(This was a vision stranger than any a man ever saw. I rose and stepped in close. There came a whistling

wind.

My heart quaked. I’d come, God knew, beyond my

depth.

I found a huge old tree, vast oak, and clung to it,

waiting.)

On a hill, late that night, in the windswept temple

of Apollo

ringed by towering sentry stones, immemorial keys of a vast and powerful astrolabe, stern heaven-watcher, Jason stood, black-caped. On a gray stone bench nearby a blind man sat, at times a reader of oracles and soothsayer, at times a man of silence. Corinth glittered below like a case of lighted jewels falling tier by tier to the sea. The palace, high and wide, like a jewelled crown at the center of the vast display,

shone

like polished ivory. The harbor was light as dawn

with sails,

the ships of the visiting sea-kings.

“I know pretty well what he’s up to,”

Jason said. “Better than he knows himself, perhaps.” The seer was silent, leaning on the staff of come! wood that served as his eyes. Whether or not he was listening, no one could say. Visions had made his face unearthly, stern cliffs, crags, the pigment blackened as if by fire, the thick lips parched. He was one of those from the

fallen city

of dark-skinned Thebes, old Kadmos’ city: the seer

Teiresias

who learned all the mystery of birth and death when

he saw, with the eyes

of a visionary, the coupling of deadly snakes. Men said he paid in sorrows. Heros Dionysos — majestic lord of the dead, son of Hades, snatched at birth from his

mother’s pyre—

sent curses from under the ground to the man who

had seen things forbidden:

changed Teiresias to a woman for a time, and for

seven generations

refused him the soothing cup, sweet sleep of death. He

was now

in his last age. Jason turned to him, not to see him but to keep from looking at the palace. He began to

pace, frowning,

bringing his words out with difficulty, by violence of will. “I’d win his prize. Terrific match, he’d think. Bold Jason, pilot of the mighty Argo, snatcher of the fleece,

et cetera …

I could do it. Oh, I’m no Telamon, no Orpheus; but I’d serve old Kreon better than he dreams. These

are stupid times,

intermixed bombast and bullshit whipped to a fine fizz. I may be a better man to ride them out than those I thought my betters once, my glorious Argonauts. I never lullabyed bawling seas with my harp, like soft-eyed Orpheus, or tore down walls with my bare hands like Herakles. But I’ve survived my glittering friends—

survived

their finest. Favored by the gods, as they say— Not

that I asked

for that. I no more trust the generosity of gods than I do that of men. I’ve seen how they

twist and turn,

full of ambiguous promises, sly double dealings.

They offer

power, then blast you with a lightning-bolt. Or if gods

are honest,

as maybe they are, their honesty’s filtered by priests

and magicians

who may or may not be frauds. How can man trust

anything, then,

beyond his own poor fallible reason? I keep an eye out, keep my wits. If the gods are with me, good. If not, I stumble on. I play the chancy world like a harp tuned by a half-mad satyr on a foreign isle, finding its secrets out by feel. If the music’s fierce and strange— kinsmen murdered, in my bed a woman from the

barbarous rim

of the world — don’t think I pause, draw back from

the instrument

in horror, shame. I play on, not lifting an eyebrow, fleeing from resolution to resolution.

“So now

I might play Kreon’s lust. — Mine too, Medeia would say. I could smile, ignore her. I’ve bent too much to that

hurricane.

Whose work but hers that I find myself where I am?—

great hero,

homeless, hopeless, my towering city in chaos, her

ancient

winding streets like interlocked serpents afire in

their own

dark blood — and I can do nothing, exiled, ruined for

Medeia—

ruined despite all my nobly intoned coronation vows. Vows indeed! Ask Trojan Hektor his feeling on vows, forced to defend an old lecher. Ask Hektor’s brother.

The gods

themselves pit vow against vow as men pit fighting

cocks.”

He paused, rubbing his throat and jaw, relaxing

muscles

that seemed to grow more constricted with every word.

Then:

“I could still be king there, sharing the throne with a

dodling uncle

I never hated, whatever he thought of me. But it wasn’t room enough for the daughter of mighty Aietes, Lord of the Bulls, Keeper of the Golden Fleece. So here

we are,

blood on the soles of our feet, heads filled with

nightmare-visions,

guilt more chilling than the halls of the dead.

My friends on the Argo would laugh, in the winds of

hell, if they heard it.

“It might be comforting … Kreon’s child. A gentler

princess,

as slight, by Medeia, as these hills next to the

Caucasus. …

” He pursed his lips, jaw muscles drawn in the

semi-dark

of temple columns, flickering torches; his eyes were

suddenly

remote, as if even casual mention of those windy days on strange seas, strange shores, could make them rise

in his mind

more real than the quiet night he loomed in now.

He closed

his eyes, breathed deep. The blind man bent his head,

as if

to listen to Jason’s mind sheared free of words. Jason turned abruptly to look at the palace, then away again. “At one quick stroke I could win not only the throne

of Corinth—

huge old city with all its wide, deep-grounded walls— but all my power back home. That’s all they’ve asked

of me:

Renounce the witch and her murder of Pelias; abandon

Medeia,

and Argos is yours — now Corinth as well. Why not?

No wife

at all, a prize of war that I treated too well, a bedslave grown too mighty to be tamed like Theseus’ Amazon. Betrayal, perhaps; but the guilt would be trifling beside

that guilt

that brings King Pelias’ ghost back night after night

to stalk

my rest — hooded like a cobra, silent, eyes as mad as Argos left without a king. And if I do nothing, what

then?

Get up, eat, take a walk, eat, stare out a window, eat again.… Surely, whatever my promises, no mere woman can hold me to that! ‘Stay clear of

the palace!’

A law. Who’d dare disobey the great, fierce daughter

of Aietes?”

He paused, musing. “There are laws and laws. I told

my tales

for Kreon, kind old benefactor. But I’d watch the girl as I told of those terrible battles, curious islands, long

nights

rolling in the arms of queens. She had a special blush she saved for me. There were times when she touched

my arm as if

by accident. I encouraged it — pressed it. I could no more

pass up

a thing like that than I could pass up a cave, an

unknown city,

in the old days. It meant nothing, God knows—

except to Medeia.

One more conquest. — Winning means more than it

should to me,

no doubt. The usual case of the overly reasonable man who’s turned his cheek too often. — And yet I resisted,

in the end.

Heaven knows why.” He studied the night. “I make up

theories.

I tell myself I resist for Medeia’s sake. Offend the king and our last hope’s gone, we’re wandering

exiles again.’

I piously mumble: ‘Beware of wounding Medeia’s pride.’

“—All the same, whatever the reason,

I dodged the limetwig, slyly evaded his pretty Pyripta before the old man was aware himself what he planned

for me.

So Pelias comes, nights; stands in the shadows like

a dead tree—

solemn old ramdike trailing vines, mere daddock at

the core—

demanding something — the prince’s head in his hands,

Akastos

whom I loved once — loved as I loved myself, I’d have

said.

Guilt-raised ghosts.

“I know, I think, what they want of me.

Climb back. Redeem your home through Corinth’s

power. Atone.

My mind stretches toward it, trembling, and all at once I’m afraid. Beyond old Pelias’ ghost and that severed

head

There’s darkness, an abyss. — And yet what is it I fear,

I wonder?

Is conquering Jason the slave at last?” He paused, lips

pursed,

and glanced at the seer. “The night has a growl of

winter in it.

Stars like the flicker of corpse-candles, a sparkle of frost on the bronze lich-gate. Over soon. Grain of the valleys winnowed, garnered … whatever claims we’ve made

on the season

silenced, settling in the bin; on the snowed-in storehouse

walls

no lamps but dreaming bats. And for those who’ve made

no claims—”

Again he paused, reflecting, staring at the ground. At

last:

“If I went my way I could make Medeia rich, respected; if not a queen, then mother, at least, of kings — no cost but a night, now and then, alone in her golden bed.

That would not

wreck her, I think. In any case, let this chance slip, let some old enemy of ours snatch Kreon’s throne—

and where are we

then? This too: If I try and lose, that’s one thing.

But to let some fat fool win it by default—

“No, plainer than that.

She’s an Easterner, and a woman. She reasons with

her chest, the roots

of her hair. I should know too well by now where such

reasoning leads

— her brother murdered, betrayed to confound Aietes’

ships;

my uncle carved, strained, boiled by his daughter’s love;

and us

adrift, horrible to men. Late as it is, I should seize my duty as husband and father — the hope that lies in

Akhaian,

masculine brains, detached, remote from the violent

instincts

of child-bearing and giving suck, what women share with the lioness. I’ve left our destiny too long in witchcraft’s hands.” He paused, glanced at the blind

Theban.

“Say what you’re thinking.”

The blind man sat like stone, the light

of torches stirring on his cheek. His sunken eyes stared

out

at darkness beyond the harbor. “Men come for my help

in prayer,”

he said, “or for reading of oracles. What right have I to advise?”

“But say what you think.”

The old black Theban sighed,

continued looking at the night. The end is inevitable,” he said. His eyebrows, silver and thick as frost on rock, drew up, and he groped for Jason’s hand. He found and

held it.

“You want no advice from me, and even if you did,

the end

is destined. I need no help of signs to see that much, heavy as I am with experience. For seven generations I’ve watched the world’s grim processes. I saw the teeth of the dragon Kadmos slew rise up as fierce armed

men; I saw that perfect king and his queen

transmogrified

when Lord Dionysos — power that turns spilt blood to

wine,

unseen master of vineyards — awarded them mast’ry

of the dead.

And I’ve seen things darker still, though the god has

sealed my eyes.

All I have seen reveals the same: Useless to speak. Well-meaning man—” He frowned, looking into

darkness. “You may

see more than you wish of that golden fleece. Good

night.”

But Jason

stayed, questioning. “Say what you mean about the

fleece. No riddles.”

“Useless to say,” the blind man sighed. He shook his

head.

But Jason clung to his hand, still questioning. “Warn

me plainly.”

Again the blind man sighed. “If I were to warn you,

Jason,

that what you’ve planned will hiss this land to darkness,

devour

the sun and moon, hurl seas and winds off course,

kill kings—

would you change your course, confine yourself to your

room like a sick

old pirate robbed of his legs?” Jason was silent. The

black seer

nodded, frowning, face turned earthward. “There will

be sorrow.

I give you the word of a specialist in pains of the soul

and heart,

as you will be, soon. Let proud men scoff — as you scoff

now—

at the idea of the unalterable. There are, between the world and the mind, conjunctions whose violent

issue’s more sure

than sun and rain. So every age of man begins: an idea striking a recalcitrant world as steel strikes flint, each an absolute, intransigent. The collision sparks an uncontrollable, accelerating shock that must arc

through life

from end to end until nothing is left but light, and

silence,

loveless and calm as the eyes of the sphinx — pure

knowledge, pure beast.

Good night, son of Aison.” And so at last Lord Jason

released

the black man’s hand and, troubled, turned again to

the city.

Above the cavern where the dark coiled Father of

Centuries

lay bound, groaning, in chains forged by everlasting fire, Zeus sat smiling, serene as the highest of mountaintops, his eyes like an eagle’s, aware of the four directions.

Beside him—

stately, magnificent, dreadful to behold — Hera sat,

draped

in snakes. Above her lovely head, like a parasol, a cobra flared its hood. It stared with dusty eyes through changing mists. I tightened my grip on my

guide’s hand.

“Goddess, porter, whatever you are,” I whispered,

“shield me!”

“Be still,” she said. I obeyed, trembling, straightening

my glasses,

buttoning up my coat.

The queen of goddesses

had beautiful eyes, as benign and warm as the eyes

of the snake

were malevolent. Her face was radiant with life,

seductive,

as sensuous as the brow of Zeus was intellectual. The thrones were joined by an arm of gold, and on

that arm

Zeus rested his own. The queen’s arm lay on the king’s, and their fingers were interlaced. On Zeus’s shoulder,

a prodigious

birdlike creature perched, half-lion, half-eagle, watching the snake. “What can all this mean?” I asked. My guide

touched her lips.

Suddenly the hall was filled with a teeming sea of gods. Some were like monsters, some had the shapes of trees

or waterfalls;

some were like bulls, others like panthers, elephants,

monkeys,

and some were like men — like kings, queens, beggars,

saintly hermits.

One came in on a litter of finely wrought ebony set with centaurs of ivory and silver — a beautiful goddess

in a robe

of scarlet, open at the front to reveal great pendulous

breasts.

The mortals, her slaves, wore flowers in their hair—

the white hair tangled,

matted like the hair of mad women. They wept and

moaned

as they walked, limping, half-naked, ragged. Their

ankles

clinked and jangled with tarnished jewelry; the perfume they

wore

yellowed the air like woodsmoke. Their chalkgray feet

were crooked,

their eyes were dim, and beneath the stiffening paint,

their faces

were cities destroyed by fire. But whether the bearers

were women

or men, I could not guess. Quick fluttering sparrows flew like swirling leaves in a graveyard, screeching. My

shadowy guide

smiled and inclined her head.

“Not all gods here are wise,”

she said. “They have all their will, all that a creature

can desire:

They feel no hunger, no thirst, no weariness, no fear of

death,

no pain or sorrow or lonely old age. But the grinding

force

of life still burns in them, endlessly restless, driving,

devouring—

the force that blazes in the eyes of the half-starved lion

or swells

the veins of the terrified deer. They can never be rid

of it.

Some, desiring in a state where nothing is left to desire, sink to the sickness of ennui and wallow in vast self-pity like hogs in mire. Some puff up their power, and delight in smashing the will of the weak. A few, like Zeus, grow

wise.

But very few. Observe how the rest crawl through their

days.

At times, to break the tedium, the gods feast.

At times, to break the tedium, the gods fast.

At times they quarrel like dogs. At times they smile and

kiss.

At times they sue to the king with cantankerous

demands. Watch.”

The goddess in scarlet approached the throne of Zeus

and, descending

from her litter, kneeled before him. “O mighty Lord,”

she said,

“hear the prayer of your sorrowful Aphrodite! Cruelly the Queen of Olympos mocks me and makes me a

laughingstock!

I’m ashamed to be seen among gods. They smirk and

ogle, point at me,

whisper behind my back. I filled Medeia’s heart with love, stirred Jason to manly desire, arranged a

pairing

fit to be remembered through endless time and to the

farthest poles

of space. But Hera has overwhelmed me with her

treachery,

cluttering his heart with desires more base, so that all

I’ve done

is nothing, a cloud dispersed! O Great God, Lord of

Thunder,

make him shake off this wickedness!” Her cheeks were

bright

with anger, her dark eyes flashed; her flowing black

hair gleamed

as if even that were in a rage. Yet out of respect for

Hera,

or remembering that Hera was Zeus’s wife, she

controlled herself.

She stretched out her white left arm, her right hand

daintily pressed

to her breast, just over the roseate nipple, as if to quell the terrible quopping of her heart. “Have I ever denied

her power—

her supreme rule over all things physical: ships, rivers, forests, banquets, marriage beds? She fills the world with beauty, goodness, the excitements of danger. At

her command

Ares stirs up the terrors and joys of war. At a word from her, the gods lure men to the highest pinnacles

of feeling—

treasure-hunting, kingdom-snatching. By her pale light alchemists pawn away all they own to untomb the gold in lead, the wolf hunts the lamb, the shepherd attacks

the wolf,

the adder joyfully strikes at the shepherd’s heel. But

Lord,

O holy father of gods and men, I’ve earned some place in all that hungry rush! Imagine her kingdom with all my power shut down — no joy in the world but the

shoddy glint

of wealth, stern labor, knowledge-grubbing — no gentle

eyes

to drip their sweetness on rich men’s rings, no loving

hands

to smooth the pain from the farmer’s back when his

long day ends,

no dazzled maiden to flood the alchemist’s sulphurous

rooms

with the light of her music, her rainsoft fingers on his

arm! If my work

is meaningless, say so. I’ll trouble your halls no morel”

Bright tears

welled in her eyes and her bosom heaved. Her lips were

taut.

The ghastly creatures attending her gave out goatish

wails.

Hera’s face turned slowly to the king’s. “Beautiful

performance,”

she said, and smiled. The king said nothing. Dark

Aphrodite

glared, her glance like a dart of fire, and the muscles of

her face

trembled like the face of the plains when earthquakes

crack their beams.

A gentler goddess came forward then, a gray-eyed

goddess

with a crown like a city on a shining silver hill. At her

side

philosophers stood, their lean backs bent under thick,

smudged scrolls,

their eyes rolled up out of sight; behind her, nervous

kings,

each with his own set of tics (quick lip-jerks, twists,

winks, nods,

features overcome from time to time by a sudden

widening

of the eyes, like shocked recognition); then fat

merchants, wiping

their foreheads, clucking, wincing with distaste, their

tongues in motion

ceaseless as the sea, wetting their thick, chapped lips;

behind

the merchants, poets and musicians, all looking wry at

the smell

of the merchants, making ingenious jokes at the

merchants’ garish

or grandly funereal dress. — But when, from time to

time,

a merchant, philosopher, or king keeled over, slain by

the light

or brushed by a careless god, the poets and musicians

would praise

the nature of man, abstracted to green, magnificent

song,

their eyes like waterfalls.

The gray-eyed goddess kneeled

at Zeus’s feet and, speaking softly, eyes cast down, she said, “My Lord, Almighty Ruler of the Universe, most just, most wise, I pray you, do not forget the needs of Corinth, Queen of Cities. I have tended her lovingly, cherished her, guided her gently through stunning

catastrophes.

Throne after throne I have watched kicked down

through the whimsical will

of malicious, barbarous gods — gods who amuse

themselves

like boys pulling wings off butterflies. Yet I’ve kept her

pillars,

shrine of the arts, seat of all taste and nobility. Preserve my work! Give Jason the throne — for the

city’s sake.

Surely a city means more in your sight than one mere

woman!

Pity Athena as she’d have you pity our beloved

Aphrodite!

Grant my request, and grant Aphrodite some other gift still dearer to her.”

Hera smiled, but the gray-eyed Athena

maintained her mask of innocence. Those who

attended her

bowed, heavy with solemnity, and tapped their scrolls, their money-boxes, crowns, and harps. Aphrodite’s cheek burned dark red. Zeus said nothing.

Her head bent

as if in supplication to the Father of the Gods,

Aphrodite

rolled her eyes toward her sister. “Don’t play games

with me,”

she whispered, “immortal bitch! How wonderfully

reasonable

you always make your desires sound! Do you think

they’re fooled,

these gods you play to? They know what you’re after.

Power, goddess!

You want your way no matter what — no matter who

you walk on.

But you can’t come right out and say it, can you? That

wouldn’t be civil,

and the lovely Athena is nothing if not civil! — Well,

so are

sewers! indoor toilets!” She trembled with rage. Athena smiled, as calm and serene as the moon above roiling,

passionate

seas. Suddenly the goddess of love burst into tears, wept like a shepherdess betrayed. The gray-eyed goddess

of cities,

magnificent queen of mind, shot a quick glance at Zeus,

then widened

her eyes as if in amazement. “Why Aphrodite!” she

exclaimed,

“my poor, poor love!” She gathered her sister goddess

gently

in her arms like a child, and Aphrodite cried on

Athena’s breast.

Hera smiled.

But the brow of Zeus was troubled. He looked

from the love-goddess to Athena. “Enough!” he said.

The hall

grew still. The stillness expanded. The eyes of the

Father God

were like thunderheads. After some minutes had passed,

he said,

“You’re clever, Athena. You’d outfox a gryphon. Yet

even so,

you may be wrong, and Aphrodite right. You talk of cities, of how they’re more important than a single

life.

But the city in which that’s true would be not worth

living in.

I’ve known such cities. One by one I’ve ground them

underfoot,

slaughtered their poets and priests and planted their

vineyards to salt.

You pleaded against such a city yourself for Antigone,

goddess!

Has it slipped your mind? ‘Where the dead are left

to the crows,’ you said,

‘where a life means nothing, let the whole white hovel

be crows’ fodder.’

Justice demands that I grant Aphrodite’s wish.” He

was silent.

Then Hera turned to him. Her eyes flamed. “And my

wish, sir?”

she hissed. “I knew I was a fool to leave my business

to Athena!

How can mere reason compete with that?” She pointed.

Aphrodite

covered her bosom, blushing. “I agree, it’s wrong to make cities more important than the

people who live in them.

Cities exist to make possible the splendid life — the life of mind and sense in harmony, fulfilled to the utmost.

Good!

But what of Jason’s life? But that doesn’t matter, of

course. Not to you!

Not with her there, pleading with her big pink boobs!

What counts with you,

O mixed-up Master Planner? You reason by whim, like

the rest of us,

for all your pompous, grandiose pretensions. Fact! You purse your lips, you muse in beatific silence, you

nod,

and you do what you damn well please! Well not to me,

husband!

I want what I want, and I’m not putting elegant names

on it.”

Hardly moving, Zeus glanced at her. The queen’s lips

closed.

Then no one spoke for a long time. The attendant

gods

shifted uncomfortably, sullen, from leg to leg. Yet more than a few in that hall, I thought, would have backed

her if they dared. Athena

gazed demurely at the floor, as if checking a smile.

Zeus sat

with one hand over his eyes.

At length, as if contrite,

Athena said softly, “It’s fair and just that you

upbraid me, Lord.

But my heart spoke truer than my tongue. I gave you,

foolishly,

the reasons I thought expedient. But it was not the

survival

of the city — not that alone — that I meant to beg of you. I plead for a good and patient man, a long-suffering

man,

one who merits what I ask for him. Aphrodite’s madness has chained him too long. Without the assistance of

any god,

he’s seen through it. O kind, wise Lord, don’t frustrate

the climb

of a virtuous man on the rising scale of Good! I claim no special virtues for cities, but this much, surely,

is true:

Virtue tested on rocky islands, country fields, however noble we call it, is virtue of a lesser kind— the virtue that governs the hermit, the honest shepherd.

The common

bee, droning from flower to flower in his garden, can

choose

what’s best for him and for his lowborn, pastoral clan.

The common

horse can be diligent at work, if his hide depends on it. The lion can settle his mind to fight, if necessary, but his virtue, for all his slickness, the speed of his

paws, is no more

than the snarling mongrel dog’s. It’s by what his mind

can do

that a man must be tested: how subtly, wisely he

manipulates

the world: objects, potentials, traditions of his race.

In sunlit

fields a man may learn about gentleness, humility— the glories of a sheep — or, again, learn craft and

violence—

the glories of a wolf. But the mind of man needs more

to work on

than stones, hedges, pastoral cloudscapes. Poets are

made

not by beautiful shepherdesses and soft, white sheep: they’re made by the shock of dead poets’ words, and

the shock of complex

life: philosophers’ ideas, strange faces, antic relics, powerful men and women, mysterious cultures. Cities are not mere mausoleums, sanctuaries for mind. They’re the raw grit that the finest minds are made of,

the power

that pains man’s soul into life, the creative word that

overthrows

brute objectness and redeems it, teaches it to sing.”

The goddess

bowed, an ikon of humility, and turned to the queen, stretching an arm in earnest supplication: “O Hera, Queen of Heaven, center of the world’s insatiable will, support my plea! Speak gently, allure as only you can allure great Zeus to the good he would wish,

himself.” She bowed,

and the dew on a fern at dawn could not rival the

beauty of the dew

on Athena’s delicate lashes. Aphrodite wept aloud, shamelessly, melted by Athena’s words. Even Hera was

softened.

As the sea whispers in the quiet of the night when

gentle waves

lap sandy shores, so the great hall whispered with the

sniffling of immortal gods.

But Zeus sat still as a mountain, unimpressed, his hand

covering

his eyes. The gods stood waiting.

At last, with a terrible sigh,

he lowered the hand. From the sadness in his eyes,

the crushed-down shoulders,

you’d have thought he’d heard nothing the beautiful

Athena said. He frowned,

then, darkly, spoke:

“All of you shall have your will,” he said.

“Aphrodite, your cruel and selfish wish is that Jason

and Medeia

be remembered forever as the truest, most pitiful of

lovers, saints

of Aphrodite. It shall be so, in the end. As for you,

Athena,

dearest of my children for the quickness of your mind—

and most troublesome—

you ask that Jason be granted the throne of Corinth,

glittering

jewel in your vain array. So he will, for a time, at least. No king gets more. And as for you, my docile queen— seductress, source of all earthly growth, terrible

destroyer—

you ask that he have all his wish. That he shall, and

more. It’s done.”

With that word, casting away the darkness which

he alone knew,

he called for Apollo and his harp. Apollo came, as

brilliant

as the sun on the mirroring sea. He stroked his harp

and sang.

The gods put their hands to their ears, listening. He

seemed to ignore them.

He looked at Zeus alone, when he looked at anyone, and Zeus gazed back at him, solemn as the night

where mountains tower,

dark and majestic, casting their cold, indifferent shade on trees and glens, old bridges, lonely peasant huts, travellers hurrying home. It seemed to me they shared some secret between them, as if they saw the whole

world’s grief

as plain as a single star in a winter’s sky.

He sang

of the age when great Zeus first overcame the dragons.

The halls

of the gods, he said, were cracked, divoted, blackened

by fire.

All the gods of the heavens sang Zeus’s praise, their

voices

ringing like golden bells, extolling his victory. Elated in his triumph and the knowledge of his power,

Zeus summoned the craftsman

of the gods, Hephaiastos, and commanded that he

build a splendid palace

that would suit the unparalleled dignity of the gods’

great king.

The miraculous craftsman succeeded in building, in a

single year,

a dazzling residence, baffling with beautiful chambers,

gardens,

lakes, great shining towers.

Apollo smiled and looked

at Zeus. He sang:

“But as the work progressed, the demands of Zeus

grew more exacting, his unfolding visions more vast.

He required

additional terraces and pavilions, more ponds, more

poplar groves,

new pleasure grounds. Whenever Zeus came to examine

the work

he developed range on range of schemes, new marvels

remaining

for Hephaiastos to contrive. At last the divine craftsman was crushed to despair, and he resolved to seek help

from above. He would turn

to the demiurgic Mind, great spirit beyond Olympos, past all glory. So he went in secret and presented

his case.

The majestic spirit comforted him. ‘Go in peace,’

he said,

‘your burden will be relieved.’

“Then, while Hephaiastos

was scurrying down once more to the kingdom of Zeus,

the spirit

went, himself, to a realm still higher, and he came

before

the Unnamable, of whom he himself was but a

humble agent.

In awesome silence the Unnamable spirit gave ear,

and by

a mere nod of the head he let it be known that the wish of Hephaiastos was granted.

“Early next morning, a boy

with the staff of a pilgrim appeared at the gate of Zeus

and asked

admission to the king’s great hall. Zeus came at once.

It was

a point of pride with Zeus that he wasn’t as yet

too proud

to meet with the humblest of his visitors. The boy

was slender,

ten years old, radiant with the luster of wisdom. The

king

discovered him standing in a cluster of enraptured,

staring children.

The boy greeted his host with a gentle glance of his dark and brilliant eyes. Zeus bowed to the holy child — and, mysteriously, the boy gave him his blessing. When Zeus had led the boy inside and had offered him wine and

honey,

the king of the gods said: ‘Wonderful Boy, tell me

the purpose

of your coming.’

“The beautiful child replied with a voice as deep

and soft as the slow thundering of far-off rainclouds.

‘O Glorious

King, I have heard of the mighty palace you are

building, and I’ve come

to refer to you my mind’s questions. How many years will it take to complete this rich and extensive

residence?

What further feats of engineering will Hephaiastos be asked to perform? O Highest of the Gods’—the

boy’s luminous

features moved with a gentle, scarcely perceptible

smile—

‘no god before you has ever succeeded in completing

such a palace

as yours is to be.’

“Great Zeus, filled with the wine of triumph,

was entertained by this merest boy’s pretensions to

knowledge

of gods before himself. With a fatherly smile, he asked: Tell me, child, are they then so many — the Zeuses

you’ve seen?’

The young guest calmly nodded. Oh yes, a great

many have I seen.’

The voice was as warm and sweet as milk, but the

words sent a chill

through Zeus’s veins. ‘O holy child,’ the boy continued, ‘I knew your father, and your father’s father, Old

Tortoise Man,

and your great-grandfather, called Beam of Light, and

his father, called Thought,

and the father beyond — him too I know.

“ ‘O King of the Gods,

I have known the dissolution of the universe. I have

seen all perish

again and again! O, who will count the universes passed away, or the creations risen afresh, again and again, from the silent abyss? Who will number

the passing ages

of the world, as they follow endlessly? And who will

search

the wide infinities of space to number the universes side by side — each one ruled by its Zeus and its ladder of higher powers? Who will count the Zeuses in all

of them,

side by side, who reign at once in the innumerable

worlds,

or all those Zeuses who reigned before them, or even

those

who succeed each other in a single line, ascending

to kingship,

one by one, and, one by one, declining?

“ ‘O King,

the life and reign of a single Zeus is seventy-one aeons, and when twenty-eight Zeuses have all expired, one

day and night

have passed in the demiurgic Mind. And the span of the

Mind in such days

and nights is one hundred and eight years. Mind

follows Mind,

rising and sinking in endless procession. And the

universes,

side by side, each with its demiurgic Mind and its Zeus, who’ll number those? Like delicate boats they float

on the fathomless

waters that form the Unnamable. Out of every pore of that body a universe bubbles and breaks.’

“A procession of ants

had made its appearance in the hall while the boy was

saying this.

In a military column four yards wide the tribe paraded slowly across the gleaming tiles. The mysterious boy paused and stared, then suddenly laughed with an

astonishing peal,

but immediately fell into thoughtful silence.

“ ‘Why do you laugh?’

stammered Zeus. “Who are you, mysterious being in

the deceiving guise

of a boy?’ The proud god’s throat and lips were dry,

and his voice

kept breaking. ‘Who are you, shrouded in deluding mists?’

“ ‘I laughed,’

said the boy, ‘at the ants. Do not ask more. I laughed

at an ancient

secret. It is one that destroys.’ Zeus regarded him,

unable to move.

At last, with a new and clearly visible humility, the great god said, ‘I would willingly suffer annihilation for the secret, mysterious visitor.’ The boy smiled and nodded. ‘If so, you have nothing to fear. It is

merely this:

The gods on high, the trees and stones, are apparitions in a fantasy. Without that dream in the Unnamable

Mind

there is neither life nor death, neither good nor evil.

The wise

are attached neither to good nor to evil. The wise

are attached

to nothing.’

“The boy ended his appalling lesson and, quietly,

he gazed at his host. The king of the gods, for all his

splendor,

had been reduced in his own regard to insignificance.

“Meanwhile another amazing apparition had entered

the hall.

He appeared to be some hermit. He wore no clothes.

His hair

was gray and matted except in one place at the back

of his head,

where he had no hair at all, having lain on that one

part

for a thousand years. His eyes glittered, cold as stone.

“Zeus, recovering from his first shock, offered the

old man

wine and honey, but the hermit refused to eat. Zeus

then asked,

falteringly, concerning the old man’s health. The

hermit

smiled. ‘I’m well for a dying man,’ he said, and nodded. Zeus, disconcerted by the man’s stern eyes, could say

no more.

Immediately the boy took over the questioning, asking

precisely

what Zeus would have asked if he could. ‘Who are you,

Holy Man?

What brings you here, and why have you lain in one

place so long

that the hair has worn from your head? Be kind

enough, Holy Man,

to answer these questions. I am anxious to understand.’

“Presently

the old saint spoke. ‘Who am I? I am an old, old man. What brings me here? I have come to see Zeus, for

with each hair

I lose from my head, a new Zeus dies, and when the

last hair falls

I too shall die. Those I have lost, I have lost by lying motionless, waiting for peace. I am much too short

of days

to have use for a wife and son, or a house. Each

eyelid-flicker

of the Unnamable marks the decease of a demiurgic

Mind. Therefore

I’ve devoted myself to forgetfulness. For every joy, even the joy of gods, is as fragile as a dream — a

distraction

from the Absolute, where all individual will is

abandoned

and all is nothing and nothing is everything, and all

paradox

melts. My friend, I was an ant in a thousand thousand

lives,

and in a thousand thousand lives a Zeus, and in others

a king,

a slave, a rat, a beautiful woman. I have wept and torn my hair and longed for death at the graves of a

billion billion

daughters and sons; a billion billion of those I loved have died in wars, plagues, earthquakes, floods. And

with every stroke

of catastrophe, my chest has screamed in pain. All

these

are feeble metaphors — as I am metaphor, a passing

dream,

and you, and all our talk. But this is true: Life seeks to pierce the veil of the dream. I seek forgetfulness,

silence.’

“Abruptly, the holy man ceased and immediately

vanished, and the boy,

in the same flicker of an eyelid, vanished as well.

And Zeus

was in his bed, with Hera in his arms. And he saw,

despite his dream,

that she was beautiful. Then Zeus, King of the Gods,

wept.

At dawn when he opened his eyes and remembered,

Zeus smiled.

He commanded the craftsman to create a magnificent

arbor for Hera,

and after that he demanded nothing more of him.” So the harper of the gods sang, and so he closed. With his last word, the hall of the gods went dark.

I was alone.

“Strange visions, goddess!” I whispered, “stranger and

stranger!” She was gone.

Their horses are swifter than leopards,

fiercer than wolves in the dark;

their horsemen plunge on, advancing from afar,

swooping like an eagle to stoop on its prey.

The house lower on the hill was dark save one dim

lamp

that bloomed dully in its shade like a dragon’s lidded

eye.

The female slave Agapetika kneeled at the rough-carved

shrine

of Apollo the Healer, in the corner of her room. Not

like Helios—

rising and setting in anger, rampaging in the

Underworld,

sire of dragons, zacotic old war-monger — not like Helios was the god of poesy, lord of the sun.

In her larger room,

high-windowed, dim, Medeia lay troubled by gloomy

dreams.

The cloth lay in the moonlight singing softly, faint as the song of mosquitoes’ wings, the sleeping children’s

breath.

Argus wove me, weary old Argus, weary old Argus who

wished them well.

“It was Argus who built the ship — old Argus, under Athena’s eye. He built it of trees from her sacred groves, beech and ironwood, towering pines and great dark

oaks

that sang in the wind like men, a vast, unearthly

choir—

and Athena showed him herself which trees to cut.

When the beam

of the keel went in, old Argus smiled, his long gray hair tied back with a thong, and the beam said, ‘Good! Nice

work, old man!’

When he notched the planks and lowered them onto the

chucks, the planks

said, ‘Good! Nice fit!’ He carved the masts and shaped

them with figures

facing in all the four directions, and after he’d dropped

them,

slid them with a hollow thump to the central beam,

they said,

That’s fine! We’re snug as rocks!’ Then he built the

booms and wove

the sails. The black ship sang, and Argus had finished it.

“I gathered the crew.

“I can’t deny it: there never was

in all this world or on any world a mightier crew than the Argonauts. Sweet gods, beside the most feeble

of the lot,

I seemed, myself, a mildly intelligent hedgehog!

I gathered

Akhaians from far and near — all men of genius, sons of gods—

“And the first, the finest of them all, was Orpheus.

He was borne by Kalliope herself to her Thracian lover

Oiagros,

high on the slopes of Pimplea. Even as a child, with his

music

he enchanted the towering, frozen rocks and the violent

streams,

and to this day there are quernal forests on the coasts

of Thrace

that Orpheus, playing his lyre, lured down from Pieria, rank on rank of them, coming to his music like soldiers

on the march.

The next I chose was Polyphemon, son of Eilatos,

out of

Larissa. He was, in his younger days, a hero in the

ranks

of the incredible Lapithai who warred with the centaurs

once.

His limbs by now were heavy with age, but he still had

the same

fierce heart.

‘The next was Asterios, son of an endless line

of travellers, explorers, river merchants, a man who

could trade up

wools and linens to priceless gems. And Iphiklos was

next,

my mother’s brother, who came for the sake of our

kinship. Then

Admetos, king of Pherai, rich in sheep. Then the sons of Hermes, out of Alope, land of cornfields; with them Aithalides their kinsman. Then, from wealthy Gyrton, Koronos came, the son of Kaineos — strong as a boulder, though he wasn’t the man his father was. In Gyrton

they say

the old man singlehanded beat the centaurs back, and after the centaurs rallied and overcame him, even then they couldn’t kill him. With massive pines they

drove him

down in the earth like a nail. He was still alive.

“Then Mopsos,

powerful man whom Apollo had trained to excel all

others

in the art of augury from birds. He knew when he

came, he said,

that he’d meet his end in the Libyan desert.

Then Telamon

and Peleus, sons of Aiakos, fathers in turn of sons as awesome as they were themselves — the heroes Aias

and Akhilles,

now chief terrors of Troy.

“And after the two great brothers,

from Attica came Butes, son of Teleon, and Phalerus, famous for their deadly spears. (Theseus, finest of the Attic line, was out of business. He’d gone with Peirithoös into the Underworld, and was kept

there, chained,

a prisoner deep in the earth.)

‘Then out of the Thespian town

of Siphai, Tiphys came. He was a mariner who could sense the coming of a swell across the open

sea

and knew by the sun and stars when storms were

brewing, six

weeks off. Athena herself had sent him to join us — she who’d supervised the building of our ship.

“Then Phlias

came, Dionysos’ son, who lived by the springs of

Asopos—

child of the black-robed god who was my father’s father. Phlias was a dancer, a tiger in battle. He never learned

speech.

“From Argos came Talaos and Areion, and powerful

Leodokos.

“Then came Herakles. He’d heard a rumor of the

expedition

when he’d just arrived from Arcadia. It was the famous

time

when he carried on his back — alive and thrashing—

the monstrous boar

that fed in the thickets of Lampeia. As soon as Herakles

heard it,

he threw down the boar, tied up its feet, and left it

squealing—

loud as a hurricane — blocking the gates of the great

market

at Mykenai. His squire, Hylas, that beautiful boy whom Herakles loved like a son — or like a god — came

with him,

serving as keeper of the bow. He was like a breeze,

like rain.

You see them sometimes, boys like Hylas, and you

pause, as if

snatched out of Time, stunned for an instant. It’s as

if you’ve come

suddenly, turning a familiar corner, to a world more

calm,

more innocent than ours, and there at the door of it, a deity, childlike, all-forgiving; you find yourself thrilled to what’s best in yourself, a spring not yet

corrupt,

and as religion wells in your chest — a strange humility — something else sweeps in, a curious sorrow, deep, mysterious despair. Such gentleness, such trust, such beauty of eyes and limbs … It was as if I knew

even then,

the instant I saw him, that something terrible awaited

him,

patient as a wolf, and knew that after the beautiful boy was gone, strange things would happen to us—

smoke-black darkness,

murderous winds, waves that ground at our ship like

monstrous

teeth … Impossible to say what I mean. He was like

a sign

of the best possible in nature, and his very goodness

made him …

“But enough. Let me think who else there was.

“There was Idmon the seer.

Of all the heroes of Argos, Idmon was the last to come. Like Mopsos, he knew by his own birdlore that for him

the trip

meant death; yet the poor devil came, for his reputation’s

sake.

A coward’s coward, I used to call him. He was terrified at the very idea that he ever might fly in terror.

“From Sparta

Aitolian Leda sent us the mighty Polydeukes, king of all boxers, and Kastor, master of the racing

horse.

She’d borne them as twins in Tyndareos’ palace, and

loved them so well

she swallowed her fear like bitter wine and allowed

them to go

as they wished. No wonder Zeus had loved her, a girl

like that,

and planted in Leda’s womb the most beautiful woman

on earth!

“From Arene the sons of Aphareos came, Lynkeus

and Idas.

They were both brave men and as powerful as bulls—

yet I hesitated

before I’d take them on board. Idas was crazy. He talked pure gibberish at times, and foamed at the mouth.

When sane,

he was quarrelsome, insolent, a chip on his shoulder

as big as a tree.

But Lynkeus wouldn’t have joined without him; and

Lynkeus had

the finest eyesight in the world. As easily as you and I see distant eagles, Lynkeus could see things

underground.

Yet Idas’ vision was keener still, I learned in the end. His beads were of human bone, and his cheek bore

lion scars,

and scorning, shaming, mocking was all he loved; yet

he was not

mad, exactly. Like leopards they watched the world,

those brothers,

though Idas fooled you. The man had the eyes of a

sleeping dragon.

“From Arcadia, Kepheus and Amphidamas came, two

sons of Aleos,

and their older brother Lykourgos sent us his

twelve-foot boy

Ankaios. He had to stay home, himself, to care for

his aging

father — a testy, sly old devil, as we saw for ourselves. The old man didn’t approve of allowing a boy so young to sail with us, whatever his size, and when argument

failed

to sway Ankaios’ father, old Aleos chewed his gums and schemed. Ankaios arrived at the ship in a bearskin,

waving

a two-edged axe in his right hand. His grandfather’d

hidden

his equipment in a corner of the bam, still hoping to

the very last

he’d keep his baby home.

“Augeias also came,

whose father was the sun; and Asterios and Amphion, from Pelles’ city on the cliffs. And Euphemos followed

them,

the fastest runner in the world — the boy Europa,

daughter

of Tityos, bore to Poseidon. He was a man who could run on the rolling waters of the sea so fast his invisible feet weren’t wet by it. — But Zetes and Kalais were faster

in the sky,

the two sons of the North Wind, whom Oreithyia bore to Boreas in the wintry borderland of Thrace. He’d

brought her

from Attica. She was whirling in the dance on the banks

of the Ilissos

when he snatched her from earth and carried her away

to Sarpedon’s Rock,

near the flowing waters of Erginos, where he wrapped

her up

in a dark cloud and raped her. It was an astounding

thing

to watch those sons of hers soar up into the sky,

the sea-blue

eagles’ road! The wings on each side of their ankles

whirred

and spangles of gold burst through like sparks from

the dusky feathers,

and they shot away. Their black locks whipped on their

shoulders and backs,

but their faces were steady as arrowheads in flight.

“The last

we took with us was Argus, gentle old craftsman, sly as Daidalos — but older, richer in ancient lore— a man who remembered secrets most of the gods

had long

forgotten. He was no fighter. In time of war he’d sit bent over, with his lips drawn tight, his blue eyes

violent,

alarmed, as though he’d pierced the forms of the ships

we’d burned,

the white bodies of the dead — had pierced the shapes

of our destruction,

and saw, beyond them, nothing. And yet he forgave

our work,

when breezes had cleaned the air of the stink and smoke,

and we’d laid

the dead away. Old Argus didn’t much care for us, destroyers of filigreed halls and high-prowed ships,

wasters

of goldsmiths’ work, despoilers of cities, the works of

mind.

There were times when that gentle scorn of his — a

sneer, almost—

inclined us to smash his head for him. But we couldn’t,

of course.

We needed him — needed his art, if not that calcifying smile. And Argus came, whatever his distaste, to guard his masterpiece — to guard, perhaps, whatever work he could. And because he was curious. Not death itself would have given the old man pause if he thought he

could learn from it.

For all his nobility of mind he was a man consumed by need to know, need to reduce the universe to facts.

“Such was my crew, or anyway the best of it;

all men of genius, sons of the immortal gods.

“The Argo

was ready, equipped with all that goes into a well-found

ship

when pressing business carries people to sea. We made our way to the shore where the ship lay grumbling,

muttering to herself

to be gone. A crowd of excited townsfolk gathered

around us,

tall men, some of them, some of them fine to see; but set by the best of them all, the Argo’s crew stood out

like stars

in a dark, beclouded sky. If we weren’t a match for

Aietes,

Keeper of the Fleece, then nobody was. As the people

watched us

hurrying along in our armor, one of them said — a

wail—

“Zeus! Pelias has lost his mind! Who’d dare to drive such men as these from Akhaia? If Aietes dares to

refuse

the golden fleece when they ask for it, they can send

up his palace

in flames the same day they land. — But the ship must

get there first.

I’ve heard men say there are dangers beyond what a

god would face.’

The women stood weeping, their hands stretched up

in prayer to the gods

for our safe return. There was one, an old servant that

I knew. Her eyes

bored into me, and she wailed of my mother with

a harsh voice

and a maniac look, pretending she didn’t know me.

I stood

like a child before her, shaken, rooted to the spot.

“ ‘Ye gods,’

she moaned, ‘poor Alkimede! Thank God I’ve got no son! Better for her if she’d long since gone to her lonely

grave,

wrapped head to foot in her winding-sheet, still ignorant of this madman’s expedition!? that Phrixos had sunk in the dark waves where Helle died, and the

monstrous golden

ram still clamped in his legs!? why was Jason—

heartless,

arrogant fool — not born to her dead, to spare her this? She weeps her eyes out, cries and cries in such

black despair

that her sobs come welling too fast for Alkimede to

sound them. He might

have buried his mother with his own hands — that

much at least

he might have stayed to do for her, having sea-dogged

half

his life, far out of her sight, carousing with strangers,

fighting

all men’s wars but his father’s, and his poor old

mother worried

sick! She stood as high in her time as any woman in Akhaia. But now she’s left like a servant in an

empty house,

widowed, pining in misery after her only son who cares no more for his mother than he would for

a dying dog,

care for nothing and nobody, only for Jason, apple of her eye — and apple of his own! Dear gods, I wish

you could see

how slyly that boy consoles her — and believes every

word of it

himself, as if Jason could do no wrong! “Dear mother,”

says he,

all piety, “do not be grieved that I leave you alone. We’re all alone, we mortals, whether we’re near to

each other

or far apart. Locked inside ourselves, foolishly, blindly struggling to do what’s right.” He moons out the

window, sad

as a priest, and she’s impressed by it. — Oh my but

that boy

can be pretty, when he likes! He kisses her hand and

tells her, “Do not

be afraid, Mother. I’m doing what the gods demand.

The omens

show it. We used to be rich, Mother. Now that

we’re poor,

we ought to have learned that nothing counts but the

gods’ friendship.

Let me serve them; then when you die, you’ll die in

peace,

whether I’m near or not. You’ve told me yourself,

Mother,

that all there is in the world, at last, is the war or peace of dying men and the old undying gods. The omens favor the trip. I must go.” And he kisses her cheeks.

Ah, Jason!

Cunning burled so deep he can’t see it himself! Omens! Did he ask his friends the augurers what omens they see for his mother? Or Pelias? Or the city? Would that the

birdsongs sang

his death!’

And then she was gone; her black shawl

vanished in the crowd.

My throat was dry with shame. I was numb. I stood

too stunned

to think. If I could have summoned speech that instant,

I might

have called it off on the spot, to hell with the

consequences.

But then, from nowhere, a man appeared at my side,

a man—

or god, who knows? — hooded till only his beard

peeked out.

I thought by the mad-dog hunch of his shoulders, the

growl in his throat,

it was crazy Idas, Lynkeus’ brother. He touched my arm. ‘She never liked you, did she, man.’ The words

confused me.

I remembered the old woman’s slapping me once, and

calling out sharply,

another time — I was only a child, and I wasn’t to

blame for

whatever it was she charged me with. My mind grew

clouded.

“I moved in a kind of daze toward the boat, the streets of the city behind me, and I racked my brains over

whether or not

the woman was right. When I came down to the

beach, my friends

were waiting, waving. They raised a shout so loud

the gulls

flew higher in sudden alarm. The crew was grinning,

their armor

blazing like the sun at noon. They pointed, and I looked

behind me,

and lo and behold, Akastos himself was running toward

me,

Pelias’ son! He’d slipped away from the house while

the king

was sleeping, bound to go out with us, whether

the old man liked

or not. I seized my cousin in my arms and laughed,

and we ran

to the ship. And so I forgot what the old crone said,

or forgot

till later, miles from shore.

“The wind was right, the ship

and the Argonauts both eager to go, and the sooner

the better.

I stood on a barrel and waved my arms for attention.

I shouted,

and the Argonauts grew quiet. Three last details,’ I said. The sea-wind whipped my words away. I shouted louder. The first is this. We’re all partners in the voyage to

Kolchis,

the land where Aietes guards the golden fleece, and

we’re partners

bringing it home — we hope. So it’s up to you to choose the best man here as our leader. And let me warn you,

choose

with care, as if our lives depended on it. ’ When I had spoken, they turned like one man toward Herakles, where he sat in the center of the crowd, and with one

voice they called out,

‘Herakles!’ But the hero scowled and shook his head, and without stirring from his seat, raising his right

hand

like a pillar, he said, ‘No, friends, I must refuse.

And I must

refuse, also, to let any other man stand up. The man who wears the pelt of a panther has shown

good sense

so far — Jason, Aison’s son. Let Jason lead.’

“They clapped at his generosity and slapped my back, praising my cunning, swearing that I was the man

for the job,

no doubt of it! What can I say? I was flattered, excited. — But no, the thing’s more complicated. I was a boy,

remember,

and beloved of the goddess of will, as many things since

have proved.

It had never crossed my mind that the crew would

turn like that,

as if they’d planned it, and all choose Herakles. — And

now

when the giant handed it back to me, and led the

clapping

himself, grinning, white teeth flashing, his muscular

face

all innocence, so open and boyish that we all smiled too, what I secretly felt was jealousy, almost rage. It makes me laugh now. What a donzel I was! But ah, at the

time,

how my heart smarted, hearing them praise me like

a god! He was

their leader, whatever they pretended. And rightly, of

course, he was better,

as plainly superior to me as the sun to a mill wheel.

And yet

I resented him, and I burned like a coal at their

feigned delight,

their self-delusion, in choosing me. I had half a mind to quit, sulking, and crawl away to some forest and live like a hermit. Screw them all! At the same time,

however,

I wanted to lead them, whether or not I was worthy—

I was,

God knew (and I knew), ambitious. All my life I’ve hated standing in somebody’s shadow. So, with as good a grace as possible, I blinded myself to the obvious.

I accepted. Orpheus smiled, studying his fingernails.

“ ‘Second detail,’ I shouted, and cleared my throat—

looking

guilty as sin, no doubt. ‘If you do indeed trust me with this honorable charge—’ It came to me I was

putting it on

a trifle thick, and I hastily dropped the orbicular style. “We’ve two things left, and we may as well start on

both of them

at once. The first is the sacrifice to the gods — a feast to Phoibus, for warm, clear days, to Poseidon for

gentle seas,

and to Hera, who’s been my special friend — thanks to

Pelias’

scorn of her. Also an altar on the shore to Apollo, the god of embarkation. And while we’re waiting for

the slaves

to pick out oxen from the herd and drive them down

to us,

I suggest that we drag the Argo down into the water

and haul

our tackle on, and cast lots for the rowing benches.’ They all agreed at once and I turned, ahead of them

all—

to show my fitness as a leader, I suppose, or escape

their eyes—

and threw myself into the work. They leaped to their

feet and followed.

“We piled our clothes on a smooth rock ledge which

long ago

was scoured by seas but now stood high and dry. Then, at Argus’ suggestion, we strengthened the ship by

girding her round

with tough new rope, which we knotted taut on

either side

so her planks couldn’t spring from their bolts but would

stand whatever force

the sea might hurl against them. We hollowed a runway

out,

wide enough for the Argo’s beam, and we gouged it into the sea as far as the prow would reach, deeper and

deeper

as the trench advanced, below the level of her stem.

Then we laid

smooth rollers down, and tipped her up on the first of

the logs.

We swung the long oars inside out — the whole crew

moved

like a single man with a hundred legs — and we lashed

the handles

tight to the tholepins of bronze, leaving nearly a foot

and a half

projecting, to give us a hold. We took our places then on either side, and we dug in with our feet and put our chests to the oars. Then Tiphys, king of all

mariners, leaped

on board, and when he shouted, ‘Heave; we echoed

the shout

and heaved, putting our backs into it, pushing till

our necks

were swelled up like a puff-adder’s, and our thick legs

shook

and our groins cried out. ‘Ah!; the Argo whispered. ‘Ah!’ At the first heave we’d shifted the ship from where

she lay,

and we strained forward to keep her on the move.

And move she did!

Between two files of huffing, shouting Akhaians,

the craft

ran swiftly down to the sea. The rollers, ground and

chafed

by the mighty keel, wheezed like oxen at the ship’s

weight

and sent up a pall of smoke. The ship slid in and gave a cry and would have been off on her own to that

land of promise

if Herakles hadn’t leaped in and seized her, the rest of

us shouting,

straining back on the hawsers with all our might.

She rocked,

gentle on the tide, singing, and we watched that

gentle roll,

and my heart was hungry for the sea.

“No need to tell you more.

We piled up shingle, there on the beach, working

together

like one man with a hundred hands, and we made

an altar

of olive wood. The herdsmen came to us, driving

the oxen

and we hailed them, praising their choice. A few of us

dragged the great

square beasts to the altar, and others came with

lustral water

and barleycorns, and I called to Apollo, god of my

fathers,

as I would have called to a man I knew — that’s how

I felt

that morning, with the Argo singing, the men all

watching me,

arm in arm — I’d completely forgotten my resentment

now;

‘O hear us, Lord, Great God Apollo, you that dwell in Pegaisai, in Aison’s city, you that promised to be my guide! Lord, bring our ship to Kolchis and back, and my friends all safe and sound! We’ll bring you

countless gifts,

some in Pytho, some in Ortygia. O, Archer King, accept the sacrifice we bring you, payment in advance

for passage

safe to the fleece and home! Give us good luck as

we cast

the ship’s cable; and send fair weather and a gentle

breeze.’

“I sprinkled the barleycorns in the fire, and Herakles and mighty Ankaios girded themselves for their work

with the beasts,

the child Ankaios, twelve feet tall, still wearing his

bearskin.

The first ox Herakles struck on the forehead with his

club, and it fell

where it stood. Dark blood came dribbling from its nose

and mouth. The second

Ankaios smote with his huge bronze axe — blood sprayed

and steamed—

and the ox pitched forward onto both its horns. The

men around them

slit the animals’ throats, and flayed them, chopped

them up

with swords, and carved the flesh. They cut off the

sacred parts

from the thighs and heaped them together and, after

wrapping them

in fat, burned them on the faggots. I poured libations

out,

old unmixed wine. And Idmon the seer, with Mopsos

at his back,

both of them wise in the ways of the gods, watching

intently,

smiled and nodded, agreeing as surely as two heads

ruled

by a single mind, for the flames were bright that

surrounded the meat,

and the smoke ascended in dark spirals, exactly as it

should.

‘All’s well for you,’ they said, ‘though not for us all,

and not

without some troubles, and terrible dangers later.’ It was enough, God knows, for the moment. The crew was

jubilant.

“We finished our duties to the other gods in the

same spirit.

It seemed to us that they all stood around us smiling,

unseen,

like larger figures of ourselves, all arm in arm, as

we were,

some with their hands on our shoulders, sharing our

joy. Great Zeus,

the very sea and hills, it seemed, locked arms and

shared

our joy, our eagerness to go! I wouldn’t have given

much

that moment for the holy hermit’s life in his sullen

woods

or stalking the barren island conversing with gulls

and snakes

praying, clenching his teeth against the civilities of man!

“Then we all cast lots for the benches, choosing our

oars—

or all of us but Herakles, for the whole crew said, and rightly, that a giant like that should take the midships seat, and the boy Ankaios

beside him;

and Tiphys, they all agreed, should be our helmsman,

the man

who knew when a swell was coming from miles away.

It was settled.

Below,

Ipnolebes paused on the stairway, listening. A frail

old woman,

slave from the south, was singing softly:

“We glided in where the water was dark, reflecting

trees,

the steering-oar turning in Tiphys’ hands like a part of

himself,

the rowers automatic, the laws of our nautical art in

their blood.

And so came in to our mooring place, where vestal

virgins

waited in the ancient attire, and palsied, white-robed

priests

stood with their arms uplifted, figures like stone. We

waded

in, and told them our wish. They bowed, then moved,

formulaic

as antique songs, to the temple. And so that night we

saw

the mysteries. Impressive, of course. I watched, went

through

the motions. Maybe, as the priests pretended, the land

had mysterious

powers; and maybe not. All the same to me. Sly magic, communion with gods — it made no difference. Tell me

the fire

that bursts, sudden and astounding, in the huge dark

limbs of an oak,

lighting the ground for a mile, is some god visiting us, and I answer, “Welcome, visitor! Have some meat!’

Politely.

What’s it to me if the gods fly to earth, take nests

in trees?

Black Idas scornfully lifted his middle finger to them, daring their rage. Not I. I wished the gods no ill. No more than I wished the grass any ill, or passing

salamanders.

Herakles pressed his forehead to the ground and wept,

vast shoulders

swelling with power, a gift of the holy visitor, he

thought.

I wished him well, though I might have suggested to

the hero, if I liked,

that terror can trigger mysterious juices in the fleeing

deer,

and the scent of blood makes lions unnaturally strong.

More tricks

of chemistry. But live and let live. Idmon and Mopsos, the Argo’s seers, were respectful. Professional courtesy,

maybe;

or maybe the real thing. Of no importance. Orpheus watched like a hawk. As for myself, I made the intruder welcome, since he was there, if he was. I might have

been happy

to learn the principles of faith between men — husbands

and wives,

fellow adventurers — or the rules of faith between one

man’s mind

and heart, if any such rules exist. I’d been, all my life, on a mission not of my own choosing (the fleece no

more

than an instance), a mission I was powerless to choose

against. Such rules

would perhaps have been of interest. But they did not

teach them there.

Elsewhere, perhaps. I’ll leave it to you to judge. We

learned,

there, that priests can do strange things; that

worshippers have

a certain stance, expressions, gestures submissive to

reason’s

analysis — as the worshipped is not. We learned what

we knew:

politeness to gods is best. Then sailed on. over the gulf of Melas, the land of the Thracians portside, Imbros

north,

o starboard.

“We reached the foreland of the Khersonese,

where we met strong wind from the south. We set our

sails to it

and entered the current of the Hellespont. By dawn

we’d left

the northern sea; by nightfall the Argo was coasting

in the straits,

with the land of Ida on our right; before the next

day’s dawn,

we’d left Hellespont behind. And so we came to the land of Kyzikos, King of the Doliones.

“Kyzikos had learned,

by the sortilege of a local seer, that someday a band of adventurers would land, and if not met kindly,

would leave

his city on fire, the best of his soldiers dead. He was not a friendly man — his dark eyes snapped like embers

breaking—

a man in no mood, when we landed, to waste his

time on us.

He was newly married that day to the beautiful and

gentle Kleite,

daughter of Percosian Merops, to whom he’d paid a

dowry

fit for the child of a goddess. Nevertheless, when word of our landing came, he left his wife in the bridal

chamber,

mournfully gazing in her mirror, pouting — baffled,

no doubt,

that the man cared more for strangers’ talk than for

all her art,

all the labor of her tutors. But the young king bore in

mind

the words of his seer, and so came down, all labored

smiles,

and after he learned what our business was, he offered

his house and

servants and begged us to row in farther, moor near

town.

From his personal cellar he brought us magnificent

wine, and from

his own vast herds, fat lambs, the tenderest of

weanlings, plump

and sweet with their mothers’ milk. We went up to

dinner with him.

“I asked, as we ate with him: Tell us, Kyzikos: what

will we meet

that we ought to be ready for, north of here? What

strange peoples

live between here and Kolchis, tilling the fields, or

hunting?

‘The handsome young king thought, then said: ‘I can

tell you of all

my neighbors’ cities, and tell you of the whole

Propontic Gulf;

beyond that, nothing.’ He glanced at his seer. Tour

crew should be warned

of one rough gang especially — the people who keep Bear Mountain, as we call it here, the wooded, rocky rise at the tip of our own island. We’d’ve had hard going

with them,

living so close, if Poseidon weren’t a shield between us, father of our line. They’re a strange people, lawless,

blood-thirsty—

true barbarians; nothing at all like us, believe me! They no more understand our civilized laws of

hospitality

than cows know how to fly. Great earthborn monsters, amazing to look at. Each of the beasts is

equipped

with six great arms, two springing from his shoulders,

four below—

limbs coming out of their hairy, prodigious flanks.

They look

like spiders, in a way, but their bug-eyed heads are the

heads of men,

and their hands, except for the hair, are constructed

like human hands.

Their penises are long and double, and the cullions hang like barnacles on a ship just beached, dark tumorous

growths.

Ravenous feeding and raping are all those monsters

know.

Stay clear of them, that’s my advice. No god ever talks to that fierce crowd: no priest advises their violent hearts to gentleness, respect for what the gods love.’

“I pressed him,

asking what lay still further north. He told me all he knew. At last, thanking Kyzikos a thousand times for his kindness, we went to our beds. I saw him

speaking with his seer,

smiling happily. We were, the seer was telling him, the ones. Or so I found later.

“In the morning. I sent six men

to climb to the higher ground, in the hope of learning

more

of the waters we’d soon be crossing. I brought the

Argo round,

edging the shore of the island, heading north, to meet

them.

“We’d badly underestimated the earthborn savages. Watchful as they were, my men didn’t see them sneaking

around

from the far side of the mountain, slipping through

the trees like insects,

and then suddenly hurtling away down the slope like

pinwheels,

arm under arm crashing like boulders through the

brush.

They reached the wide harbor and, working like lightning, began to

wall up

its mouth with stones, penning my men up like cows.

Luckily,

Herakles was there with the six. He snatched out arrows, bent back his recurved bow and, fast as a man could

count,

brought down seven monsters. At once, the others

turned,

hurling their lagged rocks, a hundred at a time. He fell, and their huge rocks piled around him like a Keltic

tomb. Ankaios,

giant boy, gave a wail, a bawl like a baby’s, and ran to help. Then almost as fast as they fell, he snatched

up the rocks

that buried Herakles, and hurled them back, heaving

them wildly.

We fled in terror for the open sea as the great stones

came,

rumbling slowly like elephants driven off a cliff, making a rumbling sound as they passed us, inches from our

sails. Then Koronos,

son of Kaineos whom the centaurs could not kill, ran

down

and helped Ankaios, weaker than the boy but cooler,

saner.

And now the rest got their spirits back — the mighty

brothers

Telamon and Peleus got arrows in their bows, and Butes’ spear that never missed struck down the

monsters’

chief. The monsters charged them with all their fury,

and more

than once; but the brutes were done for, squealing like

apes gone mad,

pissing and shitting as they died. On our side, we

hadn’t lost

a man — by no means Herakles! When they rolled

the stones

from his face they found him grumbling, angry that his

tooth was chipped.

We on the Argo rowed in.

“When the long timbers for a ship

have been hewed by the woodsman’s axe and laid out

in rows on the beach

and lie there soaking till they’re ready to receive the

bolts, and the carpenters

move among them, checking them, nodding with cool

satisfaction,

dropping a comment from time to time on the beauty

of the thing,

the beauty that only a craftsman can understand—

no art,

no way of life seems finer; and so it was with us that day as we walked the beach, studying the fallen

monsters,

stretched out, roughly in rows, on the gray stone beach.

Some sprawled

in a mass, with their limbs on shore and their heads

and chests in the sea;

some lay the other way round. We observed how the

arrows had struck,

how heads had been crushed, how this one had made

the mistake of running,

how that one had stood at the wrong time, and this one,

stupidly,

had pulled the spearshaft out and had needlessly bled

to death.

Then, arm in arm, like men charged with some lofty

purpose,

proud of our art, and rightly, we boarded the ship.

Behind us

vultures settled on the corpses — came down softly,

neatly,

dropping like a hushed black snowfall out of the

ironwood trees.

“We loosed the hawsers of the ship, caught the

breeze, and forged ahead

through choppy waves. We sailed all day. At dusk,

the wind

died down, then veered against us, freshened to a gale,

and sent us

scudding back where we came from, toward our

hospitable friends

the Doliones. We came to an island in the dark and

landed,

hastily casting our hawsers around high stones. Not a

man

on all the Argo guessed that this was the very land we’d left, the isle of Kyzikos. As for the

bridegroom-king,

he leaped from his bed at the alarum and rushed to

the shore with his men,

bronze-suited, armed; and, thinking his troubles were

past — the threat

the seer had warned him of — he struck at once,

believing us

raiders — Macrians, maybe — but in any event,

unwelcome,

flotsam jacked from the sea. We met, and the clash

of our implements

boomed in the dark, leaped like the roar when a

forest fire

pounces on brushwood, blowing its bits sky-high. We

pushed them

back, back, back, to the walls of the city — Herakles and Ankaios moving like great black towers, blocking

out stars

ahead of us, the rest of us following like the widening

belly

of a ship, our swords and spears flashing out in the

dark like oars.

They fled through the gates and heaved against them,

straining to close them.

We lashed torches to our spears and hurled. The city

went up

like oil. Ye gods but we were good at it! Mad Idas

shrieked,

dancing with a female corpse. Leodokos, strong as a bull, pushed in the palace doors and we saw white fire inside. And then one struck at my left, and I whirled, and even

as the spear

plunged in, I saw his face, his helmet fallen away: Kyzikos! He sank without a word, and when his

muscles jerked

and his head tipped up, there was sand in his open

eyes. Too late

for shamed explanations now; too late to consider again the warning of the seer! He’d had his span: one more

bird caught

in the wide, indifferent net. Nor was he the only one. Herakles killed, among lesser men, brave Telekles and Megabrontes; Akastos killed Sphodris; and Peleus’ spear brought down Gephyros and Zelos; Telamon brought

down Basileus;

Idas killed Promeus, and Klytius, Hyakinthos, called the Good. And there were more — the men Polydeukes

killed,

fighting with his fists when his spear had snapped, and

the men who were killed

by Kastor, and those that the boy Ankaios killed. There

are stones

on the island, marked with their names — brave men

known far and wide

for skill, unfailing courage.

“So the battle ended, unholy

error. We hurried through fire and smoke, helping the

people,

moving them up to the hills, above where the city

burned.

For three days after that we wept with the Doliones, wailing for the king, his young queen, and their

beautiful palace—

crumbling walls, charred beams. Then built him a

splendid cairn

that moaned in the wind like a widow sick with sorrow,

made

by Argus’ subtle craft. And we gave him funeral games and all the noble old ceremonies that men hand down from age to age — solemn marches as angular as the priests’ hats; dances darker and older than the

hills;

poems to his virtue, the beauty of his queen.

“For twelve days then

there was murderous weather — high winds,

thunderstorms, soot-black rain,

the angry churning of the sea. We couldn’t put out. At

last

one night as I slept — my cousin Akastos standing watch, reasoning out, full of anguish, the whole idea of war, its pros and cons (wringing his fingers, hammering

the rail),

the old seer Mopsos watching and smiling — a halcyon came down and, hovering above my head, announced,

in its piping

voice, the end of the gales. Old Mopsos heard it all and came to me. He woke me and said: ‘My lord,

you must climb

this holy peak and propitiate Hera, Mother of the Gods, and then these gales will cease. So I’ve learned from

a halcyon:

the seabird hovered above you as you slept and, lo! so

it spoke!

The queen of gods rules all this earth, the sea, and

snow-capped

Olympos, home of the gods. Rise up and obey her!

Be quick!’

“With one eye part way open, I studied the graybeard

loon.

His eyewhites glistened, as sickly pale as the albumen of an egg, and his heavy lips, half hidden in beard and

moustache,

shook. He was serious, I saw. I rubbed my eyes with

my fists,

laboring up out of dreams. Then, seeing he gave me

no choice,

I leaped up, feigning belief, and I hurried from cot to

cot,

waking the others, rolling my eyes as seemed proper,

telling

the news, how Mopsos had saved us, he and a halcyon. None of them doubted. Mopsos nodded as I told them

the story,

backing up all I said. And so, within that hour, we started work. The younger of the men led oxen out from the stalls and began to drive them up the steep

rock path

to the top of Bear Mountain (the spider people asleep

at its foot.

sending skyward the unpleasant scent of sixteen-day-old death). The others loosed the Argo’s hawsers from the

rock

and rowed to the corpse-strewn harbor. Leaving four

on watch,

they too climbed through the stench. It was dawn. From

the summit you could see

the Macrian heights and the whole length of the

Thracian coast:

it seemed you could reach out and touch it. You could

see the entrance to the Bosporos

and the Mysian hills, and in the opposite direction the

flowing waters

of Aisepos, and the city on the plain, Adrasteia.

“In the woods

stood a hundred-year-old vine with a massive, shaggy

trunk,

withered to the roots. We chopped it down; then crafty

Argus

hacked out a sacred image of the queen of gods, long

gray hair

flying as he wheeled his axe. He skilfully shaped it,

gray ears

cocked to the whisper of Athena. When he finished, we

set it up

on a rocky eminence sheltered by dark, tall oaks, and

made

an altar of stones nearby. Then, crowned with oakleaves

(night

had fallen now, the dark storm howling around us), we began the sacrificial rites. I poured libations out, shouting to the goddess to send those flogging winds

away.

Mopsos and Orpheus whispered. Then, at Orpheus’

command,

the Argonauts, in all their armor, circled the fire in a high-stepping dance, beating their shields with their

swordhilts, drowning

the noise of the Doliones, far below us, still mourning their king. More wildly than the storm mute Phlias

danced, their leader.

Louder and louder their armor rang in the night, and

the flam

of drums. I could hardly hear myself, yelling to Hera—

much less

hear the howling of the winds, the howl of the

mourners. Then—

strange business! — the trees began shedding their fruit,

and the earth at our feet

magically put on a cloak of grass. Beasts left their lairs, their burrows and thickets, and came to us wagging

their tails. Nor was

that all. There had never been water — there was neither

spring nor pool—

before that time on Bear Mountain. Now, though no one

touched

a spade, a stream came gushing from the earth, a stream

that flows

even now, called Jason’s Well. And so, it seems, the

goddess

heard us. We finished our rites with a feast — all this

according

to ritual. By dawn, the wind had dropped. We could sail.

“Old Mopsos said — we were standing in the woods

alone, when the rest

had walked back down to the harbor—: ‘My son, you did

that well!

Never have I witnessed a more auspicious flush of signs! Such miracles! Surely the goddess Hera loves you, boy! Surely the crew of the Argo is in divinely favored hands!’ I bowed. He studied me, picking at his lip. He

said,

eyes wicked, grinning in spite of himself: ‘You’re

unimpressed.

Some trick, you imagine? You think the goddess of

will (all praise

to her name) may not have been here with us?’ Then

I too smiled.

“We made a good deal of noise,” I said, and avoided his

eyes.

‘ If I were a mountain, a stormy sky, and were shaken

to the heart

by noise like that, I might do almost anything — goddess or no goddess.’ The old seer chuckled, crazy-eyed. ‘Shrewd observation,’ he whispered, bending close.

‘Bravo!

All very well for a big ignoramus like Herakles to shudder and shake at magic tricks. We know better,

you and I!

Mopsos, king of all augurers, marching to his death—

and for what?

And Jason, robbed of his Lemnian beauty, forced on a

senseless,

pointless mission — abandoning his mother to

ignominious

death, wasting his wonderful oratory (“Jason of the

Golden

Tongue,” as they say) outshouttng cacophonous winds

and drums:

pawn of the fates, murderer of friends that he meant

no harm to,

weary wanderer in a faithless world (alas!

lack-a-day!)—

no wonder if the racket that shakes Bear Mountain to

her deepest stones,

the clatter that whisks away winds — has no faintest

effect on him!

What has the son of Aison to do with the goddess of will? — Jason, who’s gazed into the Pit!’ He cackled,

delighted with himself.

‘Are we brutes? Are we Balls on Inclined Planes? Are

we mindless? — noseless

to the stink, everywhere, of Death? Let Philosophy set

it down

that love is illusion, from which it follows, the gods are

illusion,

which proves in turn that Mother Nature, who gives

such joy,

is an old whore earning her keep!’ Then suddenly:

‘How do you feel?’

He stared, intense, his eyes so bright you’d have thought

some demon

had entered him. ‘How do you feel?’ I thought about it. I felt like a man renewed. It was completely senseless. How can the mind know all its mechanics and scoff

at aid,

cold-blooded, and yet be aided? Nevertheless, I was a man reborn. It was stupid. ‘Me too!’ old Mopsos said, cackling, doing a dancestep, lunatic joy. ‘We’ve had us some times!’ he said. We’ve done us some deeds!! Old

Hera’s in us!!!’

He paused. ‘Whatever that may mean.’ He winked,

then aimed

his staff at a tree. It was filled, suddenly, with fire.

He aimed

at a rock: it burst into feathers, screeched, flapped off.

‘So much

for the quacks on the isle of Elektra!’ he said. Then,

sobering,

adjusting his robe and beads — the robe was none too

clean—

he bowed, taking my arm. And so we returned to the

ship,

all dignity, solemnly walking in step. And so sailed on. Idmon, younger of the seers, came over to my rowing

bench.

‘Pick a halcyon, any halcyon,’ he said. He winked.

“As we beached the ship, a huge old man came out

to us,

his arms folded on his chest, his gray beard brustling

from his chin

like a bush. Without even bothering to ask what race

we were

or what had brought us to his shore, he said: ‘Listen,

sailormen:

There’s something you should know. We have customs

here, in the farming country of the Bebrykes.

No foreigner daring to touch these shores

moves on, continuing his journey, until he’s first put up his fists to mine. I’m the greatest bully in the world,

you’ll say—

not without justification. I’m known, throughout these

parts,

as Amykos, murderer of men. I’ve killed some ten of

my neighbors,

and here I am, remorseless, waiting to kill, today, one of you. It’s a matter of custom, you see.’ He

shrugged as if

to say he too disliked it; and then, cocking his head, wrinkling his wide, low brow, he said: The world’s

insane.

It used to fill me with anguish when I was a boy. I’d

stare,

amazed, sick at heart, at the old, obscene stupidity— the terrible objectness of things: sunrise, sunset; high-tide, low-tide; summer, winter; generation,

decay…

My youthful heart cried out for sense — some signpost,

general

purpose — but whatever direction I looked, the world was a bucket of worms: squirming,

directionless — it was nauseating!’

He breathed deeply, remembering well how it was.

He said:

‘I resolved to die. I stopped eating. For a number of

weeks

(I kept no count; why should I?) I spurned all food as

if it were

dirt. And then one day I noticed I was eating. It

seemed mere

accident: my mind had wandered, weakened by my fast, and pow! there I was, eating. Absurd! But after my first amazement, I saw the significance

of it.

The universe had within it at least one principle: survival! I leaped from my stool, half mad with joy,

ran howling

out to the light from my cave, leading all my followers. I exist!” I bellowed. “Us too!” they bellowed. We ate

like pigs.

But soon, alas, we were satiated. Though we rammed

our fingers

down in our throats and regurgitated, still, the feast was unappetizing. They looked up mournfully to me

for help.

For three long weeks, in acute despair, I brooded on it. And then, praise God! it came to me. My own existence was my first and only principle. Any further step must be posited on that. I examined my history, searched voraciously night and day for signs, some hint of pattern. And then it came to me: I had killed four

men

with my fists. Each one was an accident, a trifling event lost, each time, in the buzzing, blooming confusion

of events

that obfuscate common life. But now I remembered!

I seized it!

Also, I seized up the follower dodling nearest to me— meaningless dog-eyed anthropoid, source of calefactions, frosts, random as time, poor worm-vague brute existent, “friend” in the only sense we knew: I’d learned his name by heart. By one magnificent act, I transmuted him. I defined him: changed him from nothing-everything he

was before

to purpose — inextricable end and means. I seized him,

raised

my fists, and knocked him dead; and this time I meant

it. No casual

synastry. My disciples were astonished, of course. But

when

I explained to them, they fell, instantly, grovelling

at my feet,

calling me Master, Prince of the World, All-seeing Lord. On further thought, I came to an even higher

perception:

As the soul, rightly considered, consists of several parts, so does the state. It follows that what gives meaning

and purpose

to the soul may also give meaning and purpose to the

state. I needn’t

describe the joy that filled my people on learning this

latest

discovery of (if one may so express oneself) their Philosopher King. To make a long story short,

we began

a tradition — a custom, so to speak. Namely, no foreigner

touching

these shores is allowed to leave without first putting up

his fists

to mine. Regrettably, of course, since you’re so young.’

He shrugged.

‘Who’s ready? — Or, to shift to the general: Who’s

your sacrifice?’

He waited, beaming, pleased with himself — his

enormous fists

on his hips. None of us spoke. We simply stared,

dumbfounded,

the old man’s crazy philosophy bouncing in our heads.

At last

Polydeukes stepped forward, known as the king of all

boxers.

It seems he’d taken Amykos’ boasts as a personal affront.

“ ‘Enough!” he said, eyes fierce. ‘No more of your

polysyllabic

shadowboxing. I am Polydeukes, known far and wide for my mighty fists. You’ve stated your rules — your

ridiculous law—

and I stand here ready, of my own free will, to meet

them.’

The king

frowned darkly, not out of fear of our brilliant

Polydeukes,

but annoyed, it seemed, by some trifling verbal

inaccuracy.

‘Free will,’ he said, and laughed. ‘I made the ridiculous

rules,

not you. I have free will, not you. You bump against my laws like a boulder bumping against a wall.’

“ ‘Not so,’

Polydeukes said, voice calm. ‘I choose to meet you.

A man

may slide with the current of a mountain stream or

swim with it.

There’s a difference.’ Old Amykos stammered in rage.

In another minute

they’d have started in without gloves, unceremoniously, but I intervened with persuasive words. They cooled

their tempers,

and Amykos backed away, though even now he glared at Polydeukes, his old eyes rolling like the eyes of a lion who’s hit by a spear when they hunt him in the

mountains and, caring nothing

for the crowd of huntsmen hemming him in, he picks

out the man

who wounded him and keeps his furious eyes on him

alone.

“Polydeukes was wearing a light and closely woven cloak, the gift of his Lemnian wife. He laid it aside. The fierce old man threw down his dark double mantle

with its

snake-head clasps. They chose a place — a wide, flat field, and the rest of us then sat down, two separate groups.

“In looks,

no two could have been more opposite, the old man

hunchbacked,

bristled and warted like an ogre’s child, the younger

straight

as a mast, bright down on his cheek. He seemed no more

than a boy,

but in strength and spirit he was hardening up like a

three-year-old bull.

He feinted a little, seeing if his arms were supple after

all that

rowing, the long hot span in the calm. He was satisfied, or if not, he kept it hidden. The old man watched him,

leering,

eager to smash in his chest, draw blood. Then Amykos’

steward,

a man by the name of Lykoreus, brought rawhide gloves, thoroughly dried and toughened, and placed them

between them, at their feet. “

“ ‘We’ll cast no lots,’ old Amykos said. ‘I make you a

present

of whichever pair you like. Bind them on your hands,

and when

I’ve proved myself, tell all your friends — if you’ve still

got a jaw—

how clever I am at cutting hides and … staining them.’ ” With a quiet smile and no answer, Polydeukes took

the pair

at his feet. His brother Kastor and his old friend Talaos

came

and bound the gauntlets on. The old man’s friends

did the same.

“What can I say? It was absurd. They raised their

heavy fists,

and the gibbous old man came leering, all confidence,

drooling in his beard,

his eyes as wild as a wolf’s, and went up on his toes like

someone

felling an ox, and brought down his fist like a club.

Polydeukes

stepped to the right, effortlessly, and landed one

lightning

blow Just over the old king’s ear, smashing the bones inside. The crazy old man looked startled. In a minute

he was dead,

twitching and jerking in the wheat stubble. We stared.

No match

at all! We hadn’t even shouted yet — neither we nor they!

‘The Bebrykes gave a wail, an outraged howl at

something

wider than just Polydeukes. They snatched up their

spears,

their daggers and clubs, and rushed him as if to avenge

themselves

on the whole ridiculous universe. We leaped up, drawing our swords, running in to help. Kastor came down with

his sword

so hard that the head of the man he hit fell down on

the shoulders,

to the right and left. Polydeukes took a running jump at the huge man called Itymoneus, and kicked him in

the wind

and dropped him. The man died, jerking and trembling,

in the dirt.

Then another came at him. Polydeukes struck him with

his right,

above the left eyebrow, and tore the lid off, leaving the

eyeball

bare. A man struck Talaos in the side — a minor wound—

and Talaos turned on him,

sliced off his head like a blossom from a tender stem.

Ankaios,

using the bearskin to shield his left arm, swung left and

right

with his huge bronze axes, and the brothers Telamon

and Peleus,

Leodokos and I behind them, jabbed through backs and

bellies,

limbs and throats with our swords. They scattered like

a swarm of bees

when the keeper smokes them from the hive. The

remnants of the fight fled inward,

bleeding, spreading the news of their troubles. And

that same hour

they found they had new and even worse troubles. The

surrounding tribes,

as soon as they learned that the fierce old man was

dead, gathered up

and flooded in to attack them, no more afraid of them. They swarmed to the vineyards and villages like locusts,

dragged off

cattle and sheep; seized women and children, to make

them slaves;

then set fire to the barns. We stood and watched it all, almost forgetting to snatch a few sheep and cows

ourselves.

The ground was bloodslick, the sky full of smoke from

the burning villages.

We watched in shock. Who’d ever heard of such

maniacs?

We walked here and there among them, rolling them

over on their backs

to pick off buckles, swords with bejewelled hilts, new

arrows,

and, best, the beautifully figured bows that no one can

fashion

as the craftsmen among the Bebrykes could do, in their

day.

A splendid haul.

“But Polydeukes sat staring seaward—

black waves quiet as velvet, under a blood-red sky— brooding. He pounded his right fist into his flat left hand again and again. I touched his shoulder. ‘Stupid,’

he hissed,

never shifting his eyes from the sea. ‘God damned old

clown!’

‘Ah well,’ I said. ‘And all that talk!’ he said. ‘—Free will, survival! I ought to have taken his big black teeth

out one

by one! I ought—’ ‘Ah well,’ I said. His eyes were as

calm,

as ominous green as the sky those days when the air

went dead.

‘If Herakles were here,’ he said, ‘you know what I’d do?’ I shook my head. ‘I’d kill him,’ he said. ‘Or try.’ He

grinned,

but his eyes looked as crazy to me as the eyes of the

man he’d killed.

‘He wouldn’t approve. You’re supposed to be his friend,’

I said.

‘I’d smash in his brains for good. “Defend your head

or die!”

I’d tell him. And no mere joke. Because I am his friend.’ I let it pass. Boxers are all insane, I thought.

Like everyone.

“Late that night, when the Argonauts

were all sitting in a crowd on the beach, gazing at the

fire,

Orpheus sang a song of the wonderful skill and power of Polydeukes’ fists. He sang of the age-old hunger of

the heart

for some cause fit to die for, some war certainly just, some woman certainly virtuous. He sang the unearthly,

unthinkable joy

of Zeus in his battle with the dragons. Then sang of Hylas, gentler than morning, gazing at his father’s

killer

with innocent love and awe. As he sang, the hero of his

song,

Polydeukes, rose, bright tears on his cheeks, and left

our ring

to walk alone in the woods, get back his calm, we

thought.

That was the last we saw of him.”

He said:

“At dawn we stowed the ship with our booty, loosed the hawsers, hauled up sail, and pushed toward Phineus’

land,

riding the swirling Bosporos, driven by wind. The day was ordinary except for this: around mid-afternoon a wave came in out of nowhere, and even Tiphys,

who knew

the ways of seas and rivers like the back of his hand,

was amazed,

watching it come, a gray wall high as a mountain,

sweeping

clouds along. It hung, full of menace, directly above our sail, and we dived for hand-holds — all but Tiphys—

and waited

for the end, the shriek of the ship breaking up. We

felt — nothing!

no change, the great wave rolling on south, and behind

it the river

calm, as quiet as a pool. ‘What happened?’ I yelled

at Tiphys.

Our hearts were pounding like sledges. He said he had

no idea.

‘Impossible!’ I said. ‘You know the sea like your own

mind.

A prodigy like that, there must be some good reason

for it!’

But Tiphys could tell us nothing. ‘Perhaps some god,’

he said,

pushing his long yellow hair back. ‘Maybe some joke.’

He shrugged.

Mad Idas grinned, showed all his twisted teeth, and

farted.

“The next morning we put in across from Bithynia; anchored offshore from the mansion of Phineus the

seer. He had

the greatest prophetic gift of anyone living, a man who knew not merely by flickers, an insight here and

there,

but knew by steady intuition — or so men said — as much as Apollo knew, who knew all Zeus’s mind. He won great wealth by it, but also unspeakable misery.

“We’d heard, before we landed, nothing of that. We

went up,

eager to visit with the prophet whose reputation

stretched

farther than merchants travelled, to the ends of the

earth. The old man

felt our presence before we came. For days he’d felt us coming. He rose from his bed — none saw it but one

aged raven—

groped for his staff of olive wood, and, feeling his way by the sootblack wall, his old feet twisted and shrunken

beneath him,

he hunted his door. He trembled — age and weakness—

and his head

kept jerking, twisting to the side, then up, his horrible

blind eyes

searching. At the door he fell, siled over and tumbled,

banging

his bald, bruised head on the steps, and down he went

like a corpse

to the bottom, all without a whimper, because he’d

known he’d fall.

He lay awhile unconscious. He had no friend, no servant to care for him; not even a dog would live in the same

house with Phineus.

“After a while the seer came to

and groped around in the dust for his staff, and at last

found it

and painfully climbed back up it and onto his feet,

trembling,

jerking his head, and then, moving slowly, inch by inch, labored toward his gate and the two stone steps that

opened

on the road. There too, as he’d known he would, he fell.

And there

we found him lying with his face in the dirt, his legs

twisted up

like a child’s knot. There were trickles of thin, pink

blood in his beard

where he’d broken his teeth. My cousin Akastos rushed

up to him

and meant to lean over him, listen to his heart, but then

drew back

with a look of disgust. And now we too were near

enough to smell it:

vultures’ vomit, the stink of death on a hot day, blunt as the kick of a mule. We stood well back from

him,

gagging, breathing through our mouths, just keeping our

dinners down.

And then — horrible! — the creature we’d taken to be

dead for days,

rotting on the road, moved his hand a little — a hand

as pale,

as darkly veined as the stomach of a butchered cow. It

was caked,

like all his revolting body, with dirt. Where the hand

went back

to the dark of his filthy robe, which had fallen over it, the wrist was like two gray sticks. Then Phineus

turned his head,

opened his milkwhite eyes as if to stare straight at us, and called out: ‘Argonauts, welcome! You’ve come to

my rescue at last!’

He moved his tongue around his mouth, then wiped his

hand, spitting dust

and blood. ‘From the Harpies, I mean,’ he said. Then

widened his eyes

and let out a croak, like a man who’s suddenly

remembered something,

a source of pain and rage. We stared in amazement.

The old man’s

body shrank up, then jerked out stiff, shrank up,

jerked out,

and we thought he was dying again. But then he lay

limp, and tears

made streaks on his stubbled cheeks. ‘O murderous

gods,’ he said,

and then for perhaps ten minutes Phineus sobbed and

sometimes

pounded the road with his fists. At the end of that

time he clutched

his belly, looked furious, and spoke. ‘I’d forgotten you

wouldn’t know.

I’d forgotten I’d have to go through with you now the

whole insipid

tale. Even though it’s a fact that you people will save

me, because

it’s fated — like everything: endlessly, drearily, stupidly,

cruelly

fated — I’m forced to go through dull motions, politely

pleading,

cajoling, explaining, telling you my tedious history; and I’m forced to listen to your boring responses,

predictable even

to a man not gifted with second sight.’ He pulled

himself together

and labored up onto his knees, groping with his staff,

stifling

the angry imprecations of his swollen heart. Then: ‘Believe me, I’d far rather die, and I would have died

long ago

if the will of mortals were a match for the will of the

gods. But alas!

they’ve got us all by the bellies. They throw a crumb,

a bone,

keep us alive, howling with hunger, and keep us too

weak

to raise our daggers to our wrists, crawl down to the

river … But enough.

Let’s get on with it, play out our parts! If I may forestall your question, Jason, son of Aison—’ I cleared my

throat.

He stretched out his hands to stop me. ‘Don’t ask!’ he

implored. ‘Don’t drag

it on and on and on! The answer to your question is: I’m a victim of curses. Not only has a fury quenched

my sight—

an affliction bitter enough, God knows — and not only

am I

forced to drag through the years far past man’s usual

span,

aging, withering, no end in sight — but worse than that, Harpies plague me — eaglelike creatures with human

heads.

When my neighbors, or strangers from across the sea,

come here to my house

to ask of the future, or of hidden things, and leave

me food

as payment, no sooner is the food set out on my plate

than down

from the clouds — dark, swifter than lightningbolts—

those Harpies swoop

snatching the food from my fingers and lips with their

chattering teeth.

At times they leave me nothing, at times a gobbet or two to keep me alive and screaming. They imbrue with their

sewage stench

all they touch. I would rather die than consume the stuff those Harpies leave — so I rant to myself. But my belly

roars,

tyrannical; I submit. Yet this one curse will pass, if my name is Phineus. The Harpies will soon be driven

away

by two of your number, the lightswift sons of the

Northern Wind.

It has taken place already in the mind of Zeus.’

“So he spoke.

We stared in pity and disgust. Then Zetes and Kalais,

sons

of the wind, went closer, gagging from the stench but

generous;

and the noble Zetes reached for the foul, filth-shrivelled

hand

and said, ‘Poor soul! There’s surely no man on earth who

bears

more shame, more sorrow than you! Heaven knows,

we’ll help if we can.

But first, tell us—’ Before he could finish, the old man

cringed.

‘I know, I know! What’s the cause? you’ll ask. Have I

done some wrong?

Have I rashly offended some god by, for instance,

misusing my skill?

If you help me and foil the justice of some great god,

will he turn

on you? Say no more! I give you my vow, it’s your

destiny.

No harm will come! I swear by Apollo, by my own

second sight,

by my cataracts, by the home of the dead — may the

powers of Hades

blast me to atoms if I die! No ultion will fall on you, no vengeful alastor seek you out by decree of the gods.’

“ ‘Very well,’ Zetes said. And now the brothers backed

off from Phineus,

ready to faint from his stink. At once, we prepared a

meal

for the poor old seer — the last the Harpies were to get.

And Zetes

and Kalais took up their watch, knees bent, a short way

off

from the prophet who squatted by the steps. Before he

could reach for a morsel,

down came the Harpies. They struck and were gone with

no more warning

than a lightning flash — the meal had vanished — and

we heard their raucous

chattering far out at sea. It seemed the whole world

had turned

to stench. But Zetes and Kalais too were gone, we saw— vanished like ghosts. They nearly caught them—

touched them, in fact.

But just as their fingers were closing on the creatures’

throats, the sky

went white, and a voice said: ‘Stop! The Harpies are

the hounds of Zeus!

Don’t harm them! They’ll trouble your friend no more,

swift sons of Boreas!’

And so the brothers turned back, and the curse was

ended.

“We cleansed

the old man’s house with sulphur fire, and washed him

in the creek,

then picked out the finest of the sheep we’d gotten from

Amykos

and made them a sacrifice to Zeus. We set out a banquet

in the hall

and sat with Phineus to eat. He ate like a man in a

dream,

astounded, baffled by the sweetness of life.

“When we’d eaten and drunk

our fill, the old man, sitting among us by the fireplace,

said:

‘Listen. I can tell you many things. Not all I know, but a good deal. I was a fool, once. I used to tell people the whole nature of the universe. Deeper and deeper I plunged into things long-hidden, until for some

strange reason

(which I understand) those Harpies came, called down

from the sky

(not “sent,” mind you: called—called down as surely

as if

I’d raised my hands and cried, “Harpies, snatch away

my food!”). Since then I’ve

learned my place, so to speak, or learned my weakness,

which is

the same: my strength. As the glutton eats till it kills

him, the visionary

sees. (My father, by the way, had a truly amazing eye for omens, though nothing like mine. But I’d rather not

speak of that.)’

He glanced past his shoulder, furtive, then smiled again

and gazed

at the flames with his chalk-white eyes. ‘I could tell you

many things,’

he said again, and smiled. His corrugate hands and

cheeks

glowed in the firelight, shining with joy of life like the

eyes

of a lover. We waited. He said, ‘I knew a man one time who suffered in a somewhat similar way. He murdered

his father

and married his mother, unwittingly. It was a classic

case.

I spoke to him many years afterward. I said, “Come,

come, Oidipus!

Surely you recognized the man you killed! Surely,

in the hindmost

corner of your mind you saw your image in his face

and remembered

his shadow between your mother’s breast and you.”

The king

considered me — or considered my voice (he was

blind) — then answered,

“Doubtless, Phineus. Clearly I was fooled, one way or

another:

if not by reality, then clearly by something in myself.

There are shadows

more than we dream, in the ancient cave of the

mind — dark gods,

conflicting absolutes, timeless and co-existent, who

battle

like atoms seething in a cauldron, each against all, to

assert

their raucous finales. Gods illogical as sharks. We roof their desperate work with the limestone and earth of

reason, but the roof

has cracks: as seepages, springs, dark meres push

through earth’s crust,

those old, mad gods burst through the mind’s thick

floor, mysterious

nightmares, twitches, accidents perverting our gentlest

acts.

I’ve made my peace with them.” I saw that events had

made him

wise. I said: “Perhaps the old man was not your father, merely another of reality’s tricks.” He smiled. “Perhaps. I’ve heard much stranger things. I’ve learned that the

primary law

of Time and Space is that nothing is merely what it is.

The seed

of the flower harbors the poison of the flower. I’ve

watched old lions

pause, befuddled by warring instincts, surrounded by

huntsmen.

I’ve watched my own soul — strange drives forcing me

higher and higher

to goals I can barely discern, and one of them is

beauty of mind,

true majesty; and one of them is death. I am, I’ve found a rhythm, merely: a summer and winter of creation

and guilt.

I’m the phoenix; the world. Thanatos and Eros in

all-out war,

the chariot drawn by sphinxes, one of them black,

one white:

one pulls toward joy, the other toward total eclipse of

pain.

With all that, too, I’ve made my peace. I’ve fallen out

of Time.

I stumble, a blind man guided by a stick. After all

this — sick,

meaningless, old — I’ve lost my reason at last: gone

sane.”

I said nothing, humbled by the wisdom Oidipus had

won — and not by

gift: by violence and grief. I could have expanded

what he knew.

I did for others. But I bowed, retired in silence. I have

said

to kings that their hope is ridiculous — the hope that

someday

kingdoms, heroes, philosophers, laws, may end forever the natural state — the jungle of the gods in all-out

war—

the secret whispers of the buried man, the violence

of seas,

benthal stirrings of the blind, pythonic corpse of

Atlantis,

the earth in upheaval, thundershouts, whirlwinds, foxes

snapping

at the rooster’s heels, or the silent victories of termites,

spiders,

ants. I have said to other men that the natural state is final. The forces that crack the efficient crust of mind crack nations: no hunger, no evil wish to seduce or kill is lost in the sky god’s brain. This darkling plain we flee toward love is the darkling plain toward which we flee.

But why

say all these things to him? I left him groping,

stumbling

stone to stone, as we all move stone to stone, each step catching the balance from the last, or failing to catch

it, tumbling us

humbly home to the dust. Don’t ask of a man like

Oidipus

programs, plans for improvement, praise of nobility.

(What are,

to him, great deeds of heroism? A matter of glands, nerves, old patterns of reaction: —a slight deficiency of iodine in the thyroid [I speak things long-forgotten], a sadistic aunt, a bump on the back of the head, and

the hero’s

a coward.) Every tragedy is fragmentary, a cut of Time in the cosmic whole, the veil without

which

nothing. A man’s inability to flee his father’s guilt, his city’s, his god’s. A man’s coming to grips with his

own

unalterable road to death. Don’t look to the gods for help in that. For the purpose you ask of them, they were

never there.

Earthquakes, fires, fathers, floods make no distinctions: the good survive and suffer, discover their truths and

die,

like the wicked. Indeed, if anyone has the advantage,

it seems

the violent, crafty, unprincipled, who seize earth’s goods while the pious stretch out their arms in prayer, and

leave empty-handed.

I could tell you, Argonauts … Dark, unfeeling,

unloving powers

determine our human destiny. The splendid rewards, the ghastly punishments your priests are forever

preaching of,

have no real home but the shores of their violent brains.

Learn all

your poisons! There’s man’s peace!’ The old seer smiled

and sighed,

gentle as a kindly grandmother. The firelight flickered soft on his forehead and cheeks as he leaned toward

it, stretching

his hands to it. We studied him, polite.

“At last I said:

Phineus, these are strange words of yours. You tell us

tales

of doom, inescapable senselessness, yet all the while you smile, stretching your hands to the comfort of the

fire.’

“ ‘That’s true;

no doubt it’s a trifle absurd.’ But he nodded, smiling on. ‘I was sick to the heart, fighting reality tooth and nail, staggering, striking — and, behold! you’ve made me well.

My mind

made monsters up, and all the self-understanding in

the world

could no more turn them back than weir down history.’ He paused; then, abruptly, ‘I must muse no more on

that.’ He turned

his head, listening to the darkness in the room behind.

We began

to smell something. His face went pale. And then, once

more,

he smiled, remembered our presence, remembered the

fire. He said:

‘Life is sweet, Argonauts! Behold us, each of us

drinking down

his own unique sweet poison! May each see the bottom

of the cup!

As for myself, I can say this much with good assurance:

I will not

last much longer, now that the Harpies have left me.

The balance

is gone. Death’s not far hence, the death I carry within

me.

One grants one’s limits at last — one’s special strength.

One sinks

and drowns there, tranquil, no more at war with the

universe,

and therefore dying, like poison sumac become too

much

itself, unstriving, released at last into anorexy. — No, no! No alarm, dear friends! No distress! It was

a great service!

There is no greater joy, no greater peace, my friends, than dying one’s own inherent death, no other. The

truth!’

He paused, looked back at the darkness again with his

blind eyes.

He smiled. His smile came forward like a spear. ‘I will

tell you more:

You ask me: How can you smile, reach out to the

warmth, knowing all

you know? Let me tell you another thing about Oidipus. He knows where he is — where humanity is: in the tragic

moment,

locked in the skull of the sky: the eternal, intemporal

moment

which lasts to the last pale flash of the world. There

tragic man,

alone, doomed to be misunderstood by slumbering

minds,

exposed to the idiot anger of hidden and absent forces, nevertheless stands balanced. In his very loneliness, his meaningless pain, he finds the few last values his

soul

can still maintain, drive home, construct his grandeur by: the absolute and rigorous nature of its own awareness, its ethical demands, its futile quest for justice, absolute truth — dead-set refusal to accept some compromise, choose some sugared illusion!’ His face was radiant. He wrung his hands; his voice was unsteady. He was

deeply moved.

What could I say? It was not for me to pose the

question.

We were guests. He might be of use to us. I was glad,

however,

when Idas asked it. Sweat drops glistened on his ebony

forehead

like firelit jewels.

“ ‘Why? — Why soul? Why values? Why greatness?

Why not “Not love: just fuck”?’

“Old Phineus turned his face,

with a startled look, toward Idas. ‘I will tell you more,’

he said.

“ ‘We should sleep,” I broke in. ‘It’s a long trip, and

dawn near at hand.’

“The stink in the room was suddenly thick as a

dragon’s stench.

“All that day, far into the next night, Phineus talked. I rose, we all did, tiptoed out. By the following morning the stink was more than we could bear. There was

some dark meaning in it.

No matter. Aietes’ city was still a long way north, and that was where we were aimed. We’d gotten used

to it,

rowing, at one with the cosmos, as if we’d emerged

from something.

So old comedies end, the universe and man at one. Incorporation, purgation, harmony restored. Well, it wasn’t exactly like that. We had no complaints,

rowing

hard against an eastern wind. Some famous old tale …

Never mind.

Exhaustion was the name of the game.

‘Then came the stranger. I dreamed

(it was no mere dream) a terror beyond all the

wildest fears

of man. I dreamed Death came to me and smiled, and

said:

Fool, you are caught in an old, irrelevant tale. I will

speak

strange words to you, a language you won’t understand.

When you do,

too late! Such is my wile. I will tell you of horror beyond belief; you won’t believe, and so it will come. That is my trick. I will tell you: Fool, you are caught in

irrelevant forms:

existence as comedy, tragedy, epic. The heart divided, the Old Physician who cures the world by his ambles pie; the magician cook (Hamburger Mary), “Eternal

Verities,”

the world as the word of the Ausländer. Those are the

web I’ll

kill you by. And neither will you believe my power, or if you believe, imagine it. When I speak of death, you will think of your own; poor limited beast. What

man can’t face

his paltry private death? The words are, first: Trust not to seers who conceive no higher force than Zeus. And

next:

Beware the interstices. There lies thy wreck. Remember!’ I sat up, trembling in the dark, still ship; I cried out,

‘Wait!

Who are you?’ And then all at once the shore was sick

with light:

there were cities like rotten carcases black with

children dead;

there were women, befouled, deformed by mysterious

burns; and the burnt ground

glowed, a deadly green. ‘My name is Never,’ he said. ‘My name is: It Cannot Be. My name is Soon.’ I saw his eyes and cried out. Then I was alone. It was

dark.

I racked my wits for the meaning. Old Mopsos had

theories. Said:

‘You’ve listened too much to old Phineus, Jason, with

all his talk

of dark, opposing forces — Love and Death. You’ve

conceived

the final war, the ultimate goal of humanity.’ Then it isn’t true?’ I asked. He sighed. ‘Who knows?

Who cares?

Don’t think about it. It’s millennia off. The dream’s mere

chaff.’

I wasn’t convinced. I could change the outcome. Why

send, otherwise,

the terrible vision to me? He smiled when I asked him

that.

‘Write it down that truth is whatever proves necessary. Write down the dream as a dream. You created your

goblin, Jason,

fashioned him out of your own free-floating guilt and

the babble

of Phineus. Go back to sleep, take a friend’s advice.

— Go to sleep

and don’t give your fears more rope.’ He turned away.

I gazed

through darkness, listening. All still well; no cause for

alarm;

nothing afoot but the wind, as usual — endlessly walking, darkening into the void … Then, far away, a flash, a sun, and the shock of it sent out astounding, sky-high

waves,

and as the first approached our ship I broke into a

sweat; but then

the great wave struck, moved past, and nothing had

happened. Illusion!

I got up, looked in at the darkness of water, and calmed

myself.

All well. Nothing afoot. — And yet I was sure, again, the vision was no mere dream. I stood at the start of

something,

in some way I hadn’t yet learned; and I might yet

change its course.

In my mind I saw myself clambering over the side,

slipping down,

soundlessly sinking in the water. I dreamed I’d done it.

Peace…

“Make a note. The dark of the buried gods has suicide

in it,

black form seeking to crack the efficient crust. I would

not

crack. I lay down again and, this time, nothing.

Darkness.

And so sailed on, putting the Bithynian coast behind

us.

Self-destruction was the name of the game. I wasn’t

playing.

We sailed on, sliding northward, the Argo silent in the

night.

“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.

Hera never sleeps!

She fills the world

with beauty, goodness, danger. At a word

from her the gods lure men to the highest

pinnacles of feeling. By her command

the wolf drags down the lamb, and the shepherd

shoots the wolf,

and the adder joyfully strikes at the shepherd’s heel

She is never spent! She moves

like light, from atom to atom, forever changing

forever

the same.