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Jason and Medea
by Islen Rooke
It is fruit she is eating when they first meet, with her ruby lips, her white teeth. She wears a short sword belted to her side, as though to say with the weapon, with her proud chin, with her dark eyes, that she is a warrior equal to and superior to any man. She says nothing, but she watches him.
The King of Colchis is old, fat, affable, deceptively mild. He drinks a lot and makes endless toasts. His son is a young fool, a peacock, beautiful as a woman. He sulks and pouts, he glares, he wishes for a greater glory than can be found on the Black Sea's shores. She does not glare. She stares at him steadily over the rim of her wine cup, licks at it with her small pink tongue. She has an unexpected smile and unexpectedly white teeth.
She does magic and murder, he knows this. She is a sorceress, a priestess, a keeper of secrets. Lesser men would be awed, cowed, but not men beloved of Goddesses.
That night, after the feasting, she comes to him in the gardens as he has always known she would. He pulls her close, she tilts her head back, does not kiss him, simply stares at him with her dark eyes. Inscrutable. He remembers tales he heard told about this woman. "Is it true that you are a daughter of Dragons?" "I am a daughter of man also", she replies, "and you are in my father's house." He risks much, being here with her. One shout will bring guards down on him, have him killed. Lesser men would be afraid but he is not afraid and she does not shout.
She is not easily swayed, but he is blessed of Aphrodite and he has a way with women. She uncoils the way snakes do, she takes his hand and leads him to secluded places, a grove, shields them with her magic there. He unbinds her heavy hair, her silken gown. Her neck is a slender Temple column, her breasts ripe fruit and her smooth thighs part easily as reed. She opens, the way the sea does, she flows over him, covers him with the waves of her hair. And then as he discovers her with his hands, she in turn finds him with her mouth and her tongue and her teeth.
That is the beginning. And afterwards, a thrill of another kind in the grove, when she tells him she knows of songs to enchant dragons, to make them sleep.
She says, "You can never capture the Fleece, or fulfill the tasks my father sets you alone. You know no magic. I know how each of the things you need can be done and I will help you, I will be your sword and your guardian, I will leave my land for you, if you promise to make me your wife."
He promises. It is easy to do so. She is enchanting after all and beautiful and skilled and he knows he needs her.
Sudden as a striking snake, she unsheathes her dagger, runs it gently along his collarbone. The night becomes very still. He is aware of his heartbeat, the thundering pulse in his throat. "If you betray me," she says, "I will not hesitate to kill you, or myself." The point of her knife presses against his neck, breaks skin. I will never betray you, he says, "I love you and you are very beautiful." He does, she is.
She smiles, lowers the knife, lowers her head and licks the trail of blood on his neck almost tenderly. He breathes, uncoils. Grabs her wrist with one hand, her hair with the other, kisses her savagely. Their limbs lace again, and in the morning he sets out to win his treasures and she helps him.
She binds the fire-breathing bulls to Ares' plow, she binds a dragon with magical sleep. He lifts down the golden hide, they flee. Her brother, they discover, is already on board his ship and her father is thundering from his palace in wrathful pursuit. She is impossible to read, her eyes show neither pleasure, or displeasure, and she stands on the prow of the ship looking back at her father, no longer affable, raging from the chasing ship. The vessel of the King of Colchis is slender and quick, it is not long before it is clear that he is gaining on them. She turns, he catches sight of her eyes, thinks he sees something in them that is new, and unexpected.
A shadow cast by passing cloud that is contemplation perhaps, or regret. She turns to her brother, with smooth grace and perfect ease. She strokes his cheek, she kisses his forehead and then she cuts him down before he has time to scream. The King does scream however. His keen carries across the waves. She heaves her brother's corpse overboard. The King stops his chase, sends sailors to dive for the body of his son.
"He was always a weakling and a fool," she says "and though I never liked him anyway, I take no pleasure in his death but this: I have fulfilled my promises, I have shed blood for you, for love of you, and by Hellas the Oath-keeper you are sworn to uphold your promises to me. We belong to one another now."
At first, she is exotic. There is passion, adulation, excitement in their sea journey, in their flight from Colchis, from Iolcus. In Corinth he is given a hero's welcome. There are great honours for him, rewards, celebrations. Jason the Golden, Beloved of Aphrodite. Who went beyond known lands to find the Golden Fleece, who brought back another prize, a dark eyed, magic-weaving wife from a land beyond the sea. His muscles shine with scented oils, his eyes shine with triumph. He is the toast of Corinth, he is the envy of all men. The King salutes him.
The Princess, a child still, arrogant and pretty, stares at him from the dais and gives him permission to kiss her foot. Graceful as a lion, he bends his shining head to her, he kneels, he plants a kiss like a tribute, on her anklebone. They cheer for him, the King and the courtiers, he is richly rewarded. Music is called for, and foods and fine wines. Through the days of feasting, she says little his new wife, just smiles and watches him with her coal eyes. Sips her wine and runs her tongue along the rim of the goblet. More often than not, they leave the feasts early, they reach for one another with the same urgency as on the first night, in the grove. He has never known a woman like her. She is deadly and clever as a blade, she has the savage beauty of eagles and hawks. The intensity of her is a challenge, a drug, a thrill.
They have two sons.
Revulsion sets in slowly, with complacency and distrust. His house, though one of the finest in Corinth, begins to seem small, and shabby. He spends more time at court, where the King's daughter, grown now, follow him with her eyes, offers him her hands to kiss. She has blue eyes and hair golden as the treasure he crossed seas to find. How pale she is, and lovely! How noble her profile, how fetching her form! How different she is to his wife!
At home, the things he once loved about his sorceress begin to repel him. The way she dresses, the way she wears her hair, the way she is so shamelessly uninhibited in her passions and desires. His sister is no help. "What did you expect, marrying a barbarian?" He expected her to become educated, enlightened, civilized, shaped by Greece. He did not expect that she would so stubbornly refuse self-improvement and cling to her unwomanly ways. He did not expect her dark eyes, her clever hands, the many magics she knows. He did not, certainly, expect her violent temper, her utter unwillingness to see reason when he takes a second wife.
A King's daughter no less! Who means station and wealth beyond imagining. A palace. Thrones and marble halls. A fitting conclusion to the life of a hero. He has been dreaming of this, craving it for years. It is his destiny, his due.
She is fierce in her love and anger his first wife, he has always known that. Once it was a source of the attraction. Is now a source of much screaming and broken crockery. Though it pains him a little to do this, though he would never admit to feeling guilty, or afraid, he advises the King of Corinth to have her exiled. There is little to regret, she has brought it on herself after all. It does not do to threaten and insult royalty, he reminds her, forgetting that she was once royalty herself.
How she wails and rages the accursed creature, calling him, him!, Hero of the Argonauts!, the basest of men. As though he had not brought her from her backwards backwaters land to the cradle of light and culture that is Greece. As though he did not treat her well, as though he was not the father of her sons. As though his advancement could not benefit her, or their children. They would be brothers to Princes of the land! Their future was assured, as would hers have been if she had only kept quiet and seen sense.
But no, of course not! She was not given to agreeableness. He should have known how impossible she was, how malicious. His sister was right. After all, what else can one expect of barbarians but vicious passion and slander? Or else, perhaps women the world over are united in their hysterics and maleficent shrieking? "How could you!" over and over, as though he was indebted to her, as though a man beloved of Aphrodite would need the help of a mortal woman! As though she was due anything beyond pity and contempt. The woman was an insufferable harpy, he would be well rid of her.
In hindsight, he should have been wary of her sudden softness, of her conciliatory gestures, her seeming willingness for peace; but he was skilled in reading the sea, not women and he has never doubted her love of their sons, her devotion to their welfare. "I realize that I am exiled Jason, and that it is only right it should be so. After all, what new bride wishes to look upon an old one? But I would not have my children suffer with me. I would not have your new wife mistreat and hate them. As a peace offering, I would send her a wedding gift. A coronet of beaten gold, delicate as her features, and a many-coloured raiment bestowed upon my kin by Helios." He laughs. How like women, such foolishness.
"Silly woman, why deprive yourself of these? My wife values me and my wishes, even without gold, I am quite sure/" Something flashes in her eyes, suddenly as lightning, is quelled almost as soon as it appears. She drops her gaze. It is the first time he has seen her do so. He is stunned, moved.
"Respectfully, once-husband, as they say gifts win over even the gods, and gold is more to women than sweet entreaties. To free my children from exile and mockery I would surrender much more than gowns and gold." That should also have warned him. This is the first time he has heard her use the word, respectfully, but he feels magnanimous and his spirits are too find to dampen. And the gifts she offers, the gifts his children carry to the Princess, are very find indeed.
They sail into the palace like two small suns, his smiling children, laden with offerings of his first wife. The Princess does not heed them, stares only at him. Is less than pleased at the presence of his progeny, turns her cheek away and makes a moue with her lips, very prettily. "My dear," he entreats, "if you love me, then turn not your eyes from my kin and let those who are dear to me be dear to you. Receive the gifts and intercede with your father to grant my sons reprieve from exile for my sake." He is beloved of Aphrodite after all, has no doubts in his ability to sway women. Finds there is little need of it after all, once she sees the gown, the coronet. How charmed she is, how she claps her hands, and retires to her chambers at once to put on the coronet, and the raiment's, to look at herself in bright mirrors and twist this way and that.
He sweeps his children in his arms, kisses their faces, their hands. "Your father is the most clever of men, and all shall be well. Go home now, and wait for glad tidings and the king's pardon."
They are long gone by the time he hears the screams, doesn't understand at first where they are coming from. Sees his young wife fling herself from her rooms, clawing at her face and chest, shaking her head, trying to rip off the dress, shake off the coronet. They are burning her, and they are stuck fast. A shout springs from him, like a thundering wave. A name. "Medea!!!"
The Princess collapses. Her father, the aged king, throws himself down on his knees before her, tries to wrest the crown off her head. There is never any hope. The magical fire consumes them both.
Jason does not wait until the end. He is already snatching his sword, already running, thinking of nothing beyond his rage.
He hammers on the barred doors of her house, he yells her name. He is not worried for his children, not then. Instead, he is crazed with anger. He wants to throw her down in the dirt, rip every hair from her head, strangle her with his bare hands. She has ruined him! He will wrap his hands around her throat, he will shake her until her teeth rattle, he will smash her against the wall until her head cracks open like a ripe coconut, until she begs him for mercy, but he will show her none. He pounds the wood until his fists run with blood, he howls.
Regal as sunrise, she emerges beyond the house in a chariot of fire and gold. "Your sons are dead," she says, "I killed them," and she bends down and lifts something from the chariot floor. Two boys: one six, one eight.
Who had hair gold as wheat and ready smiles and wooden swords to spar with.
He cannot name the moment when he begins to scream, when fury becomes terrible grief.
Two boys. One six, one eight. In the yard he built them a ship from an old bathtub, fashioned a sail from a cloak. "We are the Argonauts", the eldest one cried, "watch us daddy!" and the youngest said nothing being wholly absorbed in maneuvering their boat between treacherous rocks. Encounters Loss then, its sharpness, its weight, as though the break in his heart has sucked all the light from the world.
He had been confident in his ability to protect them from vengeance of Creon's kin, had never thought she would harm them, she who birthed them, who adored them. He has never thought such a dreadful thing could be possible. Certainly no Greek woman would ever have done it, could ever have such a black heart. Only barbarians, who slew for love and rage.
She stands in a Chariot of Helios, drawn by fearsome winged creatures. Her hair is unbound, her face streaked with ashes. She has been crying, but she is not crying now. He remembers a conversation they had in the grove, long ago, about pledges and dragons.
"Put down your weapons, Jason," she says, a little warily, "I am protected by the magic of the chariot and you cannot touch me."
"How could you!" he screams. He seizes clods of earth, hurtles them at her. They fall short.
"How could you, Jason? Do you imagine loss of love to be trivial to a woman?"
Bereft of other weapons, they sling words at each other, like arrows.
"Child-murderer!"
"Hateful deceiver!"
"Let me bury my children, Medea!"
"No! You shall not have them! Go bury your wife instead!"
"You are the most evil, the most dreadful of women! The Gods will punish you for your sins!"
"As they will you Oath-breaker." She is serene, the still eye of the storm.
"Let me touch my sons and mourn them! "The Chariot lifts from the ground. He sees the children again, their bright heads and the dreadful red smiles on their necks. He who thought his heart was beyond breaking, discovers new measures of grief.
"You have killed me!" She flashes then, one of her unexpected smiles.
"Your mourning has yet to begin, old love. Wait until old age."
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