Medea (29 page)

 

We rowed into the straits. Rugged cliffs hemmed us in on either side, and the sea was behaving strangely. Odd currents thrust us along for a space, then backed as though the sea was draining like a basin or leaking like a cracket pot. There was nothing for Tiphys to do but to keep as straight a course as possible. Trees grew at unnatural angles, twisted and bent, on the cliffs. Sound echoed from either side of the towering cliffs, grey and perilous. Idas kept the beat of the drum and we rowed to the small pipe played by the bard. Idmon sat nursing his dove in his hands, whispering to it.

Then we heard a thudding, like an earthquake, and saw the Clashing Rocks.

They were huge. They rose to perhaps a
stadion
high, though that may have been my eyes, which were sitll not quite reliable They were, as their name said,
cynaean,
dark blue and sheer.

One side, Carybdis, was flat, overgrown with black streamers as thick as my arm, kelp growing under the sea to ensnare us. The other was somewhat weathered by the continual collision. The top of Carybdis met Scylla as it rocked with a shuddering crash, but the water had worn a curve in the soft stone. Not that it would help us. The gap was not wide enough even for
Argo's
hull to slide through.

'It's like trying to slip between the hammer and the anvil,' breathed my oar-mate, Clytios.

Tiphys called, 'Seen worse, shipmates,' which is what he always said; but even Tiphys of the impervious self-confidence did not sound convincing. 'Just needs a good hand on the helm,' he added, his voice dropping to a whisper.

The noise stung our ears, smiting and counter-smiting, like Hephaestos' anvil on which he forged islands. Each time the rocks collided, a burst of spray broke over our heads. We backed oars, attempting to hold our position. Idmon, on Jason's order, stood up and released his dove.

It flew, on his instructions, straight and level through the rocks, as they parted and then crashed together with a sound like thunder. We strained, trying to keep
Argo
where she was, staring after the flash of white.

I had skinned and blistered my hands so often and for so long that I did not notice that I was bleeding on my oar until my grip slipped. I wrapped a scrap of old tunic around the sweep. This was going to require all my strength, and I hoped it would be enough.

The dove returned to Idmon, who cupped it in his hands and stroked it. He looked up and said, 'Just the very last tail-feather clipped'.

'The interval is a count of seven,' said Philammon, who worshipped numbers like all Orpheans.

Idmon spoke to his dove and released her, and she fluttered away. I reflected that the seer did not want the bird to share our death, and tightened my grip on the wooden oar.

Philammon counted as we allowed the current to pick the ship up and carry her towards the rocks as they smashed together again and we were deafened.

'One,' said Philammon as we drove forward with all our strength. The oars bit the water and
Argo
shuddered at this rough handling. 'Two,' said Philammon, and we were inside the Clashing Rocks. 'Three,' he said, and we lurched again, Idas pounding the drum. The cliff was moving inward again at 'four', cutting the blue sky into a patch, and by 'five' it was a slice.

I commended my soul to Poseidon and then all the gods, expecting to see Hermes, guide of souls, walking along the water towards us. The rocks groaned. The sea boiled up around us as the cliff shifted. We were not going to live. The oars dug frantically into the water again. I heard Ancaeas grunt explosively.

The kelp was slowing us. The black arms of Scylla would drag us back until the rocks crushed us and I was glad that Idmon had released his dove. I heard 'six' and the rasping breath expelled from every throat as we dug and dragged and knew that we could not survive.

Then, by direct divine intervention, something like a great hand grasped
Argo
and thrust her forcibly through the narrowing space and into the open sea. I looked back, but I could not see which god had saved us. Philammon said, 'seven,' as the thunder came again and Scylla and Carybdis clashed shut behind us. Only the very last curlicue on our sternpost was missing, clipped off clean.

'Just a tailfeather,' said Argos, and sat down rather quickly.

We were out of the Propontis and into the Euxine Sea, and we were through the Clashing Rocks. We were so exhausted that as soon as a harbour opened, we rowed with our last strength into calm water and collapsed over our oars.

My hands were a mess of broken blisters, bleeding freely. Tiphys and Atalante were leaning on the steering oars, breathing like runners at the end of a ten stadia race over mountains. I heard the strong men, Telamon and Oileus and Ancaeas, gasping like winded horses. Idas was examining his drum ruefully. He had split the skin. Jason was staring into the sky with utter astonishment. Alabande was embracing Erginos, his grey hair splayed over Alabande's shoulder, and they were laughing helplessly. Melas, pale to the lips, was sitting quietly, clearly striving not to be sick over the side. Akastos was saying to Admetos, 'I don't believe it. Who shoved us forward? Did you see anything?' and Admetos was shaking his head. Lynkeos was begging his oar-mate Meleagros, to tell him that he was still alive. Clytios appeared to have fainted. He was leaning on Perithous, who was as white as milk.

Then Philammon began to sing a song of rejoicing which brought the local inhabitants out of their coastal houses to see the marvel; a ship which had rowed through the Clashing Rocks.

Philammon's coppery hair was dark with sea-water, but his hands moved on the strings to a light, exultant, ringing tune.

Sing and rejoice, for we are alive,

Thanks to all gods who dwell on Olympus,

Children of Oceanos, reprieved from ending,

Men who love the sun and wine,

Free to lie exhausted in the light,

Who might have lain crushed in the cold

Water, food for the Clashing Rocks.

Released from a wet death, rejoice,

Men of Iolkos, heroes of
Argo,

Singing praise to the Many-named,

Praise to all the gods.

 

I could not sing - I had also, at some time in that monstrous passage, bitten my tongue - but I did rejoice.

Jason didn't. He sat huddled in the bow. When the song had concluded he said, without looking at us, 'I should have stayed in Iolkos. When Pelias laid this upon me, I should have refused the task. I have made bitter errors and we have only just survived.'

'Lord,' said Akastos comfortingly, 'we have passed the worst point. King Phineas told us the rest of the route to Colchis. Nothing as terrible as the Clashing Rocks confronts us now. And now we know how to get through them, we can do it again on the way back.'

'You only have yourself to worry about,' replied my lord. 'I have to be concerned for all of us.'

'Lord and cousin, you are speaking like this to test us,' said Admetos, and Tiphys nodded. 'We have come all this way, faced and conquered many dangers. We will succeed if the gods allow, and clearly someone is helping us. Did we not feel the divine hand, perhaps of Poseidon himself, thrusting
Argo
through the Clashing Rocks?'

'You fill me with confidence,' said Jason, getting to his feet and turning his face toward us at last. 'You warm my heart, comrades. Very well. We will go on.'

A small fleet of fishing boats had set out towards us. Just in case, the heroes laid hands on weapons.

'Are you Jason of Iolkos?' yelled a man, standing up in the lead boat, holding on to the dolphin-carved prow. On receiving our agreement, he flung a bunch of sweet herbs into the ship and called, 'Blessings be upon you, comers from afar! You killed Amycus, who oppressed and robbed us. Come ashore! A feast is being prepared.'

It was a good feast, and a wise woman cleaned and anointed my hands and bound them in soft linen.

 

We rowed two days against the current. The lands seemed fertile as we trudged past them, green and pleasant. My palms were reblistered within minutes, and every stroke was pain, but I was used to rowing. One drops into a mindless rhythm after a while. The sun rises, soars to noon and then sinks, and the mind is entranced while the body obeys, slide, lift, haul, slide, lift, haul. We would sing to pass the time, old songs which seafarers have always used to while away the tedium of their labour.

But we saw Apollo / Ammon, one morning at sunrise. We were rowing along a flat green coast of many river mouths when Philammon, who was looking sternwards, cried, 'Phanes!'

We turned to see 'that which is revealed' and we saw, almost all of us, for later Argos said that his eyes had filled and Admetos told me that he turned too late. But I saw it, on the sea which was as flat as glass: a glowing man, much bigger than a man; and behind him the lightning flashed and forked, behind him the clouds rolled, black thunderheads heavy with storm. But he came with a light step along the water, which was smoothed into a dancing floor for Erikepaios, Lord of Vintage. His light was too bright for mortal eyes. We were blinded.

When we could see again, without rowing or even being aware of moving, we were in a little bay on a green island. We called it
Anaphae
- the revealed place - and stayed the night before we went on.

Philammon sang to us of Ammon, Apollo, The Archer, the Lovely God, Son of Zeus, He Who Drives the Sun, the Hawk in the Horizon, and told us that we had been greatly favoured.

It did not feel like that the next day. We had landed for water in a marsh. Idmon the seer, whistling to hidden birds, was walking through the reeds when we heard him cry out that a snake had bitten him. By the time we hauled him out of the mud, he was dying.

'My fate has come to me,' he whispered. 'Farewell.'

And with complete self-possession, unafraid, Idmon's soul was borne into the light on the wings of white birds. They fluttered down all around the grave where we laid his body - there was nothing in that wet place of which to make a pyre - and they sang all night, a mournful sound, desolate and breathy, not like any bird's voice I had ever heard. At dawn they flew up, aligning themselves like arrows for the north, and were gone.

In that same place Tiphys sickened with some fever which could not be assuaged by any medicines. He did not cry, but shivered as though winter had him in its grip. The marsh held death, it was clear.

We sat with him, Melas and Philammon and I, all through one night; when he cried that he was cold, cold, and we covered him with every cloak we had, and still heard his teeth chattering. In the firelight he was beautiful. His face was a bronze mask, pure of line, like the sculptors of Achaea make as they pour the molten metal into the mould. There were no marks of age on him, no faltering in his slender body, strong arms, deep chest on which the sweat glazed. But the ice had entered his bones.

He could not swallow on the second day, and Philammon played the 'Descent into Hades,' telling us of Orpheus' journey into the underworld. I lay next to Tiphys, holding him in my arms to try and warm him. His body was burning, but he cried always that he was freezing.

He came to the cold river

Styx, which no live eyes can see,

No breathing one can travel.

The old man, Charon, denying him crossing,

Listened to the lyre and the soft voice

And remembered meadows,

And the sound of the wind in grass.

Orpheus crossed the water

Rowed by the old man.

Then Cerberus, the three-headed

Hound of Hades, chained across the portal,

As Achaean husbands chain guard dogs, roared.

The stones echoed with his challenge,

Stinging the ears. Orpheus played

And Cerberus remembered being a puppy,

Lying with his dam in warm lair,

Remembered the taste of bitch's milk,

Slept in the memory, slobbering with joy.

Orpheus passed the threshold

Into the icy dark, and the shades came,

Fluttering grey ghosts, unremembering,

And one came limping, lately come.

Eurydice whom the snake had robbed

Of lover and life.

 

I realised that the body I was holding as close as a lover was cooling into death, relaxing in my embrace, and I laid my head on our helmsman's silent heart.

We buried him and lay down on the beach to mourn. We lay in our cloaks like wrapped stones, despairing. How would we ever get through this voyage without that voice at the stern saying cheerfully, 'It only needs a good hand on the helm?'

I almost imagined I heard an echo of that voice, 'I've seen worse, shipmate'.

Ancaeas the Strong rose up like a walrus from the beach, shedding sand, and said in a loud voice, 'We cannot stay here. It is true we have lost the best helmsman, but I can steer. You brought me, Jason, because I am a fighter, but I am a son of Poseidon, used to boats, and I've been steering my father's ships since I was eight. Come, friends, lords, we cannot stay longer on this shore, or more of us will die. To join Idmon and Tiphys will not show our grief fittingly. They would want us to go on.'

'The quest is lost,' said Jason dully. 'Even if you can steer, we are weakened by grief, and I fear that we will never reach Aetes' city, nor gain the prizes we seek. No, we are doomed to die in this dreadful place, and the last man will have no memorial.'

'My lord,' I said quickly. 'Do not test us further with these despairing words. It's still light. Let Ancaeas try steering. We can die just as well in the sea as here, and that is a more suitable grave for Nauplios the net-caster's son.'

'And for Telamon,' said Telamon, hauling oar-mate, Oileus, out of his sandy nest. 'Come along, old warrior. We aren't dead yet.'

And we weren't, either. Ancaeas was skilled and careful, and several of us relieved him at the rudders. Erginos and I managed it without actually sinking the ship, though Argos said that it would break a serpent's back to follow our trail, and Atalante revealed unexpected talents, as did Philammon, who had sailed an unoared boat on his initiation voyage for the god Ammon.