“I suggest to you, gentlemen, that however my personal vision may construct the hungry tiger, however boldly I assert (as my scrupulous logic may require) that the tiger I sense is not really there, the tiger will eat me, and I’ve known it all along, whatever my logic may asseverate. I suggest, in short, that Jason’s theory is a deep-seated lie: I do not, in fact, think merely with my mind. If I did, I could not explain to myself why you hate me for cooking the stranger. I suggest that philosophers, whose chief business is to think things through, not slog on by faith, like the rest of us, make dangerous, nay, deadly kings. Ideas quite harmless in the philosopher’s attic, mistaken opinions which time can easily unmask, can turn to devouring dragons if released on the world.
“What I claim, with respect to Jason’s idea — though I do not pretend to prove my claim, being no true philosopher myself but only a man philosophically equipped to defend himself against philosophers — is that man is whole, his passions as priceless as his crafty mind, and mysteriously connected, if not, indeed, identical — so that rejection of the body is a giant step toward madness. If evil actions are transparently evil, the reason is that I can feel them as surely and concretely as I feel a cow or a pang of love. That, I suspect, and nothing baser, is the reason we make cities. Not to flee raw experience of Nature, but to arrive at it, to escape the drudgery of hunting and gobbling so that when we sit down to supper we can take our time and notice it. Show the crude country singer the noblest achievements of our epic poets, and he’ll shame all critics in his praise of it.” He looked at me again, and again winked. I looked around in alarm and embarrassment. He continued: ‘The crude balladeer King Paidoboron praises — where are his verses most quoted and loved? In the city, of course. There, there only, have clodpate mortals the time and experience to perceive and appreciate artlessness, or be moved by plain-brained message.
“But I was speaking of Jason.” Gesture. “He would curb the flesh in iron chains, deny all passions for the common good. I ask you one question. Can a man make laws for other men if he’s purified out of his blood all trace of humanness? I can say to god-struck Paidoboron, ‘I disagree,’ and no one is overmuch offended by it. But let him constrain me by inflexible laws to behave and frame my affirmations exactly as he does, and you know very well what the upshot will be. Let the tyrant gird his loins and cement his alliances, because make no mistake, I am coming for him!
“Though I’ve no intention of crushing light-winged opinions into staggering and groaning legislation, I have opinions of my own that I value as dearly as Jason does his — and between you and me and the gatepost, I think mine more tenable. I celebrate the flesh unashamedly: I watch and guide it with mind as a doting mother does her child. I celebrate dancing and the creation of images and uplifting fictions; I celebrate among other bodily sensations, health and wealth and power, which does not mean I’m unmoved by sickness and poverty and weakness. Search high and low through this moaning world, you’ll find no man’s illachrymable but the man of stern theories, the ice-cold slave of mere intellect, donzel with a ponderous book, or six loosely knotted opinions he’s fashioned to a whip. Don’t tell me, when you speak of such men, of their liberalism.
“So much for that. Return to Jason’s more important principle. He claims we should balance idealism with pragmatic awareness of the changing world. No man of sense would deny the point.” He gestured wearily. “But gentlemen, consider. As once all the princes of Akhaia rallied around Jason for pursuit of the golden fleece, so now all the princes have rallied around King Agamemnon, to avenge the ravishing of Helen by Paris of Troy. The morality of the war may be right or wrong — I take no stand — but one thing seems certain: when the Trojan war is won or lost, those princes who bravely stood together to fight it will emerge a league as powerful as any the world has ever seen. How is it that Jason— given his theory of power by alliance — sits here in comfort, drinking Kreon’s wine — though a man no older than Hektor, I think, and no less wily than Odysseus— when the men he’ll need to ally himself with, if he ever achieves a position as king, are wading knee-deep in dear friends’ blood toward Troy? Not that I mean to criticize unduly. I express, merely, my puzzlement. He has given us difficult and complex reasons for believing what we all believe anyway, as surely as we believe, for no explicable reason, that we ought not to bake harmless strangers in our ovens — yet he seems to me not to live by them. The matter needs clarification.”
He smiled, waiting. I saw that the Asian was
serenely certain
he’d carried the day. I was half-inclined — even I—
to believe it,
though I knew the whole story. Athena herself looked
alarmed, in fact,
uncomfortably watching at Jason’s side. Above all,
Kreon,
it seemed to me, was shaken in his faith. Though no
one had doubted
that Jason’s victory was settled from the start,
Koprophoros’ words
had shattered the old man’s complacency as a few
stern blows
of Herakles’ club could loosen trees. He stared with eyes like dagger holes at Koprophoros. He seemed to be
seeing for the first time
the wealth and splendor of the Asian’s dress, white and
gold impleached,
majesty and taste unrivalled in Akhaia. He seemed
to grasp
the remarkable restraint of that master of tricks. Though
he might have astonished
the hall with a battery of startling illusions, and
dazzled the wits
of the sea-kings with bold transformations and
vanishings no one — no mortal,
not even the wily Medeia — could match (for
Koprophoros’ skill
as an illusion-maker was known far and wide) he had
used no weapon
but plain argument, and by that alone had made
Jason appear
a fool. As the hall sat restlessly waiting, Jason
drew shapes
with his fingernail on the tablecloth, deep in thought.
At last,
the king turned to him, evading his eyes, and asked,
his voice
almost a whisper, toneless except for a hint of irritation: “Would you care to offer some comment, Jason?” He
smiled too late,
and Jason saw it, and returned the smile; and the
whole room knew
that instant that Jason would win.
He let a long moment pass, then rose, head bowed, regally handsome and, you
would have sworn,
embarrassed as an athlete praised. With an innocent
openness
that no mere innocent boy could match, he said,