‘Who are you fooling with your crocodile tears, sly son
of Aison?
Nothing could suit you better than abandoning Herakles. You planned the whole thing yourself, so that Herakles’
fame in Hellas,
if we make it back, can never eclipse your own. But
why waste
breath on you! We’re turning around, and damned if
I’m asking
permission of the man who helped with your stinking
plot.’ As he finished,
Telamon leaped at Tiphys’ throat, his eyes ablaze with anger. In a minute we’d all have been fighting
our way back to Mysia,
forcing the ship through the rough sea, bucking a stiff
and steady
wind. But then the sons of the North Wind, Zetes and
Kalais,
shot quick as arrows between the two, and checked
Telamon
with a stinging rebuke. Traitor! Mutineer!’ Kalais
shouted.
‘Are you now seizing the command the Argonauts chose
by vote?
Have northern seas made the Argo a ship of barbarians, where loyalty’s muscle, and keeping faith to old vows
is a matter
of size?’ Poor devils! A terrible punishment was coming
to them
when Herakles learned that their words cut short our
search. He killed
the North Wind’s sons when they were returning home
from the funeral games
for Pelias; and he made a barrow over them, and set up
the famous
pillars, one of which sways whenever the North Wind moves across it, struggling to dig up his sons. —But
all that was
later.
“The wind grew stronger, bringing up clouds;
harsh sea-waves
hammered at the Argo, slammed at our gunwales till
the magic beams
of Athena’s ship were howling in fury at Poseidon.
Orpheus
played, but the sea wouldn’t hear. Then Idmon, younger
of the seers,
stood up, wild-eyed, and clinging to the mast, he yelled
out, ‘Listen!’
We listened, and heard … God only knows. But as if
in a dream
I saw a hand six paces broad rise un from the water and grasp the Argo’s side, and the ship was still as a
stone
despite the terrible wind, the churning, pitch-dark waves. Then a voice heavier than thunder said: ‘Hear me,
Argonauts!
How dare ye, in proud defiance of Almighty Zeus, purpose to carry fierce Herakles to Kolchis? His fate assigns him Argos, where he’s doomed to serve
Eurystheus,
accomplishing for him twelve great tasks; and if, in the
few
remaining, he happens to prevail, he shall go back to
Zeus, his father.
Forget regret. As for Polyphemon, it is his fate that he found a famous city among the Mysians, where
the Kios
disembogues to the sea. He will die, when the gods see
fit.
far from his home, in the broad land of the Khalybes. As for Hylas, a nymph has taken him—too much in love to ask permission of the bold and glorious Argonauts.’ So he spoke. The thunderheads rumbled as if in a laugh.
The huge hand
sank. Dark water swirled around us, broke into foam, tumbled past rails and coamings and hurled us on.
‘Then Telamon
came to me, weeping, and clutched my hand and kissed
it, saying:
‘Forgive me, lord. Do not be angry if in a foolish moment I was blinded by love for dear friends lost. The
immortal gods
know best, I hope. As for my offense, may it blow away with the wind, and let us two, who have always been
friends, be friends
again.’
“I said nothing for a long time, the god’s laughter— soft and dangerous as thunder on the open sea—
still ringing
in my ears. It seemed that only I, of all the Argonauts, or only Idas and I (I saw the madman’s eyes), fully understood that our grand mission was insanity— and Akastos, perhaps, my cousin, Pelias’ son. (He sat, thin arms folded, staring full of sorrow at the grinding
sea.)
It seemed to me that we alone had grasped the message of the voice that came from the storm: Love truth,
love loyalty
so far as it suits our convenience. I’d lose still more of
them.
Such was the prophecy of the seers on the day we’d
left. I’d watch them,
one by one, drift off, slip past recall. And if
I told them now it was all a mistake—those glory-seekers gathered from all Akhaia (Telamon’s brother Peleus, waving proudly to his son, brought down to see us off by Kheiron’s wife, old Kheiron beaming, waving his two huge arms; Hylas, beaming at his hero; Herakles rowing, the muscles of his face like knots) … But I was still
the one will that resolves the many, even when the many are mad. Sense may emerge at last, in human labors, or may not. Meanwhile, there must be order, faith in
the mission;
otherwise, deadly absurdity. I couldn’t afford mere humanness, the comfort of admitting confusion.
I would
lose more that way. The eternal gods can afford whimsy. Not us. Not I, as captain.
“I got control and said:
‘Good Telamon, you did indeed insult me grievously when you accused me, here before all these men, of
wronging a loyal
friend. They cut to the quick, those heartless words of
yours.
But I don’t mean to nurse a grudge against you. It was
not some flock
of sheep, some passel of worldly goods you were
quarrelling about,
but a man, a beloved comrade of your own. I like to
think
if occasion arose you’d stand for me against all other
men
as boldly as you did for him.’ Then, not too hastily, like a man setting his rankling wrath aside, I embraced
him.
He wept fiercely, like the child he was. And I too wept, moved by the childlike heart in that towering warlord.
Orpheus
studied his golden instrument, knowing my mind too
well.
“I learned later that all turned out in Mysia exactly as the voice in the storm foretold. Polyphemon built
his city;
Herakles resumed the labors he’d dropped in haste at
the gates
of Mykenai—but before he left, he threatened to lay all Mysia waste if the people failed to discover for him what had become of poor Hylas, alive or dead. The
Mysians
gave him the finest of their eldest sons as blood-bond
hostages
and swore they’d continue the search.
“So much for the steadfast faith
of Herakles.
“All that day, through the following night,
gale winds carried us on. When the time for daybreak
came
there was no light. The wind died suddenly, as if at a
sign
from Zeus. The sky went green. There was hardly air
enough
to breathe. No man on board had the strength to row.
We sat,
soaking in sweat, praying to all the gods we knew. There were voices—sounds from the flat sea, from
passing birds,
the greenness above us: Where’s Herakles? Where’s
Hylas? We started,
prayed with our parched lips to the sixteen powers of
the sea.
It was unjust—insane. ‘What do they
want of us?’
I asked the seers.
‘Where’s Herakles? Where’s Hylas?’ they said, but in
voices not
their own. We waited—how many days I couldn’t say. My cousin Akastos sat at my side, on watch, as if to guard me from some grim foe outside, though he
knew pretty well,
like Idas, like Phlias with his hand on my shoulder,
where my enemy lurked.
“In that senseless calm, Orpheus remembered
Dionysos: sang
how Zeus once put on his darker form, the dragon shape of Zeus Katachthonios, called Hades, whom he himself
expelled
from heaven, and went in that evil form to the shadow
of Hera,
the serpent Demeter, deep in the earth, whom Hera
hated
and who was Hera, though both of them had forgotten.
In her
he planted Persephone, later his Underworld queen,
by whom
Hades-Zeus had his son Dionysos, who was born
many times,
always unlucky. At times he was torn apart by Titans, at times by animals, at times by women gone crazy
with wine
and lust. Once, leading virgins on a violent, drunken
hunt,
he captured his quarry and, tearing it apart alive,
discovered
in amazement and terror that the beast had a dark
human face and horns,
that is, it was himself. It was he who invented wine, crown of his father’s creation—Dionysos’ glory, and
his ruin.
black;
his queen was white as snow. Because their marriage
was perfect,
Zeus came down to their daughter Semele in the guise
of a man
and fed her the heart of his once-again-slain son.
Queen Hera
saw that the girl was pregnant, and in jealous rage
forced Zeus
to visit Semele in his true celestial form—a thunderbolt. The girl was consumed, but not before Zeus had
snatched his child,
whom he sewed into his thigh and carried to the time
of delivery
and then returned to Kadmos and Queen Harmonia.
“Though the matchless couple had seemed so flawless
they could never die,
in time they grew old and short of breath. Then the
child Dionysos
cried out in sorrow to Zeus. The father of the gods
came flashing
out of heaven, and in smoke and flames the two were
transmogrified, changed
to a dragon and a monstrous snake, now rulers of the
dead, chief thanes
of Dionysos. Thus began Hera’s rage at Thebes, and
the sorrows
of Kadmos’ line: Oidipus weeping blood, Jokasta hanged, Antigone buried alive.
“So Orpheus sang
the age-old riddle of things, and it seemed that the still
sea listened.
“Then, for no reason, there was air again, and the sail
bellied out,
and the ship began to move. Toward noon, we spotted
land.
“As we beached the ship, a huge old man came out
to us,
his arms folded on his chest, his gray beard brustling
from his chin
like a bush. Without even bothering to ask what race
we were
or what had brought us to his shore, he said: ‘Listen,
sailormen:
There’s something you should know. We have customs
here, in the farming country of the Bebrykes.
No foreigner daring to touch these shores
moves on, continuing his journey, until he’s first put up his fists to mine. I’m the greatest bully in the world,
you’ll say—
not without justification. I’m known, throughout these
parts,
as Amykos, murderer of men. I’ve killed some ten of
my neighbors,
and here I am, remorseless, waiting to kill, today, one of you. It’s a matter of custom, you see.’ He
shrugged as if
to say he too disliked it; and then, cocking his head, wrinkling his wide, low brow, he said: The world’s
insane.
It used to fill me with anguish when I was a boy. I’d
stare,
amazed, sick at heart, at the old, obscene stupidity— the terrible objectness of things: sunrise, sunset; high-tide, low-tide; summer, winter; generation,
decay…
My youthful heart cried out for sense—some signpost,
general
purpose—but whatever direction I looked, the world was a bucket of worms: squirming,
directionless—it was nauseating!’
He breathed deeply, remembering well how it was.
He said:
‘I resolved to die. I stopped eating. For a number of
weeks
(I kept no count; why should I?) I spurned all food as
if it were
dirt. And then one day I noticed I was eating. It
seemed mere
accident: my mind had wandered, weakened by my fast, and pow! there I was, eating. Absurd! But after my first amazement, I saw the significance
of it.
The universe had within it at least one principle: survival! I leaped from my stool, half mad with joy,
ran howling
out to the light from my cave, leading all my followers. I exist!” I bellowed. “Us too!” they bellowed. We ate
like pigs.
But soon, alas, we were satiated. Though we rammed
our fingers
down in our throats and regurgitated, still, the feast was unappetizing. They looked up mournfully to me
for help.
For three long weeks, in acute despair, I brooded on it. And then, praise God!, it came to me. My own existence was my first and only principle. Any further step must be posited on that. I examined my history, searched voraciously night and day for signs, some hint of pattern. And then it came to me: I had killed four
men
with my fists. Each one was an accident, a trifling event lost, each time, in the buzzing, blooming confusion
of events
that obfuscate common life. But now I remembered!
I seized it!
Also, I seized up the follower dodling nearest to me— meaningless dog-eyed anthropoid, source of calefactions, frosts, random as time, poor worm-vague brute existent, “friend” in the only sense we knew: I’d learned his name by heart. By one magnificent act, I transmuted him. I defined him: changed him from nothing-everything he
was before
to purpose—inextricable end and means. I seized him,
raised
my fists, and knocked him dead; and this time I meant
it. No casual
synastry. My disciples were astonished, of course. But
when
I explained to them, they fell, instantly, grovelling
at my feet,
calling me Master, Prince of the World, All-seeing Lord. On further thought, I came to an even higher
perception:
As the soul, rightly considered, consists of several parts, so does the state. It follows that what gives meaning
and purpose
to the soul may also give meaning and purpose to the
state. I needn’t
describe the joy that filled my people on learning this
latest
discovery of (if one may so express oneself) their Philosopher King. To make a long story short,
we began
a tradition—a custom, so to speak. Namely, no foreigner
&n
bsp; touching
these shores is allowed to leave without first putting up
his fists
to mine. Regrettably, of course, since you’re so young.’
He shrugged.
‘Who’s ready?—Or, to shift to the general: Who’s
your sacrifice?’
He waited, beaming, pleased with himself—his
enormous fists
on his hips. None of us spoke. We simply stared,
dumbfounded,
the old man’s crazy philosophy bouncing in our heads.
At last
Polydeukes stepped forward, known as the king of all
boxers.
It seems he’d taken Amykos’ boasts as a personal affront.
“ ‘Enough!” he said, eyes fierce. ‘No more of your
polysyllabic
shadowboxing. I am Polydeukes, known far and wide for my mighty fists. You’ve stated your rules—your
ridiculous law—
and I stand here ready, of my own free will, to meet
them.’
The king
frowned darkly, not out of fear of our brilliant
Polydeukes,
but annoyed, it seemed, by some trifling verbal
inaccuracy.
‘Free will,’ he said, and laughed. ‘I made the ridiculous
rules,
not you. I have free will, not you. You bump against my laws like a boulder bumping against a wall.’
“ ‘Not so,’
Polydeukes said, voice calm. ‘I choose to meet you.
A man
may slide with the current of a mountain stream or
swim with it.
There’s a difference.’ Old Amykos stammered in rage.
In another minute
they’d have started in without gloves, unceremoniously, but I intervened with persuasive words. They cooled
their tempers,
and Amykos backed away, though even now he glared at Polydeukes, his old eyes rolling like the eyes of a lion who’s hit by a spear when they hunt him in the
mountains and, caring nothing
for the crowd of huntsmen hemming him in, he picks
out the man
who wounded him and keeps his furious eyes on him
alone.
“Polydeukes was wearing a light and closely woven cloak, the gift of his Lemnian wife. He laid it aside. The fierce old man threw down his dark double mantle
with its
snake-head clasps. They chose a place—a wide, flat field, and the rest of us then sat down, two separate groups.
“In looks,
no two could have been more opposite, the old man
hunchbacked,
bristled and warted like an ogre’s child, the younger
straight
as a mast, bright down on his cheek. He seemed no more
than a boy,