Jason and Medeia (26 page)

   “And so the nightmare voice came to me—ghostly hint that I was caught up in more than anyone knew, some grandiose ultimate agon. If the crew was caught up, to some extent, in these same weird delusions …

   “However, it is also true that the place was strange, uncanny … and true (we've begun to learn to see) that explanation is exhaustion: The essence of life is to be found in frustrations of established order: the universe refuses the deadening influence of complete conformity. Though also, needless to say …

   “How can the mind accept such a pointless clutter

of acts,

encounters with monsters, kings, strange weather—

no certainty, even,

which things really occur, which things are dreams?

I've barely

hinted at the sights we saw, dull shocks to our sanity. I've told many times how we slipped through the

Clashing Rocks, and have been

believed; but who would believe me now, if I said to you we slipped in and out of Time, hurled crazily backward

and forward?

A man learns how much truth he can get away with.

Suppose

I leaned toward you, like this, abandoning dignity, and moaned, eyes wide: Oh friends, the worst of it all

was this:

Time swept over us in waves: one moment the hills

were green,

the next, crawling with cities, the next, black deserts

where things

like huge black insects belched out smoke and devoured

one another.

Suppose I reported that, sailing through fog, we heard

dreadful moans,

terrible deep-throated bellows we took to be

sea-monsters,

and all at once we'd see lights coming at us—no

common torches,

but lights blue-white as stars—and even as we gazed

at them,

shaking in terror, believe me, we saw they were eyes—

the eyes

of enormous drifting beasts. And sometimes the lights

would vanish

and the huge sea-beasts would sink, as if for a purpose,

like whales.

Suppose I told you I saw whole seas of dead men

floating—

women and children as well—a smell unbelievable— corpses from shore to shore, and ship prows parting

them.

You'd soon grow uneasy, I think. You'd call me a

tiresome liar,

and rightly. Then only this: we were riding in eerie

waters,

countries of powerful magic. And the strangest part was

this:

all that we saw, or thought we saw, was of no

importance.

At times the river was poison. At times the sky caught

fire.

At times the land we passed seemed virgin wilderness, and the river birds would land on our ship as if never

yet

attacked by the implements of man. The world was a

harmless drunk.

   “A ship that reeked of incense drifted by us, filled with sleepy people, eerie music, children in rags or naked, as some of the adults were naked. They smiled

gently,

listlessly waved and jabbered in some outlandish tongue, human livestock packed in rail to rail on the sailless ship. They did not mind. Some coupled publicly, staring nowhere. They filled us, God knows why, with

anger.

Even Athena's magic ship was changed, beside that rotting barque from the world's last age. The

planking sang:

   “ ‘For men, not earth, the time has run out. Though

oceans die,

meadows and fields, green hills, they hold no grudge

against their murderer.

They drift through time in their long

slumber,

secretly waiting, like beasts asleep in caves. Deep space bombards the poisoned seas with bits of life, and the

seas

grow whole again, renew themselves like a heart

awakening.

Algae forms along shores. Great, dark, ungainly beasts dream from the deeps toward land, and out of the

slime of blood

and bone—witless, charged with sorrow like a dying

horse—

mind comes groping, tentative, fearful, sly as a snake and as quick to love or strike. So spring moves in

again,

as usual, and flowers are invented, and wheels and

clocks,

and tragedies, and eventually, as the mind grows old, familiar with its quirky ways, even comedy is born

again—

fat clowns strutting, alone and ridiculous, shaking

their fists

at mirrors and fleeing in alarm, to teach that the joke

on them

is them. So autumn comes again, as usual: splendid triumph of color, when every tree turns

philosophical

and the seas, dying, past all repair,

provide mankind with jokes. (All consciousness is

optimistic,

even a frog's. Otherwise who would evolve the handsome

prince?)

So plankton dies, and the whales turn belly up, become one world-wide stench of decaying symphonies; the grass withers. Starvation; plague. A silent planet again, for a time; drifting boulder pocked with old cities till space sends life. And once more goggle-eyed

creatures gaze

amazed at the brave new world with goggle-eyed

creatures in it,

as usual. And all that past minds dreamed or wrote, feared, predicted with terrible insight—all mind loved and mocked—is vanished like snow, cool archaeology. Cheer up, sailors! The wind of time was always dark with ghosts, pacing, angrily muttering to be born.'

“The death-ship

vanished, and a moment later, the music; finally the

smell.

We talked, held councils; but obviously we could make

no sense

of senselessness, and so, in the end, pushed on. And had adventures, each more lunatic than the last. Not even Orpheus knew how to twist the thing toward reason,

impose

some frame. In any case, I can tell you, it wasn't

courage

that kept us going. It wasn't sweet curiosity. For reasons we hadn't understood at the time—nor did

we now—

we'd launched this expedition, and so we continued.

They did not

love me for it now. Muttered and grumbled.

“As I say,

we passed the Clashing Rocks. Never mind the details.

Two great black

boulders that rose from the sea like a pair of jaws,

and snapped

at any who passed between. The prank of some playful

god

in the First Age, before the gods grew ‘serious.' A prank deadly for men, though one can see, in a way, the entertainment value. We'd been forewarned of

them

by Phineus—one of his endless, tedious meanderings. We followed instructions—hurled in a dove, by which

we learned

the pace of the thing … Never mind. We rowed for our

lives, and made it,

and saw the stone jaws lock, to move no more. Ironic. We could have sailed through at ease, like merchants,

chatting, if we'd known their

time was almost out. But in any case, we made it, and travelled senselessly on.

‘Then Tiphys spoke, overpleased

at how slyly his oar had steered us through—fatuous, unctuous with success … unless already the mortal

fever

was in him, befuddling his wits, and some subliminal

fear,

intuition of silence, now stirred his soul to noise. He

said,

pompous and hearty, too jovial: ‘I think, Lord Jason, we can safely say all's well! The
Argo's
safe and sound, and so are we! For which we may thank pale-eyed

Athena,

who gave our ship supernatural strength when Argus

drove in

the bolts. The
Argo
shall never be harmed. That seems

to be Law.

And so, since heaven's allowed us to pass through the

Clashing Rocks,

I beg you, put off all worries. There can be no obstacle this crew can't easily surmount!'

“Our brilliant pilot, I thought,

is a dolt. I turned my head, looked back at the two

great rocks,

now motionless, then glanced at him, one eyebrow

raised.

But the next instant it struck me that Tiphys' words

could be turned

to use. I frowned and steeled myself for the necessary dullness, and, sighing, taking him gently to task, I said:

   “ ‘Tiphys, why do you comfort me? I was a blind fool, and the error's fatal. When Pelias ordered me out on

this mission

I should have refused at once, even though he'd have

torn me limb

from limb. It was selfish madness which even in selfish

terms

has turned out all to the bad. Here I am, responsible for all your lives—and no man living less fit for it! I'm wracked by fears, anxieties—hating the thought

of the water,

hating the thought of land, where surely hostile natives will claim some few of our lives, if not the majority. It's easy for you, good Tiphys, to talk in this cheerful

vein.

Your care is only for your own life, whereas I, I must

care

for all your lives. No wonder if I never sleep!' So

I spoke,

playing the necessary game (and yet I confess, I

enjoyed it,

querning the world to words)—and the whole crew rose

to it,

or all but one. ‘No man,' they cried, ‘in the whole world could vie with Jason as fitting lord of the Argonauts! It's surely that very anxiety which wrecks your sleep that steers the
Argo
safely past every catastrophe! Never doubt it, man! We'd rather be dead, every one

of us,

than see you harmed by Pelias!' With old unwatered

wine

they drank my health and set up such shouts that the

sea-wall rang

and I nearly shouted myself. But Orpheus looked

toward shore,

not drinking. I ignored the matter. ‘My friends,' I said,

‘your courage

fills me again with confidence. The resolution you show in the face of these monstrous perils has

made me feel

I could sail through hell itself and be calm as a god.'

Thus I

played Captain, kept their morale up. I needn't deny

I enjoyed it.

Was it my fault the Argonauts—even the slyest (Mopsos and Idmon, for instance)—had natures a flow

of words

could carry away like sticks? And was it my fault that

words

were my specialty? I ask you, what other choice did

I have?—

though Orpheus watched me, scorned me, keener than

the rest at spying

craft (a wordsman himself, though one of a very

dissimilar

kind). He said in private, later, avoiding my eyes, tuning his lyre with fingers as light as wings, ‘Come,

come!

“Limb from limb,” Lord Jason! This is surely some new

Pelias—

the stuttering mouse turned lion!' ‘I do what I must,'

I said.

‘Would you have me tell them the truth—that life

itself, all our pain

is idiocy?' He feigned surprise. ‘You think so, Jason?' I knew his game. Play innocent, defensive. Draw out

your man,

give him the rope to hang himself. And I knew, too, his arrogance. It's easy for the poets to carp at the men who lead, the drab decision-makers who waste no time on niceties—pretty figures merely for aesthetics' sake, rhymes for the sake of rhymes. They see all the world

as forms

to be juxtaposed, proved beautiful—no higher purpose than harmony, the static world proved lovely as it is. But what world's static? We create, and we long for

poets' support,

we who contract for whatever praise or blame is due and get the blame—ah, blame that outlasts our acts

by centuries!

   “I said: ‘My friend, we're booty hunters. We've come

this far,

murdered and lost this many men—the friendly king of the Doliones, Herakles, Hylas, Polydeukes, and the rest—for nothing but a boast, an adventure

of boys. It's time

we turned those crimes to account. I think it's easy for

you

to be filled with pompous integrity. My job's more dull. Whatever high meaning our journey may have—or

lack of meaning—

my job is to carry us through. That means morale, poet. That means unity, brotherhood!' Orpheus smiled, ironic, avoiding my eyes, and not from embarrassment, it

seemed to me,

but as if to glance for a moment in my direction would

be

bad art, misuse of his skills. He glanced at Argus,

instead,

our sly artificer, who smiled. They have a league, these

artists:

a solid front in defense of their grandiose visions of the

real,

destroyers of sticks and stones. I was angry enough,

God knows.

But that, too, went with the job.

“He said: Your pilot's sick.

I studied him, puzzled. He looked at his lyre. Tour

beloved Tiphys

is sick, at death's very door. Does that make you

“anxious,” Captain?

Does it make you a trifle remorseful of your fine facility for turning all passing remarks to the common good?'

What could

I say? What would anyone say, in my position? I glanced at Tiphys, standing at the oar. The wind rolled through

his hair,

his eyes were alert. He looked like a fellow who'd live

six hundred

years, Queen Hera's darling. I glanced back at Orpheus. ‘I don't believe it.' But the devil had shaken me, no lie.

And he spoke

the truth, as we all found later. Meanwhile Orpheus

played,

catching the rhythm of the oars, and little by little,

gently,

all but imperceptibly, he increased the tempo. We passed the river Rhebas and the peak of the Colone,

and soon