deep-grounded
walls, defending its women, right or wrong? As for all Aithalides saw and heard, should I trust the evidence of another’s fallible senses and not my own? A case of desperate rationalizing, you may say. I grant it. But I think no man but a fool would have dared to
avenge those deaths
with no more case for Hypsipyle’s guilt than that. She
was
no ordinary beauty, moreover — whatever her sins. She was fait as the moon, resplendent as the sun; in
her gem-rich robes
as dazzling as an army with all its banners flying.
“I rose.
‘We need your help, Hypsipyle,’ I said, ‘and all you
can give us.
But the sovereignty I must leave to you — though not
from indifference.
An urgent calling forces me on. I’ll talk with my men and come once more to your palace.’ I stretched my
hand to her
and she took it A touch like fire. I quickly turned and
left,
and countless young girls ran to me, dancing around
me, smiling,
kissing my hands, my cheeks, my clothes. They knew
what it was
to be women, manless for a year and more. Before
I reached
the shore, they were there before me with
smooth-running wagons laden
with gifts. They did not find it hard to bring my
Argonauts
home with them. Queen Aphrodite, changeable as summer wind, was in every blade of grass; she shone in every rock and tree. And so I spent the night with Hypsipyle, my truncheon under the pillow. And
spent
the next night too, and the next. And I could find no
sign
of wickedness in those dove-soft eyes, no trace of a lie on her apple-scented lips. Nor could my men find evil hidden in the women who led them gently, shyly, home to bed. They were not racked by nightmares, prodded
and pinched
by guilt, hounded by furies. If they were alarmed
at times
by images, were their husbands not alarmed before
them,
those who’d raided and bloodied the fields of Thrace?
Do innocent
sheep not sometimes cringe, ambushed by memory,
the same as
wolves?
“As I lay beside her one night, my left hand under
her head, my right embracing her, she whispered, ‘Jason, are men capable of love?’ I glanced at her eyes. They
seemed
a child’s eyes, baffled and lonely, but far more beautiful than any ordinary child’s. ‘Are women?’ I asked.
Her eyes
formed tears — whether false or honest tears, who
knows? I listened.
The night outside our window fell forever, a void. I heard the dark sea pounding on the land, the dark
wind shaking
trees, and I fell into a dream of wheeling birds,
old sea-beasts,
monsters crawling on the land on short, dark legs.
If we were
centaurs landed on Lemnos, violent murderers, still I’d be here in her arms, and might be fond of her. And Thoas’ daughter would move her hand on my
wiry mane,
my gift to her coiled in her womb. When hot Aphrodite
strikes,
sanity shifts to loblogic. My nightmare turned to numbers bumping in space like rocks in a vortex.
I sat up,
staring. She touched my cheek. We slept again,
and again
at dawn the fire awoke in me and I took her in my arms and thought her filled with light. And still the old gray
waves
crashed on the rocks, and the rocks took them, hurled
them away again,
took them again; and the ghost-filled wind moved
through stiff branches,
howled in the battlements, walkways, spindrift parapets, moon-bruised stone escarpments sinking in tiers to
the sea …
falling endlessly, hopelessly … My mind was a nest of snakes. There was nothing to avenge, nor was I,
in any case,
keeper of Lemnos’ dead. Though the very earth cried out, voice of their blood, for vengeance (the earth did
not cry out),
how could all that be my affair? Search where I might, I saw no certain good, no certain evil, therefore nothing I dared to attack. It was not that I doubted
their guilt,
ultimately. But all the universe howls for freedom, strikes at the tyrant when he turns his back. Who
dares condemn
the goaded bull when, flanks torn, bleeding, heavy
of heart,
he sees his moment and, bellowing, charges the
farmer’s son?
We lead him away to the slaughterhouse with prods
of bronze,
twisting the ring in his nose till the foam runs pink;
for once
he’s tasted freedom, he’s dangerous, useless. And so
it was
with the Lemnian women. How could they love with a
pure heart now,
how put on a contrition devoid of intrinsicate clauses, secret reservations? And how could we men demand
it of them?
What I mean has nothing to do with mastery. Love
was dead
on the sad isle of Lemnos. Or so it seemed to me—
seemed
to all of us, those who were there. Old Argus waited
on the ship
with Herakles. Those two had refused to come with us, one too wise, the other too stiffly ignorant. So we stayed. Day followed day, and still we did not sail.
“That was no pleasant time for Hera, nursing
her grudge,
waiting for Pelias to pay for the times he’d slighted her. She troubled my chest with restlessness, caused me
to gaze
moodily out at the window, peer through the lattice,
pace
by the sea, debating, stirred by I knew not what. Nothing made sense. Why fight for a share in the kingdom with
Pelias, when here
I was king alone, for whatever it was worth? Why
risk Aietes’
rage for a hank of wool when here I had all the warmth of Hypsipyle — for what it was worth? What was
anything worth?
No doubt she made life on Olympos hard enough, that
queen.
When her patience wore out, she came in the shape of
a lizard, a spider,
a bird — who knows? — and whispered dreams into
Herakles’ head
where he slept, sullen, on the ship, held back by the
rest of us.
Then Herakles spoke. Said stupid words, great
bloated mushrooms—
Honor, Loyalty, Lofty Mission, Cowardice, Fame— grand assumptions of his lame-brained, muscular soul.
As if
the universe had honor in it, or loyalty, or lofty mission because, in the mindless knee-bends,
push-ups,
hammer-throws of his innocence, he believed in them. We could not look him in the eye or give him answer.
He had
the power to take off our heads as children tear off
branches
in a nut orchard, if he chose to think that “honorable.” Was I willing to die for Hypsipyle? Would she for me? You’ve lived too long, no doubt, when you’ve learned
that time takes care
of grief. We were young, but many bad lived too long.
So that
we said, rational as curled, dry leaves in an angry wind, we’d go. And prepared our gear.
“When the women got word of it
they came down running, and swarmed around us like
bees that pour
from the rocky hive when the meadows are jewelled with
dew and the lilies
are bloated with all bees need. Hypsipyle took my hands in hers and said, ‘Go then, Jason. Do what you must. Return when you’ve captured the fleece. The throne