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_Evolution of human life_
_Prometheus._ List rather to the deeds
I did for mortals: how, being fools before
I made them wise and true in aim of soul,
And let me tell you--not as taunting men,
But teaching you the intention of my gifts--
How, first beholding, they beheld in vain,
And hearing, heard not, but like shapes in dreams
Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time;
Nor knew to build a house against the sun
With wicketed sides, nor any woodcraft knew,
But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground,
In hollow caves unsunned. There came to them
No steadfast sign of winter nor of spring,
Flower perfumed, nor summer full of fruit;
But blindly and lawlessly they did all things,
Until I taught them how the stars do rise
And set in mystery, and devised for them
Number, the inducer of philosophies,
The synthesis of letters, and, beside,
The artificer of all things, Memory,
That sweet Muse-Mother. I was first to yoke
The servile beasts in couples, carrying
An heirdom of man's burdens on their backs.
I joined to chariots steeds that love the bit
They clamp at--the chief pomp of golden ease.
And none but I originated ships,
The seaman's chariots wandering on the brine,
With linen wings. And I--oh miserable!--
Who did devise for mortals all these arts,
Have no device left now to save myself
From the woe I suffer.
_Chorus._ Most unseemly woe
Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense
Bewildered! like a bad leech falling sick,
Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the drugs
Required to save thyself.
_Prometheus._ Hearken the rest,
And marvel further, what more arts and means
I did invent, this greatest: if a man
Fell sick there was no cure, nor esculent,
Nor chrism, nor liquid, but for lack of drugs
Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all
Those mixtures of emollient remedies,
Whereby they might be rescued from disease,
I fixed the various rules of mantic art,
Discerned the vision from the common dream,
Instructed them in vocal auguries,
Hard to interpret, and defined as plain
The wayside omens--flights of crook-clawed birds--
Showed which are, by their nature, fortunate,
And which not so, and what the food of each,
And what the hates, affections, social needs,
Of all to one another,--taught what sign
Of visceral lightness, colored to a shade,
May charm the genial gods, and what fair spots
Commend the lung and liver. Burning so
The limbs encased in fat, and the long chine,
I led my mortals on to an art abstruse,
And cleared their eyes to the image in the fire,
Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this:
For the other helps of man hid underground,
The iron and the brass, silver and gold,
Can any dare affirm he found them out
Before me? None, I know, unless he choose
To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole:
That all arts come to mortals from Prometheus.
Aeschylus: _Prometheus_. [Mrs. Browning's
translation.]
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(_For comparison with the preceding_)
Warmly this argument with others oft
Have I disputed, who assert that ill
To mortal man assign'd outweighs the good.
Far otherwise I deem, that good is dealt
To man in larger portions: were it not,
We could not bear the light of life. That Power,
Whatever god he be, that called us forth
From foul and savage life, hath my best thanks.
Inspiring reason first, he gave the tongue
Articulate sounds, the intercourse of language:
The fruits of earth he gave, and to that growth
The heaven-descending rain, that from the earth,
Cheer'd by its kindly dews, they might arise,
And bear their life-sustaining food mature: to this
The warm defense against th' inclement storm
He taught to raise, and the umbrageous roof
The fiery sun excluding: the tall bark
He gave to bound o'er the wide sea, and bear
From realm to realm in grateful interchange
The fruits each wants. Is aught obscure, aught hid?
Doubts darkening on the mind the mounting blaze
Removes; or from the entrail's panting fibres
The seer divines, or from the flight of birds.
Are we not then fastidious to repine
At such a life so furnish'd by the gods?
Euripides: _Suppliants_ 214. [Potter.]
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_Specimen of Accelerated Rhythm in the exact metre_