will be waiting for you,
and I will be waiting, standing summer and winter on
the wall,
watching, surviving on hope. Believe in my love, Jason. Set my love like a seal on your heart, more firm
than death.
Swear you’ll return.’ I said I would. She didn’t believe it, nor did I believe she’d wait. We kissed. The gods be
with you,
‘I said. She studied my face. ‘Don’t speak of the gods,’
she said.
‘Be true to me.’ She guided my hand to her breast.
‘Remember!’
“And so we sailed. My gentle cousin Akastos wept for fair Iphinoe — they were both virgins when we’d
first arrived.
‘I’ll love her till the day I die,’ he said. listen to me,
Jason.
I see the defeat in your eyes. They say what Idas says: God is a spider. But I say, No! Beware such thoughts! God is what happens when a man and woman in love
grow selfless,
or a man feels grief for his friend’s despair, or his
cousin’s — grieves
as I do for you.’ He turned his head, embarrassed
by tears,
and Phlias the mute, Dionysos’ son, reached out and
touched him.
‘I’m only a man. I can’t undo all the evils of the world or answer the questions of the staring Sphinx who sits,
stone calm,
indifferent to time and place, his kingly head beyond concern for the love and hate that his lional chest
can’t feel.
I can’t undo your scorn for words, whether Herakles’
words
or mine. But I can say this, and be sure: I’ll love Iphinoe and swear that my gift is by no means uncommon, as
you may learn
by proof of my love for you. Scorn on, if scorn gives
comfort.’
I understood well enough his depth of devotion. I felt the same for him. How could I not? Those violent eyes, that scrawny frame in which, in plain opposition to
reason,
he’d stand up to giants. God knew. And be slaughtered.
“I let it pass,
watching the sea-jaws snap at our driving oars. So
Lemnos
sank below the horizon and little by little, sank from mind. The Argo was silent. Tiphys watched the prow, steering through rocks like teeth. Above, no two clouds
touched.
The sky was a sepulchre. It did not seem to me, that day, that gods looked down on us, applauding. No one spoke.
We sailed.
Ankaios said — huge boy in a bearskin—’Who can say what his fate may bring if he keeps his courage
strong? ‘I laughed.
Akastos’ jaw went tight. I understood, understood.”
Jason paused, frowning. He decided to say no more. So the day went, by Jason’s gift, to Paidoboron, mournful, black-bearded guest from the North. And
yet the day went
to Jason, too. From him those gloomy sayings came, sayings darker, I thought, than any Paidoboron spoke. Kreon said nothing when the tale was done, but stared
at his hands
on the table, looking old, soul-weary, as if he’d been
there.
As Jason rose, excusing himself to go home — it was
late—
the king stopped him. “You’ve given us much to think
about,
as usual. It’s a tale terrible enough, God knows. It’s filled my mind with shadows, unpleasant memories. My philosophy’s been, perhaps—” he paused, “—too
sanguine.” He looked
at Pyripta. Her gentle eyes were shining, brimming
with tears
for Lemnos’ queen. She had not missed, I thought, what
Jason
meant by that talk of betrayal. Were they not now
asking the same
of him — betrayal of Medeia? And was he not toying
with it?
“Consider Pyripta!” the tale cried out. But she was
a child,
and the demand strange. It came to me that she
was beautiful.
Not handsomely formed, like Medeia, and not
voluptuous,
but beautiful nevertheless — a beauty of meaning, like
a common
hill-shrine, crudely carved, to the gentlest, wisest of gods, Apollo, avenger of wrongs. The king said, glancing up, “You’ll return and tell us more? We’d be sorry to be left
in this mood.”
He said nothing. I noticed, of Jason’s staying in the
palace, this time.
Jason was looking at the princess, seeing her as I had
seen her.
No wonder. I thought, if he longed to escape from
Medeia’s stern eyes
to those — unjudging, filled with innocent compassion.
“If you wish,”
he said. The old king squeezed his hand. Pyripta smiled. “Come early tomorrow,” she said. She seemed surprised
that she’d spoken.
That morning, seven of the sea-kings made small
trades — rich ikons,
jewels and tapestries — and left. The omens were bad.
Medeia
naked on her bed — old Agapetika beside her — stared at nothing. For a moment, like Jason, I thought she was
dead. The slave
shook her head, too grieved for speech. He called a
physician.
The doctor examined her, listened to her heart, looked
solemn. She would
be well, he said, though the lady might lie in this
deathlike carus
for days — perhaps three or four, perhaps a week. He saw her face but did not inquire concerning the scratches.
Jason
closed the door on her softly, going to his sons. He took
them
from the old man’s care and held them a moment. Then
they went out
and walked in the early morning air, though he hadn’t
yet slept. I sat
beside her, touching her hand, watching the shadows of
the garden
travel across her face. Her slave had cleaned the wounds. They’d leave no scars. Her scars were deeper. Poor
innocent!
My hands moved through the cloth when I tried to
cover her.
Kreon, looking at the city, showed his age. His fingers shook. The game has changed,” he said. Ipnolebes—
standing
bent, morose, beside him — peered into memories:
tongues
of flame exploring curtains, the silent collapse of beams, hurrying men in armor, old women screaming, their
shrieks
soundless in the roar of fire. (I saw what Ipnolebes
saw—
trick of the dead-eyed moon-goddess. “End it, my
lord,” he said.
But Kreon frowned. “The gods will see to the end when
it’s time.
Our man has begun a voyage on what he took to be familiar seas, and found the world transformed. By
chance—
the accident of an angry woman, a scene on the street— Athena’s ship is transmogrified, and all of us with it. Get off if you can! The pilot’s eyes have changed;
the world
he sailed, all childish bravura, has grown more dark.
Shall we
pretend that his darkened seas are a harmless phantasy? I don’t much care for nightmare-ships. No more than
you do.
But I do not think it wise to flee toward happier dreams, singing in the dark, my eyes clenched shut, if the
nightmare world
is real. Somewhere ahead of us, the throne of Corinth waits for her king’s successor — law or chaos. Towns are not preserved, I fear, by childish optimism. Alas, my friend, he’s turned the Argo’s prow to the void. We’ll watch and wait, follow him into the darkness