With seasonable softness touch the soul
And, where the parts are ulcerous, sear them not
By any rudeness.
_Oceanus._ With a noble aim
To dare as nobly--is there harm in _that_?
Dost thou discern it? Teach me.
_Prometheus._ I discern
Vain aspiration, unresultive work.
_Oceanus._ Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this!
Since it is profitable that one who is wise
Should seem not wise at all.
_Prometheus._ And such would seem
My very crime.
_Oceanus._ In truth thine argument
Sends me back home.
_Prometheus._ Lest any lament for me
Should cast thee down to hate.
_Oceanus._ The hate of him
Who sits a new king on the absolute throne?
_Prometheus._ Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him.
_Oceanus._ Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher!
_Prometheus._ Go.
Depart--beware--and keep the mind thou hast.
_Oceanus._ Thy words drive after, as I rush before.
Lo! my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide
The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad
To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall.
[_OCEANUS departs._
_Chorus, 1st Strophe._
I moan thy fate, I moan for thee,
Prometheus! From my eyes too tender,
Drop after drop incessantly
The tears of my heart's pity render
My cheeks wet from their fountains free;
Because that Zeus, the stern and cold,
Whose law is taken from his breast,
Uplifts his sceptre manifest
Over the gods of old.
_1st Antistrophe._
All the land is moaning
With a murmured plaint to-day;
All the mortal nations
Having habitations
In the holy Asia
Are a dirge entoning
For thine honour and thy brothers',
Once majestic beyond others
In the old belief,--
Now are groaning in the groaning
Of thy deep-voiced grief.
_2nd Strophe._
Mourn the maids inhabitant
Of the Colchian land,
Who with white, calm bosoms stand
In the battle's roar:
Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt
The verge of earth, Maeotis' shore.
_2nd Antistrophe._
Yea! Arabia's battle-crown,
And dwellers in the beetling town
Mount Caucasus sublimely nears,--
An iron squadron, thundering down
With the sharp-prowed spears.
But one other before, have I seen to remain
By invincible pain
Bound and vanquished,--one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears
In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own
Which he evermore wears,
The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone,
While he sighs up the stars;
And the tides of the ocean wail bursting their bars,--
Murmurs still the profound,
And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground,
And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low
In a pathos of woe.
_Prometheus._ Beseech you, think not I am silent thus
Through pride or scorn. I only gnaw my heart
With meditation, seeing myself so wronged.
For see--their honours to these new-made gods,
What other gave but I, and dealt them out
With distribution? Ay--but here I am dumb!
For here, I should repeat your knowledge to you,
If I spake aught. 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 wickered 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 of 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 champ 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, coloured 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 came to mortals from Prometheus.
_Chorus._ Give mortals now no inexpedient help,
Neglecting thine own sorrow. I have hope still
To see thee, breaking from the fetter here,
Stand up as strong as Zeus.
_Prometheus._ This ends not thus,
The oracular fate ordains. I must be bowed
By infinite woes and pangs, to escape this chain
Necessity is stronger than mine art.
_Chorus._ Who holds the helm of that Necessity?
_Prometheus._ The threefold Fates and the unforgetting Furies.
_Chorus._ Is Zeus less absolute than these are?
_Prometheus._ Yea,
And therefore cannot fly what is ordained.
_Chorus._ What is ordained for Zeus, except to be
A king for ever?
_Prometheus._ 'Tis too early yet
For thee to learn it: ask no more.
_Chorus._ Perhaps
Thy secret may be something holy?
_Prometheus._ Turn
To another matter: this, it is not time
To speak abroad, but utterly to veil
In silence. For by that same secret kept,
I 'scape this chain's dishonour and its woe.
_Chorus, 1st Strophe._
Never, oh never
May Zeus, the all-giver,
Wrestle down from his throne
In that might of his own
To antagonize mine!
Nor let me delay
As I bend on my way
Toward the gods of the shrine
Where the altar is full
Of the blood of the bull,
Near the tossing brine
Of Ocean my father.
May no sin be sped in the word that is said,
But my vow be rather
Consummated,
Nor evermore fail, nor evermore pine.
_1st Antistrophe._
'Tis sweet to have
Life lengthened out
With hopes proved brave
By the very doubt,
Till the spirit enfold
Those manifest joys which were foretold.
But I thrill to behold
Thee, victim doomed,
By the countless cares
And the drear despairs
Forever consumed,--
And all because thou, who art fearless now
Of Zeus above,
Didst overflow for mankind below
With a free-souled, reverent love.
Ah friend, behold and see!
What's all the beauty of humanity?
Can it be fair?
What's all the strength? is it strong?
And what hope can they bear,
These dying livers--living one day long?
Ah, seest thou not, my friend,
How feeble and slow
And like a dream, doth go
This poor blind manhood, drifted from its end?
And how no mortal wranglings can confuse
The harmony of Zeus?
Prometheus, I have learnt these things
From the sorrow in thy face.
Another song did fold its wings
Upon my lips in other days,
When round the bath and round the bed
The hymeneal chant instead
I sang for thee, and smiled,--
And thou didst lead, with gifts and vows,
Hesione, my father's child,
To be thy wedded spouse.
_IO enters_.
_Io._ What land is this? what people is here?
And who is he that writhes, I see,
In the rock-hung chain?
Now what is the crime that hath brought thee to pain?
Now what is the land--make answer free--
Which I wander through, in my wrong and fear?
Ah! ah! ah me!
The gad-fly strength to agony!
O Earth, keep off that phantasm pale
Of earth-born Argus!--ah!--I quail
When my soul descries
That herdsman with the myriad eyes
Which seem, as he comes, one crafty eye
Graves hide him not, though he should die,
But he doggeth me in my misery
From the roots of death, on high--on high--
And along the sands of the siding deep,
All famine-worn, he follows me,
And his waxen reed doth undersound
The waters round
And giveth a measure that giveth sleep.
Woe, woe, woe!
Where shall my weary course be done?
What wouldst thou with me, Saturn's son?
And in what have I sinned, that I should go
Thus yoked to grief by thine hand for ever?
Ah! ah! dost vex me so
That I madden and shiver
Stung through with dread?
Flash the fire down to burn me!
Heave the earth up to cover me!
Plunge me in the deep, with the salt waves over me,
That the sea-beasts may be fed!
O king, do not spurn me
In my prayer!
For this wandering everlonger, evermore,
Hath overworn me,
And I know not on what shore
I may rest from my despair.
_Chorus._ Hearest thou what the ox-horned maiden saith?
_Prometheus._ How could I choose but hearken what she saith,
The phrensied maiden?--Inachus's child?--
Who love-warms Zeus's heart, and now is lashed
By Here's hate along the unending ways?
_Io._ Who taught thee to articulate that name,--
My father's? Speak to his child
By grief and shame defiled!
Who art thou, victim, thou who dost acclaim
Mine anguish in true words on the wide air,
And callest too by name the curse that came
From Here unaware,
To waste and pierce me with its maddening goad?
Ah--ah--I leap
With the pang of the hungry--I bound on the road--
I am driven by my doom--
I am overcome
By the wrath of an enemy strong and deep!
Are any of those who have tasted pain,
Alas! as wretched as I?
Now tell me plain, doth aught remain
For my soul to endure beneath the sky?
Is there any help to be holpen by?
If knowledge be in thee, let it be said!
Cry aloud--cry
To the wandering, woful maid!
_Prometheus._ Whatever thou wouldst learn I will declare,--
No riddle upon my lips, but such straight words
As friends should use to each other when they talk.
Thou seest Prometheus, who gave mortals fire.
_Io._ O common Help of all men, known of all,
O miserable Prometheus,--for what cause
Dost thou endure thus?
_Prometheus._ I have done with wail
For my own griefs, but lately.
_Io._ Wilt thou not
Vouchsafe the boon to me?
_Prometheus._ Say what thou wilt,
For I vouchsafe all.
_Io._ Speak then, and reveal
Who shut thee in this chasm.
_Prometheus._ The will of Zeus,
The hand of his Hephaestus.
_Io._ And what crime
Dost expiate so?
_Prometheus._ Enough for thee I have told
In so much only.
_Io._ Nay, but show besides
The limit of my wandering, and the time
Which yet is lacking to fulfil my grief.
_Prometheus._ Why, not to know were better than to know
For such as thou.
_Io._ Beseech thee, blind me not
To that which I must suffer.
_Prometheus._ If I do,
The reason is not that I grudge a boon.
_Io._ What reason, then, prevents thy speaking out?
_Prometheus._ No grudging; but a fear to break thine heart.
_Io._ Less care for me, I pray thee. Certainty
I count for advantage.
_Prometheus._ Thou wilt have it so,
And therefore I must speak. Now hear--
_Chorus._ Not yet.
Give half the guerdon my way. Let us learn
First, what the curse is that befell the maid,--
Her own voice telling her own wasting woes:
The sequence of that anguish shall await
The teaching of thy lips.
_Prometheus._ It doth behove
That thou, Maid Io, shouldst vouchsafe to these
The grace they pray,--the more, because they are called
Thy father's sisters: since to open out
And mourn out grief where it is possible
To draw a tear from the audience, is a work
That pays its own price well.
_Io._ I cannot choose
But trust you, nymphs, and tell you all ye ask,
In clear words--though I sob amid my speech
In speaking of the storm-curse sent from Zeus,
And of my beauty, from what height it took
Its swoop on me, poor wretch! left thus deformed
And monstrous to your eyes. For evermore
Around my virgin-chamber, wandering went
The nightly visions which entreated me
With syllabled smooth sweetness.--"Blessed maid,
Why lengthen out thy maiden hours when fate
Permits the noblest spousal in the world?
When Zeus burns with the arrow of thy love
And fain would touch thy beauty?--Maiden, thou
Despise not Zeus! depart to Lerne's mead
That's green around thy father's flocks and stalls,
Until the passion of the heavenly Eye
Be quenched in sight." Such dreams did all night long
Constrain me--me, unhappy!--till I dared
To tell my father how they trod the dark
With visionary steps. Whereat he sent
His frequent heralds to the Pythian fane,
And also to Dodona, and inquired
How best, by act or speech, to please the gods.
The same returning brought back oracles
Of doubtful sense, indefinite response,
Dark to interpret; but at last there came
To Inachus an answer that was clear,
Thrown straight as any bolt, and spoken out--
This--"he should drive me from my home and land
And bid me wander to the extreme verge
Of all the earth--or, if he willed it not,
Should have a thunder with a fiery eye
Leap straight from Zeus to burn up all his race
To the last root of it." By which Loxian word
Subdued, he drove me forth and shut me out,
He loth, me loth,--but Zeus's violent bit
Compelled him to the deed: when instantly
My body and soul were changed and distraught,
And, horned as ye see, and spurred along
By the fanged insect, with a maniac leap
I rushed on to Cenchrea's limpid stream
And Lerne's fountain-water. There, the earth-born,
The herdsman Argus, most immitigable
Of wrath, did find me out, and track me out
With countless eyes set staring at my steps:
And though an unexpected sudden doom
Drew him from life, I, curse-tormented still,
Am driven from land to land before the scourge
The gods hold o'er me. So thou hast heard the past,
And if a bitter future thou canst tell,
Speak on. I charge thee, do not flatter me
Through pity, with false words; for, in my mind,
Deceiving works more shame than torturing doth.
_Chorus._
Ah! silence here!
Nevermore, nevermore
Would I languish for
The stranger's word
To thrill in mine ear--
Nevermore for the wrong and the woe and the fear
So hard to behold,
So cruel to bear,
Piercing my soul with a double-edged sword
Of a sliding cold.
Ah Fate! ah me!
I shudder to see
This wandering maid in her agony.
_Prometheus._ Grief is too quick in thee and fear too full:
Be patient till thou hast learnt the rest.
_Chorus._ Speak: teach
To those who are sad already, it seems sweet,
By clear foreknowledge to make perfect, pain.
_Prometheus._ The boon ye asked me first was lightly won,--
For first ye asked the story of this maid's grief
As her own lips might tell it. Now remains
To list what other sorrows she so young
Must bear from Here. Inachus's child,
O thou! drop down thy soul my weighty words,
And measure out the landmarks which are set
To end thy wandering. Toward the orient sun
First turn thy face from mine and journey on
Along the desert flats till thou shalt come
Where Scythia's shepherd peoples dwell aloft,
Perched in wheeled waggons under woven roofs,
And twang the rapid arrow past the bow--
Approach them not; but siding in thy course
The rugged shore-rocks resonant to the sea,
Depart that country. On the left hand dwell
The iron-workers, called the Chalybes,
Of whom beware, for certes they are uncouth
And nowise bland to strangers. Reaching so
The stream Hybristes (well the _scorner_ called),
Attempt no passage,--it is hard to pass,--
Or ere thou come to Caucasus itself,
That highest of mountains, where the river leaps
The precipice in his strength. Thou must toil up
Those mountain-tops that neighbour with the stars,
And tread the south way, and draw near, at last,
The Amazonian host that hateth man,
Inhabitants of Themiscyra, close
Upon Thermodon, where the sea's rough jaw
Doth gnash at Salmydessa and provide
A cruel host to seamen, and to ships
A stepdame. They with unreluctant hand
Shall lead thee on and on, till thou arrive
Just where the ocean-gates show narrowest
On the Cimmerian isthmus. Leaving which,
Behoves thee swim with fortitude of soul
The strait Maeotis. Ay, and evermore
That traverse shall be famous on men's lips,
That strait, called Bosphorus, the horned-one's road,
So named because of thee, who so wilt pass
From Europe's plain to Asia's continent.
How think ye, nymphs? the king of gods appears
Impartial in ferocious deeds? Behold!
The god desirous of this mortal's love
Hath cursed her with these wanderings. Ah, fair child,
Thou hast met a bitter groom for bridal troth!
For all thou yet hast heard can only prove
The incompleted prelude of thy doom.
_Io._ Ah, ah!
_Prometheus._ Is 't thy turn, now, to shriek and moan?
How wilt thou, when thou hast hearkened what remains?
_Chorus._ Besides the grief thou hast told can aught remain?
_Prometheus._ A sea--of foredoomed evil worked to storm.
_Io._ What boots my life, then? why not cast myself
Down headlong from this miserable rock,
That, dashed against the flats, I may redeem
My soul from sorrow? Better once to die
Than day by day to suffer.
_Prometheus._ Verily,
It would be hard for thee to bear my woe
For whom it is appointed not to die.
Death frees from woe: but I before me see
In all my far prevision not a bound
To all I suffer, ere that Zeus shall fall
From being a king.
_Io._ And can it ever be
That Zeus shall fall from empire?
_Prometheus._ _Thou_, methinks,
Wouldst take some joy to see it.
_Io._ Could I choose?
_I_ who endure such pangs now, by that god!
_Prometheus._ Learn from me, therefore, that the event shall be.
_Io._ By whom shall his imperial sceptred hand
Be emptied so?
_Prometheus._ Himself shall spoil himself,
Through his idiotic counsels.
_Io._ How? declare:
Unless the word bring evil.
_Prometheus._ He shall wed;
And in the marriage-bond be joined to grief.
_Io._ A heavenly bride--or human? Speak it out
If it be utterable.
_Prometheus._ Why should I say which?
It ought not to be uttered, verily.
_Io._ Then
It is his wife shall tear him from his throne?
_Prometheus._ It is his wife shall bear a son to him,
More mighty than the father.
_Io._ From this doom
Hath he no refuge?
_Prometheus._ None: or ere that I,
Loosed from these fetters--
_Io._ Yea--but who shall loose
While Zeus is adverse?
_Prometheus._ One who is born of thee:
It is ordained so.
_Io._ What is this thou sayest?
A son of mine shall liberate thee from woe?
_Prometheus._ After ten generations, count three more,
And find him in the third.
_Io._ The oracle
Remains obscure.
_Prometheus._ And search it not, to learn
Thine own griefs from it.
_Io._ Point me not to a good,
To leave me straight bereaved.
_Prometheus._ I am prepared
To grant thee one of two things.
_Io._ But which two?
Set them before me; grant me power to choose.
_Prometheus._ I grant it, choose now: shall I name aloud
What griefs remain to wound thee, or what hand
Shall save me out of mine?
_Chorus._ Vouchsafe, O god,
The one grace of the twain to her who prays;
The next to me; and turn back neither prayer
Dishonour'd by denial. To herself
Recount the future wandering of her feet;
Then point me to the looser of thy chain,
Because I yearn to know him.
_Prometheus._ Since ye will,
Of absolute will, this knowledge, I will set
No contrary against it, nor keep back
A word of all ye ask for. Io, first
To thee I must relate thy wandering course
Far winding. As I tell it, write it down
In thy soul's book of memories. When thou hast past
The refluent bound that parts two continents,
Track on the footsteps of the orient sun
In his own fire, across the roar of seas,--
Fly till thou hast reached the Gorgonaean flats
Beside Cisthene. There, the Phorcides,
Three ancient maidens, live, with shape of swan,
One tooth between them, and one common eye:
On whom the sun doth never look at all
With all his rays, nor evermore the moon
When she looks through the night. Anear to whom
Are the Gorgon sisters three, enclothed with wings,
With twisted snakes for ringlets, man-abhorred:
There is no mortal gazes in their face
And gazing can breathe on. I speak of such
To guard thee from their horror. Ay, and list
Another tale of a dreadful sight; beware
The Griffins, those unbarking dogs of Zeus,
Those sharp-mouthed dogs!--and the Arimaspian host
Of one-eyed horsemen, habiting beside
The river of Pluto that runs bright with gold:
Approach them not, beseech thee! Presently
Thou'lt come to a distant land, a dusky tribe
Of dwellers at the fountain of the Sun,
Whence flows the river AEthiops; wind along
Its banks and turn off at the cataracts,
Just as the Nile pours from the Bybline hills
His holy and sweet wave; his course shall guide
Thine own to that triangular Nile-ground
Where, Io, is ordained for thee and thine
A lengthened exile. Have I said in this
Aught darkly or incompletely?--now repeat
The question, make the knowledge fuller! Lo,
I have more leisure than I covet, here.
_Chorus._ If thou canst tell us aught that's left untold,
Or loosely told, of her most dreary flight,
Declare it straight: but if thou hast uttered all,
Grant us that latter grace for which we prayed,
Remembering how we prayed it.