Part 9

_Prometheus._ Why there, again, I give thee gratulation and applause. Thou lackest no goodwill. But, as for deeds, Do nought! 'twere all done vainly; helping nought, Whatever thou wouldst do. Rather take rest And keep thyself from evil. If I grieve, I do not therefore wish to multiply The griefs of others. Verily, not so! For still my brother's doom doth vex my soul,-- My brother Atlas, standing in the west, Shouldering the column of the heaven and earth, A difficult burden! I have also seen, And pitied as I saw, the earth-born one, The inhabitant of old Cilician caves, The great war-monster of the hundred heads, (All taken and bowed beneath the violent Hand,) Typhon the fierce, who did resist the gods, And, hissing slaughter from his dreadful jaws, Flash out ferocious glory from his eyes As if to storm the throne of Zeus. Whereat, The sleepless arrow of Zeus flew straight at him, The headlong bolt of thunder breathing flame, And struck him downward from his eminence Of exultation; through the very soul, It struck him, and his strength was withered up To ashes, thunder-blasted. Now he lies A helpless trunk supinely, at full length Beside the strait of ocean, spurred into By roots of Ætna; high upon whose tops Hephæstus sits and strikes the flashing ore. From thence the rivers of fire shall burst away Hereafter, and devour with savage jaws The equal plains of fruitful Sicily, Such passion he shall boil back in hot darts Of an insatiate fury and sough of flame, Fallen Typhon,--howsoever struck and charred By Zeus's bolted thunder. But for thee, Thou art not so unlearned as to need My teaching--let thy knowledge save thyself. _I_ quaff the full cup of a present doom, And wait till Zeus hath quenched his will in wrath.

_Oceanus._ Prometheus, art thou ignorant of this, That words do medicine anger?

_Prometheus._ If the word 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, Mæotis' 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 Herè'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 Herè 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 Hephæstus.

_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 Lerné'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 changèd and distraught, And, hornèd as ye see, and spurred along By the fanged insect, with a maniac leap I rushed on to Cenchrea's limpid stream And Lerné'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 Herè. 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 Mæotis. 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?