Read Online Jason and Medeia by John Gardner - Free Book Online

it seemed to me: discolored as if by age or smoke. The sea-kings’ treasures, piled high
    against
    walls that seemed, when I first saw them, to be
    gleaming sheets
    of chalcedony and mottled jade, with beams of ebony, were dark, ambiguous hues, uncertain forms in the
    flicker
    of torches. There were figures of goldlike substance—
    curious ikons
    with staring eyes. There were baskets, carpets, bowls,
    weapons,
    animals staring like owls from their lashed wooden
    cages. The hall
    was heavy, oppressive with the wealth of Kreon’s
    visitors.
    The harpsong ended. In a shadowy corner of the great
    dim room
    dancing girls—slaves with naked breasts—jangled
    their bracelets
    and fled. A horn of bone sang out. A silence. Then … as flash floods burst in their headlong rush down
    mountain flumes
    when melting snowcaps join with the first warm
    summer rains,
    sweeping off all that impedes them, swelling the
    gullies and creeks
    to the brim and beyond, all swirling, glittering,—so
    down the aisles
    of Kreon’s hall, filling each gap between trestle-tables, platters held high, hurtling along like boulders and
    driftwood,
    silver and gold on the current’s crest, came Kreon’s
    slaves.
    Their trays came loaded with stews and sauces, white
    with steamclouds,
    some piled high with meats of all kinds; some trailed
    blue flame.
    A great Ah! like the ocean drawn back from the pebbles
    of the shore
    welled through the room. Jason, dark head lowered,
    smiled.
    The huge Koprophoros snatched like a hungry bear at
    food.
    They mock me,” he whimpered to the man beside him.
    They’ll change their tune!”
    The torches flickered. Kreon patted his hands together. When I closed my eyes the sound of their eating was
    the faraway roar
    of dark waves grinding over boulders—ominous,
    mindless.

4
    Sunset. She sat in the room that opened on the terrace
    and garden
    watching the red go out of roses, the red-orange flame drain gradually out of the sky. Leaves, branches of
    trees,
    flowers that an hour before had been sharp with color,
    became
    all one, dark figures etched into dusk. Shade by shade they became one tone with the night. From Kreon’s
    palace above,
    its torchlit walls just visible here and there through gaps in the heavy bulk of oaks, occasional sounds came down, a burst of laughter, a snatch of song, the low boom of table chatter, and now and then some nearer voice, a guard, a servant at the gates—all far away, bell-like, ringing off smooth stone walls and walkways, glancing
    off pools,
    annulate tones moving out through the arch of
    distances.
    At times, above more muted sounds, I could hear the
    drone
    of the female slave, Agapetika, putting the children to
    bed,
    and sometimes a muttered rebuke from the second of
    the slaves, the man.
    Medeia sat like marble, expressionless, white hands
    clamped
    on the arms of her chair. It was as if she were holding
    the room together
    by her own stillness, a delicate balance like that of the
    mind
    of Zeus o’ervaulting the universe, enchaining dragons by thought. So she sat for a long time. Then, abruptly, she turned—a barely perceptible shift— and looked at the door, listening. Two minutes passed. The breathlike whisper of sandals came from the
    corridor.
    After a time, the old woman’s form emerged at the
    doorway,
    stooped, as heavy as stone, her white flesh liver-spotted, draped from head to foot in cinereal gray, her weight buttressed by two thick canes. The slave looked in,
    dim-eyed.
    Thank you, Agapetika,” Medeia said.
    No answer. But slowly—so slowly I found it hard to
    be sure
    from second to second whether or not she was still
    moving—
    the old woman came forward. “Medeia, you’re ill again!” A moan like a dog’s. Medeia got up suddenly, angrily, and went out to stand on the terrace, her back to the slave. Another long silence. The sounds coming
    down from the palace
    were