he let it drop.
And then I too heard, breaking through the smoky dark, the
queer sound Oidipus
strained to catch: a rhythmic cry and the faint whisper of oars swinging. He leaned both hands on the crook of
his cane.
“More company,” he said, and braced himself. A moment
later
I saw the Argo’s silver fangs come gliding out of
darkness,
the long oars swinging like the legs of a huge, black
sea-insect,
crusted with ice. The sail was stiff. On the island
around us
the ice and dark snow reddened, as if the war had
come nearer,
riding in the black ship’s wake.
Straight in toward shore she came, the oars now lifted like wings, and as soon as the
keel-beam struck,
down leaped a man in a great brown cape that he
swirled with his arm
as if hoping to frighten the night. His icy beard and
mane
were wild, his bright eyes rolling. When he saw me he
halted and covered
his eyes with both hands, then carefully peeked through
his fingers at me.
At last, convinced that the curious sight was no
madman’s dream,
he bowed to me, then turned and tip-toed over, through
the snow,
to Oidipus. He whispered, smile flashing, “My name is
Idas,
or so men call me, and I answer to it. Why increase,
say I,
the general confusion? Which is, you may say, an
immoral opinion.”
He glanced past his shoulder to the ship, then whispered
in Oidipus’ ear:
“I deftly reply, after careful study: I burned down the
city
of Corinth, sir, in the honest opinion it belonged to a
man
who’d sorely grieved me — but found too late that the
fellow had left it
to my dear old friend, in whom I was only, at worst,
disappointed,
which is not, you’ll agree, just cause for destroying an
old friend’s town.
But what’s done is done, as Time is forever inkling at us.
And, being a reasonable man, within limits, I turned
my faltering
attention to doing him good. I must make you privy to
a secret:
He’d had it worse than I, this friend. He’d lost his lady.
A nasty business. She murdered his sons and reduced
him to tatters—
it’s the usual story. In the merry words of our old friend
Phineus,
‘Dark, unfeeling, unloving powers determine our
human
destiny.’ He was beaten hands-down, poor devil. She
made
considerable noise about oath-breaking, and believed
herself,
as well she might, since she spoke with enormous
sincerity,
which is to say, she was wild with rage. She called down
a curse,
that Jason should die in sorrow and failure, on his own
Argo—
a curse that may well be fulfilled. On our sailyard,
ravens perch,
creatures beloved of the master of life and death,
Dionysos.
Having struck, she fled to Aigeus’ kingdom in
Erekhtheus,
which now we seek. Our luck has not been the best, as
you see.
Winds play sinister games with us; familiar landmarks change in front of our eyes, outrageously cunning — no
doubt
ensorcelled by Jason’s lady. From this it infallibly
follows,
if you’ve traced all the twists of my argument, that
we’ve landed here
to gain some clue to our bearings.” He smiled, eyes slyly
narrowed,
pulling at his fingers and making the knuckles pop.
King Oidipus
with his old head bent as if looking at the ground, said
nothing for a time.
At last he said, “Let me speak with this man.” Mad Idas
bowed.
“Of course! I had hoped to suggest it myself!” He
signalled to the ship,
and a moment later Lynkeus jumped down, and after
him Jason.
They came toward us. “You must understand,” mad Idas
said,
“that my friend cannot speak. He was once the most
eloquent of orators,
but a secret he suspected for a long time, and
continually resisted,
eventually got the best of him and took up residence in his mouth. Look past his teeth and you’ll see it there,
blinking like an owl,
huddled in darkness. He’s grown more mute than Phlias,
who could answer
the anger of the world with a dance. A terrible
business.”
The blind king listened as Lynkeus and Jason approached. When they
stood before him,
he reached out to feel first Lynkeus’ features, then
Jason’s. No man
was ever more ravaged — grayed and wrinkled, hunched.
Oidipus
dropped his hand to his side again and nodded. “I see it’s broken you, this sorrow. And yet you hunt her.”
Jason
nodded, a movement almost not perceptible
even to a man with sight, but Oidipus went on, as if he too had caught it: The world is filled with curious
stirrings.
I feel all around me some change in the wind. I see
things,
here on this hyperborean island a thousand miles from home. I catch queer rumors. Remote as I am, in
this place,
from the traffic and trade of man, you’re not the first to
touch here,
though the change struggling toward life in you is the
weirdest of them all.
That much I sense already. Yet what it is your life is groping toward I’ve not yet understood. It may come. It will come, I think. I feel myself almost closing on it, though of course I may not. I set great store by my
intellect once;
thought I was wiser than all other mortals.” He laughed
to himself.
“I answered the riddle of the Sphinx — sat pondering,
wringing my fingers,
and suddenly got it, leaped up shrieking, ‘It’s a man!
A man!’
Poor idiot! I thought after that that my crafty eye could
pierce
all life’s mysteries: Set myself up as a sage, became (gloating in my prizes — the throne of Thebes, and her
beautiful queen)—
became the most foolish of kings, unwitting parody of
one
who was truly wise in Thebes, the seer Teiresias, blinded for sights forbidden — the bosom and flanks of
Athena—
as I, too, would be blinded for knowledge not lawful.
I now
hold myself in less awe.” He smiled. “I have no virtue except, perhaps, humility. ‘Know thou art a man’ the
god warns—
Apollo, strangler of snakes. And I know it. Smashed to
the ground,
to wisdom. With every hair I lose, a desire dies; with every eyelid flicker, I forget some fact.” Abruptly, remembering the cold and his guests’ discomfort, the