Part 10

_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 Gorgonæan flats Beside Cisthené. 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 Æthiops; 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.

_Prometheus._ She has heard The uttermost of her wandering. There it ends. But that she may be certain not to have heard All vainly, I will speak what she endured Ere coming hither, and invoke the past To prove my prescience true. And so--to leave A multitude of words and pass at once To the subject of thy course--when thou hadst gone To those Molossian plains which sweep around Dodona shouldering Heaven, whereby the fane Of Zeus Thesprotian keepeth oracle, And, wonder past belief, where oaks do wave Articulate adjurations--(ay, the same Saluted thee in no perplexèd phrase But clear with glory, noble wife of Zeus That shouldst be,--there some sweetness took thy sense!) Thou didst rush further onward, stung along The ocean-shore, toward Rhea's mighty bay And, tost back from it, wast tost to it again In stormy evolution:--and, know well, In coming time that hollow of the sea Shall bear the name Ionian and present A monument of Io's passage through Unto all mortals. Be these words the signs Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil Of visible things. The rest, to you and her I will declare in common audience, nymphs, Returning thither where my speech brake off. There is a town Canobus, built upon The earth's fair margin at the mouth of Nile And on the mound washed up by it; Io, there Shall Zeus give back to thee thy perfect mind, And only by the pressure and the touch Of a hand not terrible; and thou to Zeus Shalt bear a dusky son who shall be called Thence, Epaphus, _Touched_. That son shall pluck the fruit Of all that land wide-watered by the flow Of Nile; but after him, when counting out As far as the fifth full generation, then Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race, Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly, To fly the proffered nuptials of their kin, Their father's brothers. These being passion struck, Like falcons bearing hard on flying doves, Shall follow, hunting at a quarry of love They should not hunt; till envious Heaven maintain A curse betwixt that beauty and their desire, And Greece receive them, to be overcome In murtherous woman-war, by fierce red hands Kept savage by the night. For every wife Shall slay a husband, dyeing deep in blood The sword of a double edge--(I wish indeed As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes!) One bride alone shall fail to smite to death The head upon her pillow, touched with love, Made impotent of purpose and impelled To choose the lesser evil,--shame on her cheeks, Than blood-guilt on her hands: which bride shall bear A royal race in Argos. Tedious speech Were needed to relate particulars Of these things; 'tis enough that from her seed Shall spring the strong He, famous with the bow, Whose arm shall break my fetters off. Behold, My mother Themis, that old Titaness, Delivered to me such an oracle,-- But how and when, I should be long to speak, And thou, in hearing, wouldst not gain at all.

_Io._ Eleleu, eleleu! How the spasm and the pain And the fire on the brain Strike, burning me through! How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, Pricks me onward again! How my heart in its terror is spurning my breast, And my eyes, like the wheels of a chariot, roll round! I am whirled from my course, to the east, to the west, In the whirlwind of phrensy all madly inwound-- And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate, And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, On the sea of my desolate fate.

[_IO rushes out._

_Chorus.--Strophe._ Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he Who first within his spirit knew And with his tongue declared it true That love comes best that comes unto The equal of degree! And that the poor and that the low Should seek no love from those above, Whose souls are fluttered with the flow Of airs about their golden height, Or proud because they see arow Ancestral crowns of light.

_Antistrophe._ Oh, never, never may ye, Fates, Behold me with your awful eyes Lift mine too fondly up the skies Where Zeus upon the purple waits! Nor let me step too near--too near To any suitor, bright from heaven: Because I see, because I fear This loveless maiden vexed and laden By this fell curse of Heré, driven On wanderings dread and drear.

_Epode._ Nay, grant an equal troth instead Of nuptial love, to bind me by! It will not hurt, I shall not dread To meet it in reply. But let not love from those above Revert and fix me, as I said, With that inevitable Eye! I have no sword to fight that fight, I have no strength to tread that path, I know not if my nature hath The power to bear, I cannot see Whither from Zeus's infinite I have the power to flee.

_Prometheus._ Yet Zeus, albeit most absolute of will, Shall turn to meekness,--such a marriage-rite He holds in preparation, which anon Shall thrust him headlong from his gerent seat Adown the abysmal void, and so the curse His father Chronos muttered in his fall, As he fell from his ancient throne and cursed, Shall be accomplished wholly. No escape From all that ruin shall the filial Zeus Find granted to him from any of his gods, Unless I teach him. I the refuge know, And I, the means. Now, therefore, let him sit And brave the imminent doom, and fix his faith On his supernal noises, hurtling on With restless hand the bolt that breathes out fire; For these things shall not help him, none of them, Nor hinder his perdition when he falls To shame, and lower than patience: such a foe He doth himself prepare against himself, A wonder of unconquerable hate, An organizer of sublimer fire Than glares in lightnings, and of grander sound Than aught the thunder rolls, out-thundering it, With power to shatter in Poseidon's fist The trident-spear which, while it plagues the sea, Doth shake the shores around it. Ay, and Zeus, Precipitated thus, shall learn at length The difference betwixt rule and servitude.

_Chorus._ Thou makest threats for Zeus of thy desires.

_Prometheus._ I tell you, all these things shall be fulfilled. Even so as I desire them.

_Chorus._ Must we then Look out for one shall come to master Zeus?

_Prometheus._ These chains weigh lighter than his sorrows shall.

_Chorus._ How art thou not afraid to utter such words?

_Prometheus._ What should _I_ fear who cannot die?

_Chorus._ But _he_ Can visit thee with dreader woe than death's.

_Prometheus._ Why, let him do it! I am here, prepared For all things and their pangs.

_Chorus._ The wise are they Who reverence Adrasteia.

_Prometheus._ Reverence thou, Adore thou, flatter thou, whomever reigns, Whenever reigning! but for me, your Zeus Is less than nothing. Let him act and reign His brief hour out according to his will-- He will not, therefore, rule the gods too long. But lo! I see that courier-god of Zeus, That new-made menial of the new-crowned king: He doubtless comes to announce to us something new.

_HERMES enters._

_Hermes._ I speak to thee, the sophist, the talker-down Of scorn by scorn, the sinner against gods, The reverencer of men, the thief of fire,-- I speak to thee and adjure thee! Zeus requires Thy declaration of what marriage-rite Thus moves thy vaunt and shall hereafter cause His fall from empire. Do not wrap thy speech In riddles, but speak clearly! Never cast Ambiguous paths, Prometheus, for my feet, Since Zeus, thou mayst perceive, is scarcely won To mercy by such means.

_Prometheus._ A speech well-mouthed In the utterance, and full-minded in the sense, As doth befit a servant of the gods! New gods, ye newly reign, and think forsooth Ye dwell in towers too high for any dart To carry a wound there!--have I not stood by While two kings fell from thence? and shall I not Behold the third, the same who rules you now, Fall, shamed to sudden ruin?--Do I seem To tremble and quail before your modern gods? Far be it from me!--For thyself, depart, Re-tread thy steps in haste. To all thou hast asked I answer nothing.

_Hermes._ Such a wind of pride Impelled thee of yore full-sail upon these rocks.

_Prometheus._ I would not barter---learn thou soothly that!-- My suffering for thy service. I maintain It is a nobler thing to serve these rocks Than live a faithful slave to father Zeus. Thus upon scorners I retort their scorn.

_Hermes._ It seems that thou dost glory in thy despair.

_Prometheus._ I glory? would my foes did glory so, And I stood by to see them!--naming whom, Thou art not unremembered.

_Hermes._ Dost thou charge Me also with the blame of thy mischance?

_Prometheus._ I tell thee I loathe the universal gods, Who for the good I gave them rendered back The ill of their injustice.

_Hermes._ Thou art mad-- Thou art raving, Titan, at the fever-height.

_Prometheus._ If it be madness to abhor my foes, May I be mad!

_Hermes._ If thou wert prosperous Thou wouldst be unendurable.

_Prometheus._ Alas!

_Hermes._ Zeus knows not that word.

_Prometheus._ But maturing Time Teaches all things.

_Hermes._ Howbeit, thou hast not learnt The wisdom yet, thou needest.

_Prometheus._ If I had, I should not talk thus with a slave like thee.

_Hermes._ No answer thou vouchsafest, I believe, To the great Sire's requirement.

_Prometheus._ Verily I owe him grateful service,--and should pay it.

_Hermes._ Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood A child before thy face.

_Prometheus._ No child, forsooth, But yet more foolish than a foolish child, If thou expect that I should answer aught Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand Nor any machination in the world Shall force mine utterance ere he loose, himself, These cankerous fetters from me. For the rest, Let him now hurl his blanching lightnings down, And with his white-winged snows and mutterings deep Of subterranean thunders mix all things, Confound them in disorder. None of this Shall bend my sturdy will and make me speak The name of his dethroner who shall come.

_Hermes._ Can this avail thee? Look to it!

_Prometheus._ Long ago It was looked forward to, precounselled of.

_Hermes._ Vain god, take righteous courage! dare for once To apprehend and front thine agonies With a just prudence.

_Prometheus._ Vainly dost thou chafe My soul with exhortation, as yonder sea Goes beating on the rock. Oh, think no more That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman's mind, Will supplicate him, loathèd as he is, With feminine upliftings of my hands, To break these chains. Far from me be the thought!

_Hermes._ I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain, For still thy heart beneath my showers of prayers Lies dry and hard--nay, leaps like a young horse Who bites against the new bit in his teeth, And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein,-- Still fiercest in the feeblest thing of all, Which sophism is; since absolute will disjoined From perfect mind is worse than weak. Behold, Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast And whirlwind of inevitable woe Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first The Father will split up this jut of rock With the great thunder and the bolted flame And hide thy body where a hinge of stone Shall catch it like an arm; and when thou hast passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun while Zeus's winged hound, The strong carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee, self-called to a daily feast, And set his fierce beak in thee and tear off The long rags of thy flesh and batten deep Upon thy dusky liver. Do not look For any end moreover to this curse Or ere some god appear, to accept thy pangs On his own head vicarious, and descend With unreluctant step the darks of hell And gloomy abysses around Tartarus. Then ponder this--this threat is not a growth Of vain invention; it is spoken and meant; King Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, Consummating the utterance by the act; So, look to it, thou! take heed, and nevermore Forget good counsel, to indulge self-will.

_Chorus._ Our Hermes suits his reasons to the times; At least I think so, since he bids thee drop Self-will for prudent counsel. Yield to him! When the wise err, their wisdom makes their shame.

_Prometheus._ Unto me the foreknower, this mandate of power He cries, to reveal it. What's strange in my fate, if I suffer from hate At the hour that I feel it? Let the locks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening, Flash, coiling me round, While the æther goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging Of wild winds unbound! Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place The earth rooted below, And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion, Be driven in the face Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro! Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus--on-- To the blackest degree, With Necessity's vortices strangling me down; But he cannot join death to a fate meant for _me_!

_Hermes._ Why, the words that he speaks and the thoughts that he thinks Are maniacal!--add, If the Fate who hath bound him should loose not the links, He were utterly mad. Then depart ye who groan with him, Leaving to moan with him,-- Go in haste! lest the roar of the thunder anearing Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing.

_Chorus._ Change thy speech for another, thy thought for a new, If to move me and teach me indeed be thy care! For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true That the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear. How! couldst teach me to venture such vileness? behold! I _choose_, with this victim, this anguish foretold! I recoil from the traitor in hate and disdain, And I know that the curse of the treason is worse Than the pang of the chain.

_Hermes._ Then remember, O nymphs, what I tell you before, Nor, when pierced by the arrows that Até will throw you, Cast blame on your fate and declare evermore That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you. Nay, verily, nay! for ye perish anon For your deed--by your choice. By no blindness of doubt, No abruptness of doom, but by madness alone, In the great net of Até, whence none cometh out, Ye are wound and undone.

_Prometheus._ Ay! in act now, in word now no more, Earth is rocking in space. And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea. Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread, From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along. O my mother's fair glory! O Æther, enringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing! Dost see how I suffer this wrong?

A LAMENT FOR ADONIS

FROM THE GREEK OF BION

I.

I mourn for Adonis--Adonis is dead, Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting. Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed: Arise, wretch stoled in black; beat thy breast unrelenting, And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead!"

II.

I mourn for Adonis--the Loves are lamenting. He lies on the hills in his beauty and death; The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh. Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath, While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory, And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows, The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose, Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted: He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews.

III.

I mourn for Adonis--the Loves are lamenting. Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound, But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting. The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around, And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill, And the poor Aphrodité, with tresses unbound, All dishevelled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrill Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet, Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy, Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeat The sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly. She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on him Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body, The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb, And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy.

IV.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting. She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile: When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting, Whose fairness is dead with him: woe worth the while! All the mountains above and the oaklands below Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflow Aphrodité's deep wail; river-fountains in pity Weep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blow Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go With the song of her sadness through mountain and city.

V.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead, Fair Adonis is dead--Echo answers, Adonis: Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her head She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies? --When, ah, ah!--she saw how the blood ran away And empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out, Said with sobs: "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay, Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss! Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again, For the last time, beloved,--and but so much of this That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain! --Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth, To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receiving May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living. Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far, My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,-- To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar, While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal, And follow no step! O Persephoné, take him, My husband!--thou'rt better and brighter than I, So all beauty flows down to thee: _I_ cannot make him Look up at my grief; there's despair in my cry, Since I wail for Adonis who died to me--died to me-- Then, I fear _thee_!--Art thou dead, my Adored? Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me, Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased With thy clasp! O too bold in the hunt past preventing, Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast!" Thus the goddess wailed on--and the Loves are lamenting.

VI.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead. She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed, And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close, Her tears, to the windflower; his blood, to the rose.

VII.

I mourn for Adonis--Adonis is dead. Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover! So, well: make a place for his corse in thy bed, With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over He's fair though a corse--a fair corse, like a sleeper. Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold. Love him still, poor Adonis; cast on him together The crowns and the flowers: since he died from the place, Why, let all die with him; let the blossoms go wither, Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face. Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining, Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept. Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining, The Loves raised their voices around him and wept. They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis; One treads on his bow,--on his arrows, another,-- One breaks up a well-feathered quiver, and one is Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings, And one carries the vases of gold from the springs, While one washes the wound,--and behind them a brother Fans down on the body sweet air with his wings.

VIII.