moaned, for at last
he saw to the end. And then he was running in the wild
hope
that still there was time. He flew down the palace
stepsâno guards
in sight there nowâand down through that smoky,
endless rain,
the clattering thunder and the sudden bursts of fire out
of heaven,
to his own locked gate. He hurled his shoulder against it
with the force
of Herakles' club, and the huge bronze hinges snapped
like wood.
The Corinthian women inside all ran to the windows in
fear,
hearing the racket of his coming. But he came no
further. Above
his head, like a hovering lightning shape, Medeia
appeared
in a chariot drawn by dragonsâbeside her, the bodies
of his sons.
Squinting, throwing up his arm against that blood-red
light,
his throat convulsing till his words were barely
intelligible,
he shouted, “Monster! Female serpent abhorred by
mankind,
by the gods, and by meâyou who could find it in your
heart to murder
the children you bore yourself, to leave me childless
and brokenâ
by all the gods in heaven or on earth or under the earth I curse you! May you live forever in the pain you've
brought yourself,
and with every passing day may your sorrow triple, and
your mind
grow more unsure, more tortured by doubt of what's
happened here,
till nothing is certain but hopeless and endless sorrow.”
   Even nowâ the proof of her victory gray and inert beside herâshe
turned
her face from the lash of his words; broken as he was,
he knew
her chief point of vincibility: self-doubt, her fear that all she might do on earth was nothing but the
afterburn
of her father's mindlessly rumbling, teratical blood. She
shouted,
“Curse all you please. You've turned too late to religion,
Jason.
Why should the gods pay heed to the curses of an
oath-breaker?”
She laughed, terrible and false, a crash of ice. He
howled,
“Yield me one thing and go then, free of me forever.”
She waited.
“The bodies of my sons,” he said, “to bewail and bury.”
But again
Medeia laughed, monstrous in her spite. “Never, my
husband!
I'll bear them myself to the shrine of Hera in the high
mountains
and there bury them where none who hate me will climb
to insult them,
scattering their stones. For the land of Sisyphus I'll
ordain a feast
with solemn rites to atone for the blood I've impiously
spilled,
then afterward away to Erekhtheus I'll go, and live in
protection
of Aigeus, Pandion's son. And you, vile wretchâthis
curse
I place on you, in the hearing of earth and the burning
sun
and the multitudinous gods: May you now grow old
alone,
childless and silent, and die at last a shameful death, crushed by a beam from your own
Argo.
Then, then or
never,
shall our marriage end.” He listened in silence, his skin
burning
from the heat of the sun-god's chariot. He wailed:
“Medeia, give back
my sons.” But again her reply was, “Never!” Then,
turning slowly,
she pointed to the palace. “Burials enough you'll have,
I think,
without these, husband.” He looked. All the palace was
churning fireâ
the tapestried walls, the trusses and cantled beams,
the doors,
the vaulting roofs. His muscles knotted more tightly
than before,
and his mind went wild. “Not
my
work, husband,”
Medeia said.
“The friends you'd have saved, in your own good time,
from Kreon's dungeon
have fashioned keys of their own. I'll bury our children,
Jason.
Deal with the dead mad Idas and Lynkeus scatter in
their wake!”
More darkly than ever he'd have cursed her then, but
his tongue was a stone,
his thick neck swollen as an adder's. With the strength
of fifteen men
he seized the great bronze gate he'd torn from its hinges,
twisted it,
breaking it free of its latch and lock, swung it around
once,
and fired it upward at his wife. The chariot and dragons
vanished,
cunning illusions, and the door went planing through
the night, arching
upward and away six furlongs, gleaming. All the sky
was alight from the fire in the palace; and now there
were more fires burning,
the brothers taking remorseless Argonaut revenge on a
king
now dead. Jason could do nothing, kneeling in the
cobbled street,
bellowing wordless fury, clinging to his skull with both
hands,
for the heat of burning Corinth was nothing to the fire
in his mind.
Kneeling, his muscular thighs bulging, he swayed and
strained
for speech. He'd forgotten the trick of it. And now he
grew silent,
became like the focus of the whole world's pressure. The
city all around him
roared, full of fire and shouts, alive with people on the
run.
And now, as steady and endless as the rain, gray ashes
fell.
Kneeling, furious, no longer sane, Lord Jason grew
old.
Before my eyes his skin withered and his hair turned
white.
The street became the
Argo.
I shouted in terror for the
goddess.
Waves crashed over the gunnels; from the sailyard
icicles hung.
And still, like snow, white ashes drifted through the
universe,
and above the sailyard, circling, circling in the darkness,
the ravens.
I stood on an island of flaking shale, where snow lay
gray,
in sickly patches; an island barren except for one tree by a miracle not yet dead, but bare and aging, failing, the surrounding air so choked and smoky that, for all I
knew,
I'd stumbled on the kingdom of Death. From every side
I heard,
ringing across what must have been black and sludgy
waters,
cracks and explosions, rumblings, shots; the air was
filled
with the whine of what might have been engines. I could
see, through the snow and smoke,
no smouldering fires, no rocket's glare, no proof that
the earth
was not, itself, unaided by man, the attacker and
attacked.
Holding my right handâstiff and useless, violently
throbbingâ
in my left, the collar of my old black coat drawn high
to shield me,
I moved with feeble and tottering steps toward the
center of the island.
I began to see now there was more life here than I'd
guessed at first:
insects struggling in the ice, and sluggish serpents,
hissing,
venomous mouths wide open. I kept my distance, and
passed.
In every crevasse of that sickened place, there were
lean, white gannets
crying forlornly in inconstant, snow-filled brume. I found a man with a stick walking slowly in front of the
entrance to a cave,
turning in slow, stiff circles, as if in search of something. His beard came nearly to his knees; his ankles were
knobby and swollen
from some old injury; he had no eyes. He frowned, stern and strangely unbent for a man so old, and a
hermit.
“Who's there?” he said, and pointed his stick. I struggled
to answer,
but no words came. He reached toward me with his
square, gray hand
to feel out my features and manner of dress, then shook
his head
dully, wearier than ever, and turned his face away, thinking, or listening to something out on the water.
I thought
he'd forgotten my presence; but he said suddenly,
“Whoever sent you,
tell them to take you back. Say to them, âOidipus thanks
you,
but he takes no interest in the future.' Now go.” He
waved at me gruffly,
not unkindly but impatiently, like a man interrupted. “Are you gone?” he said. I tried to think how to tell him
I was not as
free in my comings and goings as he seemed to think.
He said,
“Good, good!” and nodded, thankful to be rid of me. I said, “I can tell you of Kreon's death.” He started,
indignant.
But after a moment my words registered,
and he scowled, standing quite still, as if carefully
balancing.
“He's dead, then,” he said. I said: “A horrible death. I
saw it.”
He wiped his eyebrows. “Don't tell me about it. Kreon
was dead
from the beginning.” He mulled it over. âThat was the
difference between us.”
There, to my surprise, he let it drop.
   And then I too heard, breaking through the smoky dark, the
queer sound Oidipus
strained to catch: a rhythmic cry and the faint whisper of oars swinging. He leaned both hands on the crook of
his cane.
“More company,” he said, and braced himself. A moment
later
I saw the
Argo's
silver fangs come gliding out of
darkness,
the long oars swinging like the legs of a huge, black
sea-insect,
crusted with ice. The sail was stiff. On the island
around us
the ice and dark snow reddened, as if the war had
come nearer,
riding in the black ship's wake.
   Straight in toward shore she came, the oars now lifted like wings, and as soon as the
keel-beam struck,
down leaped a man in a great brown cape that he
swirled with his arm
as if hoping to frighten the night. His icy beard and
mane
were wild, his bright eyes rolling. When he saw me he
halted and covered
his eyes with both hands, then carefully peeked through
his fingers at me.
At last, convinced that the curious sight was no
madman's dream,
he bowed to me, then turned and tip-toed over, through
the snow,
to Oidipus. He whispered, smile flashing, “My name is
Idas,
or so men call me, and I answer to it. Why increase,
say I,
the general confusion? Which is, you may say, an
immoral opinion.”
He glanced past his shoulder to the ship, then whispered
in Oidipus' ear:
“I deftly reply, after careful study: I burned down the
city
of Corinth, sir, in the honest opinion it belonged to a
man
who'd sorely grieved meâbut found too late that the
fellow had left it
to my dear old friend, in whom I was only, at worst,
disappointed,
which is not, you'll agree, just cause for destroying an
old friend's town.
But what's done is done, as Time is forever inkling at us.
And, being a reasonable man, within limits, I turned
my faltering
attention to doing him good. I must make you privy to
a secret:
He'd had it worse than I, this friend. He'd lost his lady.
A nasty business. She murdered his sons and reduced
him to tattersâ
it's the usual story. In the merry words of our old friend
Phineus,
âDark, unfeeling, unloving powers determine our
human
destiny.' He was beaten hands-down, poor devil. She
made
considerable noise about oath-breaking, and believed
herself,
as well she might, since she spoke with enormous
sincerity,
which is to say, she was wild with rage. She called down
a curse,
that Jason should die in sorrow and failure, on his own
Argo
â
a curse that may well be fulfilled. On our sailyard,
ravens perch,
creatures beloved of the master of life and death,
Dionysos.
Having struck, she fled to Aigeus' kingdom in
Erekhtheus,
which now we seek. Our luck has not been the best, as
you see.
Winds play sinister games with us; familiar landmarks change in front of our eyes, outrageously cunningâno
doubt
ensorcelled by Jason's lady. From this it infallibly
follows,
if you've traced all the twists of my argument, that
we've landed here
to gain some clue to our bearings.” He smiled, eyes slyly
narrowed,
pulling at his fingers and making the knuckles pop.
King Oidipus
with his old head bent as if looking at the ground, said
nothing for a time.
At last he said, “Let me speak with this man.” Mad Idas
bowed.
“Of course! I had hoped to suggest it myself!” He
signalled to the ship,
and a moment later Lynkeus jumped down, and after
him Jason.
They came toward us. “You must understand,” mad Idas
said,
“that my friend cannot speak. He was once the most
eloquent of orators,
but a secret he suspected for a long time, and
continually resisted,
eventually got the best of him and took up residence in his mouth. Look past his teeth and you'll see it there,
blinking like an owl,
huddled in darkness. He's grown more mute than Phlias,
who could answer