wear white;
knew she would serve, covenant of Corinth, accept the
bridegroom
chosen for her, for the city's sake. Perhaps she loved
him.
It had nothing to do with love, had to do with loss.
Her loss
of the limitless; descent to the leaden cage of enslaving humanity. Joy or sorrow, no matter. Loss.
   The dark-eyed slave at her bedside watched in
compassion and grief
and touched Pyripta's hand. “The omens are evil,” she
said.
“Resist this thing they demand of you. The city is
troubled,
the night unfriendly, veiled like a vengeful widow. Men
talk
of fire in the palace, wine made blood.” The princess
wept,
unanswering. I understood her, watching from the
curtains.
I remembered the tears of Medeia, lamenting her
childhood's loss.
By the window another, a princess carried in chains out
of Egyptâ
eyes of an Egyptian, the forehead and nose and the full
lips
of the desert peopleâwhispered softly, angrily to the
night;
“Increase like the locust,
increase like the grasshopper;
multiply your traders
to exceed the number of heaven's stars;
your guards are like grasshoppers,
your scribes and wizards are like a cloud of insects.
They settle on the walls
when the day is cold.
The sun appears,
and the locusts spread their wings, fly away.
They vanish, no one knows where.”
At the door one whisperedâa woman of Ethiopia,
who smiled and nodded, gazing at the princess with
friendly eyes:
“Woe to the city soaked in blood,
full of lies,
stuffed with booty,
whose plunderings know no end!
The crack of the whip!
The rumble of wheels!
Galloping horse,
jolting chariot,
charging cavalry,
flash of swords,
gleam of spears . .
.
a mass of wounded,
hosts of dead,
countless corpses;
they stumble over the dead.
So
much for the whore's debauchery,
that wonderful beauty, that cunning witch
who enslaves nations by her debauchery,
enslaves the houses of heaven by her spells!”
Another saidâwhispering in anger by the wall, cold
flame:
“Are you mightier than Thebes
who had her throne by the richest of rivers,
the sea for her outer wall, and the waters for
ramparts?
Her strength was Ethiopia and Egypt.
She had no boundaries.
And yet she was forced into exile, sorrowful
captivity;
her little ones, too, were dashed to pieces
at every crossroad;
lots were drawn for her noblemen,
all her great men were loaded with chains.
You too will be encircled at last, and overwhelmed.
You too will search
for a cave in the wilderness
refuge from the wrath of your enemies.”
On the dark of the stairs an old woman hissed, her
wizened face
a-glitter with tears like jewels trapped:
“Listen to this, you cows of Corinth,
living on the mountain of your treasure heap,
oppressing the needy, crushing the poor,
saying to your servants, âBring us something to
drink!'
I swear you this by the dust of my breasts: The days are coming
when you will be dragged out by nostril-hooks,
and the very last of you goaded with prongs.
Out you will go, each by the nearest breach in the
wall,
to be driven to drink of the ocean.
This I pledge to you.”
So in Pyripta's room and beyond they whispered,
seething,
kindled to rage by the death of the boy Amekhenos, or troubled by some force darker. For beside Pyripta's
bed
there materialized from golden haze the goddess
Aphrodite.
Sadly, gently, she touched Pyripta's hair. Then the room was gone, though the goddess remained, head bowed.
We stood alone
in a pine-grove silver with moonlight. I heard a soundâ
a footstep
soft as a deer'sâand, turning in alarm, I saw a figure striding from the woodsâa youth, I thought, with the
bow of a huntsman
and a tight, short gown that flickered like the water in
a brook. As the stranger
neared, I saw my error: it was no man, but a goddess, graceful and stern as an arrow when it drops in
soundless flight
to its mark. Aphrodite spoke: âToo long we've warred,
Goddess,
moon-pale huntress. I come to your sacred grove to
make
amends for that, bringing this creature along as a
witness,
a poet from the world's last ageâno age of heroes, as
you know,
and as this poor object proves. Don't expect you'll heat
him speak.
He's timid as a mouse in the presence of gods and
goddesses;
foolish, easily befuddled, a poet who counts out beats on his fingers and hasn't got fingers enough. But he
understands Greek,
with occasional glances at a book he carriesâin secret,
he thinks!
(but the deathless gods, of course, miss nothing). He'll
have to do.”
The love goddess smiled almost fondly, I thought. But
as for Artemis,
she knew me well, stared through me. The goddess of
love said then:
“I come to you for a boon I believe you may gladly
grant
when you've heard my request. Not long ago a murderer buried his victim in secret, in this same
grove
sacred to the moon. As soon as the body was hidden,
he fled
with the woman he claimed to love, Medeia, the
daughter of Aietes.
I protected themâtheir right, as lovers. But now the
heart
of the son of Aison has hardened against his wife. He
means
to cast her aside for the virgin Pyripta, daughter of
Kreon
of Corinth. So at last our interests meet, it seems to me.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, chaste goddess. I can see no
other way
than to throw myself on your mercy, despite old
differences.
Set her against him firmly, and I give my solemn
pledge,
I'll turn my back on the daughter of Kreon forever, no
more
stir love in her bosom than I would in the rocks of Gaza.
Just that,
and nothing more I beg of you. Charge Pyripta's mind with scorn of Jason, and even in Zeus's hall I'll praise your name and give you thanks.” So the goddess spoke.
And Artemis
listened and gave no answer, coolly scheming. I did not care for the glitter of ice in the goddess of purity's eye, and I glanced, uneasy, at the goddess of love. She
appeared to see nothing
amiss. Then Artemis spoke. “I'll go and see.” That was
all.
She turned on her heel, with a nod inviting me to
follow, and strode
like a man to the place where her chariot waited, all
gleaming silver.
As soon as I'd set one foot in it, we arrived at the house of Jason. The chariot vanished. I was down on my
hands and knees
in the street. I got up, dusting my trousers, and hurried
to the door.
No one saw me or stopped me. I found, in Medeia's
chamber,
Artemisâenormous in the moonlit bedroom, her bowed
head
and shoulders brushing the ceiling beamsâstooped at
the side
of Medeia's bed like an eagle to its prey. “Wake up!”
she whispered.
“Wake up, victim of the mischief god! Seek out thy
light,
sweet Jason, life-long heartache! You are betrayed!”
Medeia's
eyes opened. The goddess vanished. The moonlight
dimmed,
faded till nothing was left but the glow of the golden
fleece.
The slave Agapetika wakened and reached for Medeia's
hand.
Medeia sat up, startled by the memory of a dream. She
met
my eyes; her hand reached vaguely out to cover herself with the fleece. I remembered my solidity and backed
away.
“Devil!” she whispered. In panic I answered, “No,
Medeia.
A friend!” She shook her head. “I have no friends but
devils.”
And only now understanding that all she'd dreamt was
trueâ
as if her own words had power more terrible than
Jason's deedsâ
she suddenly burst into tears of rage and helplessness. She tried to rise, but her knees wouldn't hold her, and
she fell to the flagstones.
I said: “I come from the future to warn youâ”
   My throat went dry. The room was suddenly filled, crowded like a jungle
with creatures,
ravens and owls and slow-coiled snakes, all manner of
beings
hated by men. In terror of Medeia's eyes, I fled.
On the palace wall, in his blood-red cape, the son of
Aison,
arms folded, gazed down over the city of Corinth. He knew pretty wellâHera watching at his shoulder,
slyâ
that he'd won, for better or worseâthat nothing
Paidoboron
or Koprophoros could say would undo the work he'd
done
or open the gates of Kreon's heart or the heart of the
princess
to any new contender. He smiled. On the palace roof behind him, a raven watched, head cocked, with
unblinking eyes.
For reasons he scarcely knew himself, Jason had
avoided
his home today. It was now twilight; the light, sharp
breeze
rising from stubbled fields, dark streams, fat granaries, brought up the scent of approaching winter. There
would come a time
when Medeia would rise and insist upon having her
say. Not yet.
Though light was failing, the house, lower on the hill,
was dark
save one dim lamp, dully bloomingâso yellow in the
gloom
of the oaks surrounding that it brought to his mind
again the fleece
old Argus wove, and the obscure warning of the seer.
   The vision blurred; I hung unreal. Then, crushed to flesh once
more,
my swollen hand brought alive again to its drumbeat
of pain,
I stoodâdishevelled as I was, my poor steel spectacles
cracked
and crookedâin the low-beamed room of the slave
Agapetika,
hearing her moans to the figure of Apollo on the wall.
Her canes
of gnarled olive-wood waited on the tiles, her stiff, fat
knees
painfully bent on the hassock before the shrine.
   She wailed, whether in prayer or lament, I could hardly tell: “O
Lord,
would that an old slave's wish could wind back time
for Medeia
and she never beguile those dim, too-trusting daughters
of Pelias,
who slaughtered their father; or would that Corinth
had never received them,
allowing a measure of joy and peace, pleasure in the
children,
Medeia still loved and in everything eager to please her
lord,
her will and his will one, as even Jason knew, for all his anger, bitterness of heart. The loss of love makes all surviving it blacker than smoke at sunrise.
What once
was sweet is now corrupt and cankered: our Jason plans heartless betrayal of his wife and sons for marriage
with a princess.
And now in impotent rage and anguish, Medeia invokes their oaths, their joined right hands, and summons
the dangerous gods
to witness the way he's rewarded her life-long
faithfulness.
Worse yet, she curses old Kreon himself, and Kreon's
daughter,
howling her wild imprecations for all to hear. In
her rage
she refuses to eat, sacrificing her body to grief as she sacrificed her home, her kinsmen, her happiness for Jason's love. She wastes in tears; she cries and cries in such black despair that her sobs come welling too
fast for Medeia
to sound them. She lies stretched wailing on the stones
and refuses to lift
her eyes or to raise her face from the floor. To all we say she's deaf as a boulder, an ocean wave. She refuses
to speakâ
she can only curse her betrayal of her father, murder
of her brother,
death of her sister Khalkiope, through Aietes' rageâ for all of which she blames herself alone, as if no one before her had ever betrayed on earth. She takes no joy anymore in her sons: her eyes seem filled
with hate
when she looks at them. It shocks me with fear to see it.
Her mood
is dangerous. She'll never submit to this monstrous
wrong.
I know her. It makes me sick with fear. Let any man
rouse
Medeia's hate and hard indeed he'll find it to escape unmarked by her.”
   Agapetika opened her eyes in alarm, strainingâgrotesquely fat, feebleâto turn her head for a view of the door at her back. In the hallway,
the old male slave
and the children approached, the two boys squealing
and laughing, the old man