Free Jason and Medeia by John Gardner Page A

Agapetika gasped anew. And then it was undone, with one quick toss unfurled like a dazzling, sunlit flag. “ ’For you,’ he told me,” Medeia said, “ ‘because it was
    won
    by both of us. No other woman and no other man could have done it—though only Argus, child of
    Athena, could weave
    the fleece we two brought home. Make a gown of the
    cloth, my queen.
    A symbol, fit for a goddess, of Jason’s love.’ —Jason of the golden tongue, they call him.” She brooded.
    â€œAnd yet I was moved.”
    We looked—the old woman, Medeia, and I—at the
    cloth woven
    from the golden fleece. It was smooth as silk to the
    touch, and yet
    crowded with figures—peacocks, parrots, turrets and
    towers,
    farmers ploughing their sloping fields under city walls, and, nearby, soldiers, ladies and lords on splendid
    barges,
    all interlocked with loveknots and (curious lace)
    sharp bones.
    The scenes kept changing, like tricks of light, and our
    three heads
    bent close, almost touching. We looked so hard that our
    eyes crimped
    like the eyes of a man who’s stared for a minute at the
    sun. Old roads
    drew us mysteriously inward, plunging into forests so
    thick
    no thread of light broke through where the groaning
    limbs interlocked.
    We came to a clearing, a wide black river tumbling,
    roaring
    at our feet, and across it waterfalls crashed out of
    terrible heights,
    gray cliffs that went up like a falling man’s grasp,
    through brooding clouds;
    and the falls, striking, sent out such shocks that the
    ground where we stood
    shivered like the outstretched wing of a soaring hawk.
    The path
    led on—wound inward to a cave like the nose in an
    ancient skull,
    on the far side of the torrent. But the bridge was
    gone. We were stopped.
    Strain as I might, my eyes could pierce no further
    through
    the deceiving mists of the cloth.
    Then, stranger still, I thought,
    I heard faint whispers stirring, rising from the tapestry: the threads of the cloth, it seemed to me, were singing.
    They sang:
    Argus wove me, craftily wrought my warp and woof with magic more than Medeia makes, and misery more, and mystery more. And more than he meant I melt in me and wider than Argus’ wisdom wrought I work my
    wyrds,
    my secret words. For wealth and weal he wove in the
    warp
    (ingenious antic engineer by his ancient art!) but bonefire, bane, and burning blood he buried in the
    woof,
    buried in the woof as the bobbin drove; for his dark
    brains burned,
    and little his lore of the lower lusts that lurk in love, lurked in his love for the lady and lord he labored for. (Woe lay within him when Argus wrought my warp
    and woof,
    the warp and woof of my web so wisely, wickedly
    wrought.)
    Argus wove me, weary old Argus, weary old Argus
    who wished them well.
    I stared at Medeia. She’d heard some other song,
    perhaps.
    Or each of us heard what he knew. For the fat old
    woman wept
    and covered her face with her gray hands, shaking in
    sorrow.
    The room went dark. I reached out suddenly to touch
    the two women,
    hold them a moment longer and warn Medeia. I’d
    watched
    too long as the timid outsider, even as I did in my
    own life,
    thirty centuries hence. “Medeia!” I called. No answer. Only the moan of the universe turning on its weary
    wheels.
    My hands closed on nothing. She was a dream.
    â€œMedeia,”
    I whispered. Useless. The long sigh of the galaxies slowly exhaling, dimming, drifting through darkness.
    Dreams.

5
    The great hall gleamed. Koprophoros spoke, the
    dark-eyed king
    with the womanish voice, great rolls of abdomens and
    chins.
    The ruby glowed on his forehead like blood on fire,
    and the gold
    of his turban, his robes, his scimitar, was bright as the
    sun.
    The meal had been carried away long since, the
    jugglers returned
    to their rooms to count their coins. The slaves moved
    silently
    from table to table, pouring wine. Old Kreon sat with his chin resting in his hands,