that one!
Would let all Akhaia go down for one woman, his prize
of war
whom dog-eyed Agamemnon stole, supported by
lordlings,
Akhaians gathered from far and near for a high moral
purpose,
they pretended — lying in their teeth. They did not fool
the son
of Peleus, raging in his tent and cursing their whole
corrupt
establishment. He set his pure and absolute passion beyond the value of all their chatter of community effort till Patroklos died, and Akhilles’ passion made him hate
all Illium
and battle for Akhaia in spite of himself. He wagered
his soul
on love and hate, and let duty be damned. But Priam, bending in sorrow for his headless, mutilated son,
made Akhilles
shudder at last with sanity, crying aloud to the gods. He too, the gentle and courageous Hektor, was a lover—
loved
both justice and the people of his city and house.
Constrained to fight
for an evil cause or abandon loved ones, he wiped
the lines
from his forehead, gave up on metaphysics, played
for an hour
with his son, then put on his armor. So goes the universe, disaster on this side, shame on that … Yet not
even these
are trustworthy.
“For ten long years Odysseus debated, tossed like a chip by the lunatic gods — not the least
of them
the gods in his sly, unsteadfast brain. Defend him as
you will,
Odysseus couldn’t be certain himself that he truly
intended
to make his way back to Penelope. He bounced from wall to wall down the long dark corridor of chance to that
moment of panic
when Alkinoös’ daughter found him by the sea and fell
in love with him. Then swiftly that quick brain lied:
told tales
of battle with the Cyclops, the terror of Sirens,
debasement on the isle
of Circe — fashioned adventures, each stranger than
the last, to prove
that all this time he’d had no end but one, return
to Ithika
and his dear lost wife. And so, assisted by the
wily Athena,
he explained away his drifting and eluded the sweet,
light clutches
of Nausikaa — but committed himself to the older, half-forgotten prison, and there Alkinoös sent him, laden with gifts on that oarless barque. But though he
reached the hall
itself and learned who was loyal to him, he could
find no way
to win back his power from the suitors there, fierce
men who’d kill him
gladly if he dared to reveal himself. So hour on hour, disguised as a beggar in his own wide hall, he
gnashed his teeth,
watching them eat through the wealth of his pastures
and smile obscenely
at his pale-cheeked, ever more beautiful wife; and
his hands were tied.
She seemed not to know him (though his dear old dog
had died of joy
at sight of him). Yet she it was who suggested the test of the bow, and placed in Odysseus’ hands the
one weapon
with which he might make his play. And play he did!
Such slaughter
was never seen, not even on the Trojan plains. When
it ended,
and the house was cleansed of the stench of blood
by sulphur fumes,
his disloyal servants hanged and those proved loyal
rewarded,
Odysseus, deserving or not, had his kingdom and
wise good wife
and best of sons. Whatever a man could dare to ask if the world were just and orderly, and the gods kind, all that and more, he was given.
“So it is that the lives of men confute each other, and nothing is stable, nothing — nay,
not even misery — sure.
For that reason I abandoned rule,
and abandoned all giving of advice. If I liked, I could
point your ship
in the direction of Aigeus’ land, the kingdom of Theseus’
father,
or give firm reasons for avoiding the place. But I’ve
little heart left
for tedious illusions — not mine, not even some other
man’s.
Life is a foolish dream in the mind of the Unnamable. When he wakens, we’ll vanish in an instant, squeezed
to our nothingness,
or so we’re advised by books. Therefore I devote myself, for all my famous temper, wrecker of my life, to learning to forget this life, drifting, will-less, toward absolute
nothing,
formless land where all paradox, all struggle, melts. A man who’s been totally crushed by life should
understand these things,
a man whose loss has proved absolute. All the more,
therefore,
I wonder what reason Jason may have found—
unless, perhaps,
pure rage, after all these years, has still sufficient power to drive him on, forcing him even now to seek revenge. You say that the yard on your mast is a roost
for ravens.
A dangerous sign; I agree with you. For surely the curse Medeia placed on Jason is there confirmed, death on the Argo. And yet on that selfsame ship he
follows her.
But that, I think, is by no means the worst of
attendant omens.
In your wake come the groans of unheard-of creatures,
and a smell of fire,
and sounds of a vast, unholy war. I need not say
‘Turn back in time, have nothing to do with this
futureless man,’
for the dullest peasant could give such advice. I ask,
instead,
what brings you here? What can it be you’ve grasped—
or what
do you hope for? I am anxious to understand.”
Mad Idas held his hands to the fire, Lynkeus looking sadly through
the walls.
Jason waited, struggling against his restlessness.
Then Idas said:
“All you’ve told me I’ve known from the beginning,
though it’s taken me years
to grasp the thing that, because I am not like other men, I knew. As my brother sees with his lynx’s eyes
more things
than others see, so I, in my madness, am blessed
or cursed
with uncommon sight. In every tree and stone I see the gods warring — not to the death but casually, lightly, to break the eternal tedium. And I see the same in human hearts. It filled me with panic once. Not now. Once, half-asleep with friends who were talking,
telling old stories,
and all signs swore that not a man there could work
up a mood
for quarrelling, I would feel an estrangement in the man
at my side—
fear, mistrust, or some other emotion dividing
his heart—
and I’d know if I let myself look I’d discover the same
in them all,
no stability in any man, no rock to lean on,
all our convictions, all our faith in each other,
an illusion—
reality a pit of vipers squirming, blindly striking, murdering themselves. Cold sweat would rise on
my forehead, and I
would strike out first, their scapegoat; my own. But as
time passed
I got over that; came to accept more calmly the darkness that surrounds and shapes us. I came to accept what you
preach to us now,
the voracious black hole at the core of things. I too
observed
how fine it would be if Herakles were right — some
loving god
attending mankind in every sorrow, demanding merely total devotion, action conformant to His character. Since no such god was there, I let it pass — allowed that Theseus’ way was best, faith by despair. But we had stolen the fleece, we on the Argo, and Theseus