which
of my friends would never reach home. It was a queer
thing
I was doing. I suddenly wondered why — and saw myself as a murderer: Herakles, laughing by the fire, huge as
a mountain,
beautiful Hylas looking up at him, laughing in a voice that seemed an imitation of the hero’s; Orpheus, polishing his delicate harp with hands like a lover’s …
Abruptly,
I sat up, trying to check my gloomy thoughts — trying, to tell the truth, to shake off my sudden, senseless
shame.
Idas saw me. As darkness thickened he’d watched,
invisible,
except for his eyes. He laughed his nasty, madhouse
laugh
and yelled at me, too loud, like a deaf man. ‘Jason,’ he
bawled,
‘tell us your morbid thoughts, O Lord of the Argonauts!’ His eyes were wild. ‘Is it panic I spy on the face of the
warlike
Jason son of Aison? Fear of the dark, maybe? Lo, we’ve chosen you keeper of us all, and there you sit, quiet as a stone! Be brave, good man! We’ll all protect
you,
now that we’ve solemnly chosen you — after deepest
thought,
you understand, and the most profound reflection!’
He laughed.
“By my keen spear, the spear that carries me farther in
war
than Zeus himself, I swear that no disaster shall trouble a hair of Jason’s beard, so long as Idas is with him. That’s the kind of ally you’ve got in me, old friend!’ I couldn’t tell if the lunatic meant to mock me or meant to defend me against some imagined foe. I doubt if he
knew
himself. I did know this: with a word, a single wild assertion, he’d made the night go stony dark as if he’d closed a door on the gods, and in that selfsame
gesture
closed out his friends — perhaps closed out the very
earth
at his feet. He lifted a full beaker with both dark hands and guzzled the sweet unwatered wine till his lips and
beard
were drenched with it. The men all cried out in anger
at his words,
and Idmon said — it was no mere guess, he spoke as
a seer—
Tour words are deadly! — and it’s you, black Idas, who’ll
die of them!
Crazy as you are, you’ve scoffed at almighty Zeus
himself!
Laugh all you will, the time will come — and soon,
man, soon—
when you’ll roll your eyes like a sheep in flight from a
wolf, and no one,
nothing at your back but Zeus!’
“More loudly than before, mad Idas
laughed. “Woe be unto Idas! For he hath drunk of the
blood
of bulls. He will surely die! He’ll crawl on his belly,
eat dust,
and children will kick him in the head! — Come now, my brave little seer! Employ your second sight and tell me: How do you mean to escape from poor mad Idas once he’s proved your prophecies lie? I’ve
heard
you prophesied once you’d love some lady of Thrace till
your dying
day. Where’s she gone now? Snuck off to the woods,
Idmon?
Wringing her fingers and moaning and plucking the
wild flowers,
timid as a rabbit, hiding from the eyes of men like
one of
the god’s pale shuddering nuns? I have it on authority that Zeus is a man-eating spider.’ He spoke in fury,
with the hope
of raising Idmon against him and cutting him down.
I leaped
to my feet — and so did the others — yelling, Herakles
in rage,
my cousin Akastos shocked and grieved. Mad Idas’ mind was gone from behind his eyes leaving nothing but
smoke, dull fire,
the look in the eyes of a snake before it strikes.
“Then something
happened. We hardly knew, at first, what it was we
heard,
but the night grew strangely peaceful, as if some
goddess had touched
the sea, the fire, the trees, with an infinitely gentle hand and soothed them, made them sweet. Orpheus stroked
his harp,
singing as if to himself, ears cocked to the sea and stars, half smiling, like a man in a dream. Then Idas was
calm, and recovered,
and the evil spirit left him.
“He sang of the age when the earth
and sky were knit together in a single mold, and how
they were
sundered, ripped from each other by terrible strife, how
mountains
rose from the ground like teeth. And then, in terror
at what
they’d done, and what might follow, they paused and
trembled. Then stars
appeared, sent out by the gods to move as sentinels, and streams appeared on the mountainsides, and
murmuring nymphs
to whisper and lull the earth back into its sleep. He told how, out of the sea, the old four-legged creatures came, a sacrifice gift from the deeps to the growling shore,
and birds
were formed of the earth as a peace-offering to the sky.
Then dragons,
cursed race still angry, challenged the gods. King Zeus was still a child at play in his Dictaian cave. They
roamed
the earth, terrifying lesser beasts, alarming even the gods, an army of serpents who threatened all who’d
warred
in the former age — the earth and sea and sky, the
roaming
mountains, stalkers in the night. But then the Cyclopes
borne
of earth, for love of Hera, earth’s majestic mother, fortified Zeus with the thunderbolt. Then Zeus ruled all, great god of peace. And all the earth and the arching
sky
shone calm and bright as a wedding dress. And the
wisdom of Zeus
was satisfied. The craftsman of the gods invented
flowers
and green fields, and the world became as one again.
“So Orpheus sang, but how he ended none of us could
say.
We slept. The sea lapped gently, near our feet. And thus the first night passed, quiet as the legend he sang to us.
“When radiant dawn with her bright eyes gazed at the
towering crags
of Pelion, and the headlands washed by wind-driven seas stood sharp and clear, Tiphys aroused us, and quickly
we shook off
sleep and gulped our breakfast down and ran to the
waiting
ship. The Argo growled at us, from her magic beams, impatient to sail. We leaped aboard and followed in file to our rowing benches. Then, all in order, our gear
beside us,
we hauled the hawsers in and poured libations out to the sea. Then Herakles settled amidships, cramped
for space,
huge Ankaios beside him. The ship’s keel, underfoot, sank low in the water, accepting their weight. I gave
the signal.
My eyes welled up with tears I scarcely understood
myself,
snatching a last quick look at home, and then our oars, spoonshaped, pointed like spearheads — Argus’ sly
design—
dug in, in time with Orpheus’ lyre like dancers’ feet. The smooth, bright blades were swallowed by the waves,
and on either side,
the dark green saltwater broke into foam, seething in
anger
at our powerful strokes. The ship lunged forward, riding
the roll
that came to us, swell on swell, out of landless distances. Our armor glittered in the sunshine bright as fire;
behind
our stern, our wake lay clear as a white stone path on
a field,