Medea

You are five, and should hear the truth of yourself.

You are not my son and I did not find you in the sea.

All I have told you is a lie.

You are not a liar, but I love telling lies.

Are you sorry you are not my son?

Sorry I am neither your father nor mother?

It all began because of a ram,

a divine, talking ram.

Hermes gave it to Nephele

to save his children

from Ino, daughter of Cadmus, who wanted to kill them.

Ino replaced Nephele as wife of King Athamas.

Ino had also been wife of Aeolus, father of Athamas.

In short, it was a question of jealousy. Well, this ram

carried Phrixus, one of Nephele's sons, across the sea.

He was welcomed by King Aeëtes, the son of the sun.

The divine ram, whose fleece was of gold

was sacrificed to Zeus.

The descendants of Aeolus tried to regain the Golden Fleece

for it brought fortune to kings and perpetuated their realm.

But try as they might, they always failed.

They always failed.

Well, you are a descendant of Aeolus

because you are a son of a son of that Athamas

who was King of Iolcus,

a place near here, very rich in sheep and crops.

Your uncle Pelias imprisoned your father and seized the kingdom.

But I have kept you safe with me.

It is a complicated story, because it is full of deeds, not thoughts.

All is sacred.

There is nothing natural in nature, remember that.

When nature seems natural to you, all will be finished

and something else will begin.

Farewell, sky. Farewell, sea.

A beautiful sky.

So close.

So benign.

Is a fragment of that sky unnatural, possessed by a god?

And the sea

in which you fish barefoot on your thirteenth birthday?

Look behind you, what do you see?

Something natural?

All you see behind you is an apparition.

Mid-afternoon clouds

reflected in the still water.

Look there, at that black streak on the sea,

iridescent as oil.

Those shadows of trees, those reeds.

Wherever you glance, a god is hidden.

If he is absent, the signs of his sacred presence will be there,

silence, smell of grass, cool, fresh water.

Yes, all is sacred, but holiness is also a curse.

The gods that love can also hate.

Perhaps I am too great a liar for you, or too much a poet.

But in the ancient world, myths and rituals are living reality.

Part of man's everyday life.

For him reality is such a perfect entity

that the emotion he experiences at the sight of a tranquil sky

equals the most profound personal experience of modern man.

Reclaim your heritage from your uncle Pelias, usurper of your throne.

He will find some pretext to get rid of you,

to recover the Golden Fleece from a distant land, for example.

There you will find a world which reasons differently from us.

Life there is very realistic,

for mythical people are realistic, and realistic people are mythical.

This, at least, is predicted by our divine reason.

But it cannot predict the inevitable errors it will lead you to.

There will be many.

That which man, discovering agriculture, saw in grain,

that which he understood from seeds

that lose their form in the earth to be born again,

all that has become the ultimate truth, the resurrection.

But the ultimate truth is no longer valid.

What you see in grain, in the growth of the seed,

has lost all meaning for you

like a discarded memory.

In fact, there is no god.

Give life to the seed and be reborn with the seed.

Wait for me.

Uncle, I have come to reclaim my kingdom.

You may have it if you undertake something for the public god.

What do you mean?

A symbol of the eternal nature

of power and order, the golden fleece of a divine goat,

is guarded in a distant land, across the sea,

where no one has ventured.

Bring the fleece here, and I shall restore you your kingdom.

- What beautiful horses! - Let's take them!

Here you are. Pray for us!

Put on my vestments, I wish to pray.

Wake up, brother.

Come with me.

Where?

Come.

Help me steal the Fleece.

Who's there?

- What's going on? - A woman in a cart, and a golden fleece!

Prepare the horses.

This place will sink, because it has no foundation!

You do not call God's blessing on your tents.

You speak not to God,

you do not seek the centre, you do not mark the centre.

Look for a tree, a post, a stone.

Speak to me, Earth, let me hear your voice.

I have forgotten your voice.

Speak to me, Sun.

Where must I stand to hear your voice?

Speak to me, Earth. Speak to me, Sun.

Are you losing your way, never to return again?

Grass, speak to me. Stone, speak to me.

Earth, where is your meaning? Where can I find you again?

Where is the bond that linked you to the Sun?

My feet touch earth, but I do not recognize it.

My eyes see the sun, but I do not recognize it.

Today you will have a surprise.

You will learn that a king is not obliged to honour a promise.

I guessed that, but take your fleece.

Symbol of "eternal power."

One thing it taught me,

the world is greater than your kingdom.

And if you want my opinion,

I think the fleece means nothing outside its own land.

The time of parting has come.

What are you doing here?

What are we doing here?

Is this a vision?

If it is, you created it, we are both within you.

I knew only one centaur.

No, you have known two.

A sacred one, when you were a boy.

A desecrated one, when you were a man.

But the sacred is preserved within the desecrated form.

Here we are, one beside the other.

But the old centaur,

what of him, whom you seem to be saying you have replaced

by taking him over?

His logic is so different from ours, you would find him incomprehensible.

But I can speak for him.

Despite all our schemes and interpretations

his influence causes you to love Medea.

Love Medea?

Also you pity her, you understand her spiritual catastrophe.

A woman of an ancient world, confused in a world which ignores her beliefs.

She experienced the opposite of a conversion, and has never recovered.

What use is that knowledge to me?

None. It is reality.

Then why tell me all this?

Because nothing can prevent the old centaur from inspiring sentiments,

or me, the new centaur, from expressing them.

Nurse, accompany me.

Nurse, accompany me.

Where to?

To Corinth.

You must not.

Accompany me.

Mistress, why have you resigned yourself so easily?

What should I do? What do people say?

That in your own land you could work wonders,

rule air and fire.

The people of Corinth say that, and they fear you.

Fear me?

Because you are a sorceress.

Forgive me

but I say this in the hope of encouraging you.

To work magic.

I have been far from my land for over ten years.

You are still what you were.

No, I have become someone else, I have forgotten everything.

What was reality is no longer reality.

Perhaps,

if you wanted, you could call on your God.

Perhaps you are right, I am still what I was.

A vessel for a wisdom which comes from outside myself.

Do you not recognize me?

Yes, you are the father of my father.