{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/aesch/promet.htm","path":"cla/aesch/promet.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/aesch/promet.htm","text":"Dramatis Personae\nKRATOS\nBIA\nHEPHAESTUS\nPROMETHEUS\nCHORUS OF THE OCEANIDES\nOCEANUS\nIO\nMountainous country, and in the middle of a deep gorge a Rock, towards\nwhich KRATOS and BIA carry the gigantic form of PROMETHEUS. HEPHAESTUS\nfollows dejectedly with hammer, nails, chains, etc.\nKRATOS Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth\nRemote-the Scythian wild, a waste untrod.\nAnd now, Hephaestus, thou must execute\nThe task our father laid on thee, and fetter\nThis malefactor to the jagged rocks\nIn adamantine bonds infrangible;\nFor thine own blossom of all forging fire\nHe stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave\nFor which the Gods have called him to account,\nThat he may learn to bear Zeus' tyranny\nAnd cease to play the lover of mankind.\nHEPHAESTUS Kratos and Bia, for ye twain the hest\nOf Zeus is done with; nothing lets you further.\nBut forcibly to bind a brother God,\nIn chains, in this deep chasm raked by all storms\nI have not courage; yet needs must I pluck\nCourage from manifest necessity,\nFor woe worth him that slights the Father's word.\nO high-souled son of them is sage in counsel,\nWith heavy heart I must make thy heart heavy,\nIn bonds of brass not easy to be loosed,\nNailing thee to this crag where no wight dwells,\nNor sound of human voice nor shape of man\nShall visit thee; but the sun-blaze shall roast\nThy flesh; thy hue, flower-fair, shall suffer change;\nWelcome will Night be when with spangled robe\nShe hides the light of day; welcome the sun\nReturning to disperse the frosts of dawn.\nAnd every hour shall bring its weight of woe\nTo wear thy heart away; for yet unborn\nIs he who shall release Chee from thy pain.\nThis is thy wage for loving humankind.\nFor, being a God, thou dared'st the Gods' ill will,\nPreferring, to exceeding honour, Man.\nWherefore thy long watch shall be comfortless,\nStretched on this rock, never to close an eye\nOr bend a knee; and vainly shalt thou lift,\nWith groanings deep and lamentable cries,\nThy voice; for Zeus is hard to be entreated,\nAs new-born power is ever pitiless.\nKRATOS Enough! Why palter? Why wast idle pity?\nIs not the God Gods loathe hateful to thee?\nTraitor to man of thy prerogative?\nHEPHAESTUS Kindred and fellowship are dreaded names.\nKRATOS Questionless; but to slight the Father's word-\nHow sayest thou? Is not this fraught with more dread?\nHEPHAESTUS Thy heart was ever hard and overbold.\nKRATOS But wailing will not ease him! Waste no pains\nWhere thy endeavour nothing profiteth.\nHEPHAESTUS Oh execrable work! O handicraft!\nKRATOS Why curse thy trade? For what thou hast to do,\nTroth, smithcraft is in no wise answerable.\nHEPHAESTUS Would that it were another's craft, not mine!\nKRATOS Why, all things are a burden save to rule\nOver the Gods; for none is free but Zeus.\nHEPHAESTUS To that I answer not, knowing it true.\nKRATOS Why, then, make haste to cast the chains about him,\nLest glancing down on thee the Father's eye\nBehold a laggard and a loiterer.\nHEPHAESTUS Here are the iron bracelets for his arms.\nKRATOS Fasten them round his arms with all thy strength!\nStrike with thy hammer! Nail him to the rocks!\nHEPHAESTUS 'Tis done! and would that it were done less well!\nKRATOS Harder-I say-strike harder-screw all tight\nAnd be not in the least particular\nRemiss, for unto one of his resource\nBars are but instruments of liberty.\nHEPHAESTUS This forearm's fast: a shackle hard to shift.\nKRATOS Now buckle this! and handsomely! Let him learn\nSharp though he be, he's a dull blade to Zeus.\nHEPHAESTUS None can find fault with this: -save him it tortures.\nKRATOS Now take thine iron spike and drive it in,\nUntil it gnaw clean through the rebel's breast.\nHEPHAESTUS Woe's me, Prometheus, for thy weight of woe!\nKRATOS Still shirking? still a-groaning for the foes\nOf Zeus? Anon thou'lt wail thine own mishap.\nHEPHAESTUS Thou seest what eyes scarce bear to look upon!\nKRATOS I see this fellow getting his deserts!\nBut strap him with a gelt about his ribs.\nHEPHAESTUS I do what I must do: for thee-less words!\nKRATOS \"Words,\" quotha? Aye, and shout 'em if need be.\nCome down and cast a ring-bolt round his legs.\nHEPHAESTUS The thing is featly done; and 'twas quick work.\nKRATOS Now with a sound rap knock the bolt-pins home!\nFor heavy-handed is thy task-master.\nHEPHAESTUS So villainous a form vile tongue befits.\nKRATOS Be thou the heart of wax, but chide not me\nThat I am gruffish, stubborn and stiff-willed.\nHEPHAESTUS Oh, come away! The tackle holds him fast.\nKRATOS Now, where thou hang'st insult Plunder the Gods\nFor creatures of a day! To thee what gift\nWill mortals tender to requite thy pains?\nThe destinies were out miscalling the\nDesigner: a designer thou wilt need\nFrom trap so well contrived to twist thee free. (Exeunt.)\nPROMETHEUS O divine air Breezes on swift bird-wings,\nYe river fountains, and of ocean-waves\nThe multitudinous laughter Mother Earth!\nAnd thou all-seeing circle of the sun,\nBehold what I, a God, from Gods endure!\nLook down upon my shame,\nThe cruel wrong that racks my frame,\nThe grinding anguish that shall waste my strength,\nTill time's ten thousand years have measured out their length!\nHe hath devised these chains,\nThe new throned potentate who reigns,\nChief of the chieftains of the Blest. Ah me!\nThe woe which is and that which yet shall be\nI wail; and question make of these wide skies\nWhen shall the star of my deliverance rise.\nAnd yet-and yet-exactly I foresee\nAll that shall come to pass; no sharp surprise\nOf pain shall overtake me; what's determined\nBear, as I can, I must, knowing the might\nOf strong Necessity is unconquerable.\nBut touching my fate silence and speech alike\nAre unsupportable. For boons bestowed\nOn mortal men I am straitened in these bonds.\nI sought the fount of fire in hollow reed\nHid privily, a measureless resource\nFor man, and mighty teacher of all arts.\nThis is the crime that I must expiate\nHung here in chains, nailed 'neath the open sky. Ha! Ha!\nWhat echo, what odour floats by with no sound?\nGod-wafted or mortal or mingled its strain?\nComes there one to this world's end, this mountain-girt ground,\nTo have sight of my torment? Or of what is he fain?\nA God ye behold in bondage and pain,\nThe foe of Zeus and one at feud with all\nThe deities that find\nSubmissive entry to the tyrant's hall;\nHis fault, too great a love of humankind.\nAh me! Ah me! what wafture nigh at hand,\nAs of great birds of prey, is this I hear?\nThe bright air fanned\nWhistles and shrills with rapid beat of wings.\nThere cometh nought but to my spirit brings\nHorror and fear. (The DAUGHTERS OF OCEANUS draw near in mid-air in\ntheir winged chariot.)\nCHORUS Put thou all fear away!\nIn kindness cometh this array\nOn wings of speed to mountain lone,\nOur sire's consent not lightly won.\nBut a fresh breeze our convoy brought,\nFor loud the din of iron raught\nEven to our sea-cave's cold recess,\nAnd scared away the meek-eyed bashfulness.\nI tarried not to tic my sandal shoe\nBut haste, post haste, through air my winged chariot flew.\nPROMETHEUS Ah me! Ah me!\nFair progeny\nThat many-childed Tethys brought to birth,\nFathered of Ocean old\nWhose sleepless stream is rolled\nRound the vast shores of earth\nLook on me! Look upon these chains\nWherein I hang fast held\nOn rocks high-pinnacled,\nMy dungeon and my tower of dole,\nWhere o'er the abyss my soul,\nSad warder, her unwearied watch sustains!\nCHORUS Prometheus, I am gazing on thee now!\nWith the cold breath of fear upon my brow,\nNot without mist of dimming tears,\nWhile to my sight thy giant stature rears\nIts bulk forpined upon these savage rocks\nIn shameful bonds the linked adamant locks.\nFor now new steersmen take the helm\nOlympian; now with little thought\nOf right, on strange, new laws Zeus stablisheth his realm,\nBringing the mighty ones of old to naught.\nPROMETHEUS Oh that he had conveyed me\n'Neath earth, 'neath hell that swalloweth up the dead;\nIn Tartarus, illimitably vast\nWith adamantine fetters bound me fast-\nThere his fierce anger on me visited,\nWhere never mocking laughter could upbraid me\nOf God or aught beside!\nBut now a wretch enskied,\nA far-seen vane,\nAll they that hate me triumph in my pain.\nCHORUS Who of the Gods is there so pitiless\nThat he can triumph in thy sore distress?\nWho doth not inly groan\nWith every pang of thine save Zeus alone?\nBut he is ever wroth, not to be bent\nFrom his resolved intent\nThe sons of heaven to subjugate;\nNor shall he cease until his heart be satiate,\nOr one a way devise\nTo hurl him from the throne where he doth monarchize.\nPROMETHEUS Yea, of a surety-though he do me wrong,\nLoading my limbs with fetters strong-\nThe president\nOf heaven's high parliament\nShall need me yet to show\nWhat new conspiracy with privy blow\nAttempts his sceptre and his kingly seat.\nNeither shall words with all persuasion sweet,\nNot though his tongue drop honey, cheat\nNor charm my knowledge from me; nor dures\nOf menace dire, fear of more grievous pains,\nUnseal my lips, till he have loosed these chains,\nAnd granted for these injuries redress.\nCHORUS High is the heart of thee,\nThy will no whit by bitter woes unstrung,\nAnd all too free\nThe licence of thy bold, unshackled tongue.\nBut fear hath roused my soul with piercing cry!\nAnd for thy fate my heart misgives me! I\nTremble to know when through the breakers' roar\nThy keel shall touch again the friendly shore;\nFor not by prayer to Zeus is access won;\nAn unpersuadable heart hath Cronos' son.\nPROMETHEUS I know the heart of Zeus is hard, that he hath tied\nJustice to his side;\nBut he shall be full gentle thus assuaged;\nAnd, the implacable wrath wherewith he raged\nSmoothed quite away, nor he nor I\nBe loth to seal a bond of peace and amity.\nCHORUS All that thou hast to tell I pray unfold,\nThat we may hear at large upon what count\nZeus took thee and with bitter wrong affronts:\nInstruct us, if the telling hurt thee not.\nPROMETHEUS These things are sorrowful for me to speak,\nYet silence too is sorrow: all ways woe!\nWhen first the Blessed Ones were filled with wrath\nAnd there arose division in their midst,\nThese instant to hurl Cronos from his throne\nThat Zeus might be their king, and these, adverse,\nContending that he ne'er should rule the Gods,\nThen I, wise counsel urging to persuade\nThe Titans, sons of Ouranos and Chthon,\nPrevailed not: but, all indirect essays\nDespising, they by the strong hand, effortless,\nYet by main force-supposed that they might seize\nSupremacy. But me my mother Themis\nAnd Gaia, one form called by many names,\nNot once alone with voice oracular\nHad prophesied how power should be disposed-\nThat not by strength neither by violence\nThe mighty should be mastered, but by guile.\nWhich things by me set forth at large, they scorned,\nNor graced my motion with the least regard.\nThen, of all ways that offered, I judged best,\nTaking my mother with me, to support,\nNo backward friend, the not less cordial Zeus.\nAnd by my politic counsel Tartarus,\nThe bottomless and black, old Cronos hides\nWith his confederates. So helped by me,\nThe tyrant of the Gods, such service rendered\nWith ignominious chastisement requites.\nBut 'tis a common malady of power\nTyrannical never to trust a friend.\nAnd now, what ye inquired, for what arraigned\nHe shamefully entreats me, ye shall know.\nWhen first upon his high, paternal throne\nHe took his seat, forthwith to divers Gods\nDivers good gifts he gave, and parcelled out\nHis empire, but of miserable men\nRecked not at all; rather it was his wish\nTo wipe out man and rear another race:\nAnd these designs none contravened but me.\nI risked the bord attempt, and saved mankind\nFrom stark destruction and the road to hell.\nTherefore with this sore penance am I bowed,\nGrievous to suffer, pitiful to see.\nBut, for compassion shown to man, such fate\nI no wise earned; rather in wrath's despite\nAm I to be reformed, and made a show\nOf infamy to Zeus.\nCHORUS He hath a heart\nOf iron, hewn out of unfeeling rock\nIs he, Prometheus, whom thy sufferings\nRouse not to wrath. Would I had ne'er beheld them,\nFor verily the sight hath wrung my heart.\nPROMETHEUS Yea, to my friends a woeful sight am I.\nCHORUS Hast not more boldly in aught else transgressed?\nPROMETHEUS I took from man expectancy of death.\nCHORUS What medicine found'st thou for this malady?\nPROMETHEUS I planted blind hope in the heart of him.\nCHORUS A mighty boon thou gavest there to man.\nPROMETHEUS Moreover, I conferred the gift of fire.\nCHORUS And have frail mortals now the flame-bright fire?\nPROMETHEUS Yea, and shall master many arts thereby.\nCHORUS And Zeus with such misfeasance charging thee-\nPROMETHEUS Torments me with extremity of woe.\nCHORUS And is no end in prospect of thy pains?\nPROMETHEUS None; save when he shall choose to make an end.\nCHORUS How should he choose? What hope is thine? Dost thou\nNot see that thou hast erred? But how thou erredst\nSmall pleasure were to me to tell; to the\nExceeding sorrow. Let it go then: rather\nSeek thou for some deliverance from thy woes.\nPROMETHEUS He who stands free with an untrammelled foot\nIs quick to counsel and exhort a friend\nIn trouble. But all these things I know well.\nOf my free will, my own free will, I erred,\nAnd freely do I here acknowledge it.\nFreeing mankind myself have durance found.\nNatheless, I looked not for sentence so dread,\nHigh on this precipice to droop and pine,\nHaving no neighbour but the desolate crags.\nAnd now lament no more the ills I suffer,\nBut come to earth and an attentive ear\nLend to the things that shall befall hereafter.\nHarken, oh harken, suffer as I suffer!\nWho knows, who knows, but on some scatheless head,\nAnother's yet for the like woes reserved,\nThe wandering doom will presently alight?\nCHORUS Prometheus, we have heard thy call:\nNot on deaf cars these awful accents fall.\nLo! lightly leaving at thy words\nMy flying car\nAnd holy air, the pathway of great birds,\nI long to tread this land of peak and scar,\nAnd certify myself by tidings sure\nOf all thou hast endured and must endure. (While the winged chariot\nof the OCEANIDES comes to ground their father OCEANUS enters, riding\non a monster.)\nOCEANUS Now have I traversed the unending plain\nAnd unto thee, Prometheus, am I come,\nGuiding this winghd monster with no rein,\nNor any bit, but mind's firm masterdom.\nAnd know that for thy grief my heart is sore;\nThe bond of kind, methinks, constraineth me;\nNor is there any I would honour more,\nApart from kinship, than I reverence thee.\nAnd thou shalt learn that I speak verity:\nMine is no smooth, false tongue; for do but show\nHow I can serve thee, grieved and outraged thus,\nThou ne'er shalt say thou hast, come weal, come woe,\nA friend more faithful than Oceanus.\nPROMETHEUS How now? Who greets me? What! Art thou too come\nTo gaze upon my woes? How could'st thou leave\nThe stream that bears thy name, thine antres arched\nWith native rock, to visit earth that breeds\nThe massy iron in her womb? Com'st thou\nTo be spectator of my evil lot\nAnd fellow sympathizer with my woes?\nBehold, a thing indeed to gaze upon\nThe friend of Zeus, co-stablisher of his rule,\nSee, by this sentence with what pains I am bowed I\nOCEANUS Prometheus, all too plainly I behold:\nAnd for the best would counsel thee: albeit\nThy brain is subtle. Learn to know thy heart,\nAnd, as the times, so let thy manners change,\nFor by the law of change a new God rules.\nBut, if these bitter, savage, sharp-set words\nThou ventest, it may be, though he sit throned\nFar off and high above thee, Zeus will hear;\nAnd then thy present multitude of ills\nWill seem the mild correction of a babe.\nRather, O thou much chastened one, refrain\nThine anger, and from suffering seek release.\nStale, peradventure, seem these words of mine:\nNevertheless, of a too haughty tongue\nSuch punishment, Prometheus, is the wage.\nBut thou, not yet brought low by suffering,\nTo what thou hast of ill would'st add far worse.\nTherefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,\nThou shalt not kick against the pricks; the more\nThat an arch-despot who no audit dreads\nRules by his own rough will. And now I leave thee,\nTo strive with what success I may command\nFor thy deliv'rance. Keep a quiet mind\nAnd use not over-vehemence of speech-\nKnowest thou not, being exceeding wise,\nA wanton, idle tongue brings chastisement?\nPROMETHEUS I marvel that thou art not in my case,\nSeeing with me thou did'st adventure all.\nAnd now, I do entreat thee, spare thyself.\nThou wilt not move him: he's not easy moved\nTake heed lest thou find trouble by the way.\nOCEANUS Thou are a better counsellor to others\nThan to thyself: I judge by deeds not words.\nPluck me not back when I would fain set forth.\nMy oath upon it, Zeus will grant my prayer\nAnd free thee from these pangs.\nPROMETHEUS I tender the\nFor this my thanks and ever-during praise.\nCertes, no backward friend art thou; and yet\nTrouble not thyself; for at the best thy labour\nWill nothing serve me, if thou mean'st to serve.\nBeing thyself untrammelled stand fast.\nFor, not to mitigate my own mischance,\nWould I see others hap on evil days.\nThe thought be far from me. I feel the weight\nOf Atlas' woes, my brother in the west\nShouldering the pillar that props heaven and earth,\nNo wieldy fardel for his arms to fold.\nThe giant dweller in Cilician dens\nI saw and pitied-a terrific shape,\nA hundred-headed monster-when he fell,\nResistless Typhon who withstood the Gods,\nWith fearsome hiss of beak-mouth horrible,\nWhile lightning from his eyes with Gorgon-glare\nFlashed for the ravage of the realm of Zeus.\nBut on him came the bolt that never sleeps,\nDown-crashing thunder, with emitted fire,\nWhich shattered him and all his towering hopes\nDashed into ruin; smitten through the breast,\nHis strength as smoking cinder, lightning-charred.\nAnd now a heap, a helpless, sprawling hulk,\nHe lies stretched out beside the narrow seas,\nPounded and crushed deep under Etna's roots.\nBut on the mountain-top Hephaestus sits\nForging the molten iron, whence shall burst\nRivers of fire, with red and ravening jaws\nTo waste fair-fruited, smooth, Sicilian fields.\nSuch bilious up-boiling of his ire\nShall Typho vent, with slingstone-showers red-hot,\nAnd unapproachable surge of fiery spray,\nAlthough combusted by the bolt of Zeus.\nBut thou art not unlearned, nor needest me\nTo be thy teacher: save thyself the way\nThou knowest and I will fortify my heart\nUntil the wrathfulness of Zeus abate.\nOCEANUS Nay then, Prometheus, art thou ignorant\nWords are physicians to a wrath-sick soul?\nPROMETHEUS Yes, if with skill one soften the ripe core,\nNot by rough measures make it obdurate.\nOCEANUS Seest thou in warm affection detriment\nOr aught untoward in adventuring?\nPROMETHEUS A load of toil and a light mind withal.\nOCEANUS Then give me leave to call that sickness mine.\nWise men accounted fools attain their ends.\nPROMETHEUS But how if I am galled by thine offence?\nOCEANUS There very palpably thou thrustest home.\nPROMETHEUS Beware lest thou through pity come to broils.\nOCEANUS With one established in Omnipotence?\nPROMETHEUS Of him take heed lest thou find heaviness.\nOCEANUS I am schooled by thy calamity, Prometheus!\nPROMETHEUS Pack then! And, prithee, do not change thy mind!\nOCEANUS Thou criest \"On\" to one in haste to go.\nFor look, my dragon with impatient wings\nFlaps at the broad, smooth road of level air.\nFain would he kneel him down in his own stall. (Exit OCEANUS.)\nCHORUS (after alighting) I mourn for thee, Prometheus, minished\nand brought low,\nWatering my virgin cheeks with these sad drops, that flow\nFrom sorrow's rainy fount, to fill soft-lidded eyes\nWith pure libations for thy fortune's obsequies.\nAn evil portion that none coveteth hath Zeus\nPrepared for thee; by self-made laws established for his use\nDisposing all, the elder Gods he purposeth to show\nHow strong is that right arm wherewith he smites a foe.\nThere hath gone up a cry from earth, a groaning for the fall\nOf things of old renown and shapes majestical,\nAnd for thy passing an exceeding bitter groan;\nFor thee and for thy brother Gods whose honour was thine own:\nThese things all they who dwell in Asia's holy seat,\nTime's minions, mourn and with their groans thy groans repeat.\nYea, and they mourn who dwell beside the Colchian shore,\nThe hero maids unwedded that delight in war,\nAnd Scythia's swarming myriads who their dwelling make\nAround the borders of the world, the salt Maeotian lake.\nMourns Ares' stock, that flowers in desert Araby,\nAnd the strong city mourns, the hill-fort planted high,\nNear neighbour to huge Caucasus, dread mountaineers\nThat love the clash of arms, the counter of sharp spears.\nBeforetime of all Gods one have I seen in pain,\nOne only Titan bound with adamantine chain,\nAtlas in strength supreme, who groaning stoops, downbent\nUnder the burthen of the earth and heaven's broad firmament.\nBellows the main of waters, surge with foam-seethed surge\nClashing tumultuous; for thee the deep seas chant their dirge;\nAnd Hell's dark under-world a hollow moaning fills;\nThee mourn the sacred streams with all their fountain-rills.\nPROMETHEUS Think not that I for pride and stubbornness\nAm silent: rather is my heart the prey\nOf gnawing thoughts, both for the past, and now\nSeeing myself by vengeance buffeted.\nFor to these younger Gods their precedence\nWho severally determined if not I?\nNo more of that: I should but weary you\nWith things ye know; but listen to the tale\nOf human sufferings, and how at first\nSenseless as beasts I gave men sense, possessed them\nOf mind. I speak not in contempt of man;\nI do but tell of good gifts I conferred.\nIn the beginning, seeing they saw amiss,\nAnd hearing heard not, but, like phantoms huddled\nIn dreams, the perplexed story of their days\nConfounded; knowing neither timber-work\nNor brick-built dwellings basking in the light,\nBut dug for themselves holes, wherein like ants,\nThat hardly may contend against a breath,\nThey dwelt in burrows of their unsunned caves.\nNeither of winter's cold had they fixed sign,\nNor of the spring when she comes decked with flowers,\nNor yet of summer's heat with melting fruits\nSure token: but utterly without knowledge\nMoiled, until I the rising of the stars\nShowed them, and when they set, though much obscure.\nMoreover, number, the most excellent\nOf all inventions, I for them devised,\nAnd gave them writing that retaineth all,\nThe serviceable mother of the Muse.\nI was the first that yoked unmanaged beasts,\nTo serve as slaves with collar and with pack,\nAnd take upon themselves, to man's relief,\nThe heaviest labour of his hands: and\nTamed to the rein and drove in wheeled cars\nThe horse, of sumptuous pride the ornament.\nAnd those sea-wanderers with the wings of cloth,\nThe shipman's waggons, none but I contrived.\nThese manifold inventions for mankind\nI perfected, who, out upon't, have none-\nNo, not one shift-to rid me of this shame.\nCHORUS Thy sufferings have been shameful, and thy mind\nStrays at a loss: like to a bad physician\nFallen sick, thou'rt out of heart: nor cans't prescribe\nFor thine own case the draught to make thee sound.\nPROMETHEUS But hear the sequel and the more admire\nWhat arts, what aids I cleverly evolved.\nThe chiefest that, if any man fell sick,\nThere was no help for him, comestible,\nLotion or potion; but for lack of drugs\nThey dwindled quite away; until I taught them\nTo compound draughts and mixtures sanative,\nWherewith they now are armed against disease.\nI staked the winding path of divination\nAnd was the first distinguisher of dreams,\nThe true from false; and voices ominous\nOf meaning dark interpreted; and tokens\nSeen when men take the road; and augury\nBy flight of all the greater crook-clawed birds\nWith nice discrimination I defined;\nThese by their nature fair and favourable,\nThose, flattered with fair name. And of each sort\nThe habits I described; their mutual feuds\nAnd friendships and the assemblages they hold.\nAnd of the plumpness of the inward parts\nWhat colour is acceptable to the Gods,\nThe well-streaked liver-lobe and gall-bladder.\nAlso by roasting limbs well wrapped in fat\nAnd the long chine, I led men on the road\nOf dark and riddling knowledge; and I purged\nThe glancing eye of fire, dim before,\nAnd made its meaning plain. These are my works.\nThen, things beneath the earth, aids hid from man,\nBrass, iron, silver, gold, who dares to say\nHe was before me in discovering?\nNone, I wot well, unless he loves to babble.\nAnd in a single word to sum the whole-\nAll manner of arts men from Prometheus learned.\nCHORUS Shoot not beyond the mark in succouring man\nWhile thou thyself art comfortless: for\nAm of good hope that from these bonds escaped\nThou shalt one day be mightier than Zeus.\nPROMETHEUS Fate, that brinks all things to an end, not thus\nApportioneth my lot: ten thousand pangs\nMust bow, ten thousand miseries afflict me\nEre from these bonds I freedom find, for Art\nIs by much weaker than Necessity.\nCHORUS Who is the pilot of Necessity?\nPROMETHEUS The Fates triform, and the unforgetting Furies.\nCHORUS So then Zeus is of lesser might than these?\nPROMETHEUS Surely he shall not shun the lot apportioned.\nCHORUS What lot for Zeus save world-without-end reign?\nPROMETHEUS Tax me no further with importunate questions.\nCHORUS O deep the mystery thou shroudest there\nPROMETHEUS Of aught but this freely thou may'st discourse;\nBut touching this I charge thee speak no word;\nNay, veil it utterly: for strictly kept\nThe secret from these bonds shall set me free.\nCHORUS May Zeus who all things swayeth\nNe'er wreak the might none stayeth\nOn wayward will of mine;\nMay I stint not nor waver\nWith offerings of sweet savour\nAnd feasts of slaughtered kine;\nThe holy to the holy,\nWith frequent feet and lowly\nAt altar, fane and shrine,\nOver the Ocean marches,\nThe deep that no drought parches,\nDraw near to the divine.\nMy tongue the Gods estrange not;\nMy firm set purpose change not,\nAs wax melts in fire-shine.\nSweet is the life that lengthens,\nWhile joyous hope still strengthens,\nAnd glad, bright thoughts sustain;\nBut shuddering I behold thee,\nThe sorrows that enfold thee\nAnd all thine endless pain.\nFor Zeus thou hast despised;\nThy fearless heart misprized\nAll that his vengeance can,\nThy wayward will obeying,\nExcess of honour paying,\nPrometheus, unto man.\nAnd, oh, beloved, for this graceless grace\nWhat thanks? What prowess for thy bold essay\nShall champion thee from men of mortal race,\nThe petty insects of a passing day?\nSaw'st not how puny is the strength they spend?\nWith few, faint steps walking as dreams and blind,\nNor can the utmost of their lore transcend\nThe harmony of the Eternal Mind.\nThese things I learned seeing thy glory dimmed,\nPrometheus. Ah, not thus on me was shed\nThe rapture of sweet music, when I hymned\nThe marriage-song round bath and bridal bed\nAt thine espousals, and of thy blood-kin,\nA bride thou chosest, wooing her to thee\nWith all good gifts that may a Goddess win,\nThy father's child, divine Hesione. (Enter IO, crazed and horned.)\nIO What land is this? What people here abide?\nAnd who is he,\nThe prisoner of this windswept mountain-side?\nSpeak, speak to me;\nTell me, poor caitiff, how did'st thou transgress,\nThus buffeted?\nWhither am I, half-dead with weariness,\nFor-wandered?\nHa! Ha!\nAgain the prick, the stab of gadfly-sting!\nO earth, earth, hide,\nThe hollow shape-Argus-that evil thing-\nThe hundred-eyed-\nEarth-born-herdsman! I see him yet; he stalks\nWith stealthy pace\nAnd crafty watch not all my poor wit baulks!\nFrom the deep place\nOf earth that hath his bones he breaketh bound,\nAnd from the pale\nOf Death, the Underworld, a hell-sent hound\nOn the blood-trail,\nFasting and faint he drives me on before,\nWith spectral hand,\nAlong the windings of the wasteful shore,\nThe salt sea-sand!\nList! List! the pipe! how drowzily it shrills!\nA cricket-cry!\nSee! See! the wax-webbed reeds! Oh, to these ills\nYe Gods on high,\nYe blessed Gods, what bourne? O wandering feet\nWhen will ye rest?\nO Cronian child, wherein by aught unmeet\nHave I transgressed\nTo be yoke-fellow with Calamity?\nMy mind unstrung,\nA crack-brained lack-wit, frantic mad am I,\nBy gad-fly stung,\nThy scourge, that tarres me on with buzzing wingl\nPlunge me in fire,\nHide me in earth, to deep-sea monsters fling,\nBut my desire-\nKneeling I pray-grudge not to grant, O King!\nToo long a race\nStripped for the course have I run to and fro;\nAnd still I chase\nThe vanishing goal, the end of all my woe;\nEnough have I mourned!\nHear'st thou the lowing of the maid cow-horned?\nPROMETHEUS How should I hear thee not? Thou art the child\nOf Inachus, dazed with the dizzying fly.\nThe heart of Zeus thou hast made hot with love\nAnd Hera's curse even as a runner stripped\nPursues thee ever on thine endless round.\nIO How dost thou know my father's name? Impart\nTo one like thee\nA poor, distressful creature, who thou art.\nSorrow with me,\nSorrowful one! Tell me, whose voice proclaims\nThings true and sad,\nNaming by all their old, unhappy names,\nWhat drove me mad-\nSick! Sick! ye Gods, with suffering ye have sent,\nThat clings and clings;\nWasting my lamp of life till it be spent!\nCrazed with your stings!\nFamished I come with trampling and with leaping,\nTorment and shame,\nTo Hera's cruel wrath, her craft unsleeping,\nCaptive and tame\nOf all wights woe-begone and fortune-crossed,\nOh, in the storm\nOf the world's sorrow is there one so lost?\nSpeak, godlike form,\nAnd be in this dark world my oracle I\nCan'st thou not sift\nThe things to come? Hast thou no art to tell\nWhat subtle shift,\nOr sound of charming song shall make me well?\nHide naught of ill\nBut-if indeed thou knowest-prophesy-\nIn words that thrill\nClear-toned through air-what such a wretch as\nMust yet abide-\nThe lost, lost maid that roams earth's kingdoms wide?\nPROMETHEUS What thou wouldst learn I will make clear to thee,\nNot weaving subtleties, but simple sooth\nUnfolding as the mouth should speak to friends.\nI am Prometheus, giver of fire to mortals.\nIO Oh universal succour of mankind,\nSorrowful Prometheus, why art thou punished thus?\nPROMETHEUS I have but now ceased mourning for my griefs.\nIO Wilt thou not grant me then so small a boon?\nPROMETHEUS What is it thou dost ask? Thou shalt know all.\nIO Declare to me who chained thee in this gorge.\nPROMETHEUS The hest of Zeus, but 'twas Hephaestus' hand.\nIO But what transgression dost thou expiate?\nPROMETHEUS Let this suffice thee: thou shalt know no more.\nIO Nay, but the end of my long wandering\nWhen shall it be? This too thou must declare.\nPROMETHEUS That it is better for thee not to know.\nIO Oh hide not from me what I have to suffer!\nPROMETHEUS Poor child! Poor child! I do not grudge the gift.\nIO Why then, art thou so slow to tell me all?\nPROMETHEUS It is not from unkindness; but I fear\n'Twill break thy heart.\nIO Take thou no thought for me\nWhere thinking thwarteth heart's desire!\nPROMETHEUS So keen\nTo know thy sorrows! List I and thou shalt learn.\nCHORUS Not till thou hast indulged a wish of mine.\nFirst let us hear the story of her grief\nAnd she herself shall tell the woeful tale.\nAfter, thy wisdom shall impart to her\nThe conflict yet to come.\nPROMETHEUS So be it, then.\nAnd, Io, thus much courtesy thou owest\nThese maidens being thine own father's kin.\nFor with a moving story of our woes\nTo win a tear from weeping auditors\nIn nought demeans the teller.\nIO I know not\nHow fitly to refuse; and at your wish\nAll ye desire to know I will in plain,\nRound terms set forth. And yet the telling of it\nHarrows my soul; this winter's tale of wrong,\nOf angry Gods and brute deformity,\nAnd how and why on me these horrors swooped.\nAlways there were dreams visiting by night\nThe woman's chambers where I slept; and they\nWith flattering words admonished and cajoled me,\nSaying, \"O lucky one, so long a maid?\nAnd what a match for thee if thou would'st wed\nWhy, pretty, here is Zeus as hot as hot-\nLove-sick-to have thee! Such a bolt as thou\nHast shot clean through his heart And he won't rest\nTill Cypris help him win thee! Lift not then,\nMy daughter, a proud foot to spurn the bed\nOf Zeus: but get thee gone to meadow deep\nBy Lerna's marsh, where are thy father's flocks\nAnd cattle-folds, that on the eye of Zeus\nMay fall the balm that shall assuage desire.\"\nSuch dreams oppressed me, troubling all my nights,\nWoe's me! till I plucked courage up to tell\nMy father of these fears that walked in darkness.\nAnd many times to Pytho and Dodona\nHe sent his sacred missioners, to inquire\nHow, or by deed or word, he might conform\nTo the high will and pleasure of the Gods.\nAnd they returned with slippery oracles,\nNought plain, but all to baffle and perplex-\nAnd then at last to Inachus there raught\nA saying that flashed clear; the drift, that\nMust be put out from home and country, forced\nTo be a wanderer at the ends of the earth,\nA thing devote and dedicate; and if\nI would not, there should fall a thunderbolt\nFrom Zeus, with blinding flash, and utterly\nDestroy my race. So spake the oracle\nOf Loxias. In sorrow he obeyed,\nAnd from beneath his roof drove forth his child\nGrieving as he grieved, and from house and home\nBolted and barred me out. But the high hand\nOf Zeus bear hardly on the rein of fate.\nAnd, instantly-even in a moment-mind\nAnd body suffered strange distortion. Horned\nEven as ye see me now, and with sharp bite\nOf gadfly pricked, with high-flung skip, stark-mad,\nI bounded, galloping headlong on, until\nI came to the sweet and of the stream\nKerchneian, hard by Lerna's spring. And thither\nArgus, the giant herdsman, fierce and fell\nAs a strong wine unmixed, with hateful cast\nOf all his cunning eyes upon the trail,\nGave chase and tracked me down. And there he perished\nBy violent and sudden doom surprised.\nBut I with darting sting-the scorpion whip\nOf angry Gods-am lashed from land to land.\nThou hast my story, and, if thou can'st tell\nWhat I have still to suffer, speak; but do not,\nMoved by compassion, with a lying tale\nWarm my cold heart; no sickness of the soul\nIs half so shameful as composed falsehoods.\nCHORUS Off! lost one! off! Horror, I cry!\nHorror and misery\nWas this the traveller's tale I craved to hear?\nOh, that mine eyes should see\nA sight so ill to look upon! Ah me!\nSorrow, defilement, haunting fear,\nFan my blood cold,\nStabbed with a two-edged sting!\nO Fate, Fate, Fate, tremblingly I behold\nThe plight of Io, thine apportioning!\nPROMETHEUS Thou dost lament too soon, and art as one\nAll fear. Refrain thyself till thou hast heard\nWhat's yet to be.\nCHORUS Speak and be our instructor:\nThere is a kind of balm to the sick soul\nIn certain knowledge of the grief to come.\nPROMETHEUS Your former wish I lightly granted ye:\nAnd ye have heard, even as ye desired,\nFrom this maid's lips the story of her sorrow.\nNow hear the sequel, the ensuing woes\nThe damsel must endure from Hera's hate.\nAnd thou, O seed of Inachaean loins,\nWeigh well my words, that thou may'st understand\nThy journey's end. First towards the rising sun\nTurn hence, and traverse fields that ne'er felt plough\nUntil thou reach the country of the Scyths,\nA race of wanderers handling the long-bow\nThat shoots afar, and having their habitations\nUnder the open sky in wattled cotes\nThat move on wheels. Go not thou nigh to them,\nBut ever within sound of the breaking waver,\nPass through their land. And on the left of the\nThe Chalybes, workers in iron, dwell.\nBeware of them, for they are savages,\nWho suffer not a stranger to come near.\nAnd thou shalt reach the river Hybristes,\nWell named. Cross not, for it is ill to cross,\nUntil thou come even unto Caucasus,\nHighest of mountains, where the foaming river\nBlows all its volume from the summit ridge\nThat o'ertops all. And that star-neighboured ridge\nThy feet must climb; and, following the road\nThat runneth south, thou presently shall reach\nThe Amazonian hosts that loathe the male,\nAnd shall one day remove from thence and found\nThemiscyra hard by Thermodon's stream,\nWhere on the craggy Salmadessian coast\nWaves gnash their teeth, the maw of mariners\nAnd step-mother of ships. And they shall lead the\nUpon thy way, and with a right good will.\nThen shalt thou come to the Cimmerian Isthmus,\nEven at the pass and portals of the sea,\nAnd leaving it behind thee, stout of heart,\nCross o'er the channel of Maeotis' lake.\nFor ever famous among men shall be\nThe story of thy crossing, and the strait\nBe called by a new name, the Bosporus,\nIn memory of thee. Then having left\nEuropa's soil behind thee thou shalt come\nTo the main land of Asia. What think ye?\nIs not the only ruler of the Gods\nA complete tyrant, violent to all,\nRespecting none? First, being himself a God,\nHe burneth to enjoy a mortal maid,\nAnd then torments her with these wanderings.\nA sorry suitor for thy love, poor girl,\nA bitter wooing. Yet having heard so much\nThou art not even in the overture\nAnd prelude of the song.\nIO Alas! Oh! Oh!\nPROMETHEUS Thou dost cryout, fetching again deep groans:\nWhat wilt thou do when thou hast heard in full\nThe evils yet to come?\nCHORUS And wilt thou tell\nThe maiden something further: some fresh sorrow?\nPROMETHEUS A stormy sea of wrong and ruining.\nIO What does it profit me to live! Oh, why\nDo I not throw myself from this rough crag\nAnd in one leap rid me of all my pain?\nBetter to die at once than live, and all\nMy days be evil.\nPROMETHEUS Thou would'st find it hard\nTo bear what I must bear: for unto me\nIt is not given to die,-a dear release\nFrom pain; but now of suffering there is\nNo end in sight till Zeus shall fall.\nIO And shall\nZeus fall? His power be taken from him?\nNo matter when if true-\nPROMETHEUS 'Twould make thee happy\nMethinks, if thou could'st see calamity\nWhelm him.\nIO How should it not when all my woes\nAre of his sending? learn how\nThese things shall be.\nThe tyrant's rod?\nAnd fond imaginings.\nIO But how? Oh, speak,\nIf the declaring draw no evil down I\nPROMETHEUS A marriage he shall make shall vex him sore.\nIO A marriage? Whether of gods or mortals?\nSpeak!\nIf this be utterable!\nPROMETHEUS Why dost thou ask\nWhat I may not declare?\nIO And shall he quit\nThe throne of all the worlds, by a new spouse\nSupplanted?\nPROMETHEUS She will bear to him a child,\nAnd he shall be in might more excellent\nThan his progenitor.\nIO And he will find\nNo way to parry this strong stroke of fate?\nPROMETHEUS None save my own self-when these bonds are loosed.\nIO And who shall loose them if Zeus wills not?\nOf thine own seed.\nHow say'st thou? Shall a child\nOf mine release thee?\nPROMETHEUS Son of thine, but son\nThe thirteenth generation shall beget.\nIO A prophecy oracularly dark.\nPROMETHEUS Then seek not thou to know thine own fate.\nIO Nay,\nTender me not a boon to snatch it from me.\nPROMETHEUS Of two gifts thou hast asked one shall be thine.\nIO What gifts? Pronounce and leave to me the choice.\nPROMETHEUS Nay, thou are free to choose. Say, therefore, whether\nI shall declare to thee thy future woes\nOr him who shall be my deliverer.\nCHORUS Nay, but let both be granted! Unto her\nThat which she chooseth, unto me my choice,\nThat I, too, may have honour from thy lips.\nFirst unto her declare her wanderings,\nAnd unto me him who shall set thee free;\n'Tis that I long to know.\nPROMETHEUS I will resist\nNo further, but to your importunacy\nAll things which ye-desire to learn reveal.\nAnd, Io, first to thee I will declare\nThy far-driven wanderings; write thou my words\nIn the retentive tablets of thy heart.\nWhen thou hast crossed the flood that flows between\nAnd is the boundary of two continents,\nTurn to the sun's uprising, where he treads\nPrinting with fiery steps the eastern sky,\nAnd from the roaring of the Pontic surge\nDo thou pass on, until before thee lies\nThe Gorgonean plain, Kisthene called,\nWhere dwell the gray-haired three, the Phorcides,\nOld, mumbling maids, swan-shaped, having one eye\nBetwixt the three, and but a single tooth.\nOn them the sun with his brightbeams ne'er glanceth\nNor moon that lamps the night. Not far from them\nThe sisters three, the Gorgons, have their haunt;\nWinged forms, with snaky locks, hateful to man,\nWhom nothing mortal looking on can live.\nThus much that thou may'st have a care of these.\nNow of another portent thou shalt hear.\nBeware the dogs of Zeus that ne'er give tongue,\nThe sharp-beaked gryphons, and the one-eyed horde\nOf Arimaspians, riding upon horses,\nWho dwell around the river rolling gold,\nThe ferry and the frith of Pluto's port.\nGo not thou nigh them. After thou shalt come\nTo a far land, a dark-skinned race, that dwell\nBeside the fountains of the sun, whence flows\nThe river Ethiops: follow its banks\nUntil thou comest to the steep-down slope\nWhere from the Bibline mountains Nilus old\nPours the sweet waters of his holy stream.\nAnd thou, the river guiding thee, shalt come\nTo the three-sided, wedge-shaped land of Nile,\nWhere for thyself, Io, and for thy children\nLong sojourn is appointed. If in aught\nMy story seems to stammer and to er\nFrom indirectness, ask and ask again\nTill all be manifest. I do not lack\nFor leisure, having more than well contents me\nCHORUS If there be aught that she must suffer yet,\nOr aught omitted in the narrative\nOf her long wanderings, I pray thee speak.\nBut if thou hast told all, then grant the boon\nWe asked and doubtless thou wilt call to mind.\nPROMETHEUS Nay, she has heard the last of her long journey.\nBut, as some warrant for her patient hearing\nI will relate her former sufferings\nEre she came hither. Much I will omit\nThat had detained us else with long discourse\nAnd touch at once her journey's thus far goal.\nWhen thou wast come to the Molossian plain\nThat lies about the high top of Dodona,\nWhere is an oracle and shrine of Zeus\nThesprotian, and-portent past belief-\nThe talking oaks, the same from whom the word\nFlashed clear and nothing questionably hailed the\nThe destined spouse-ah! do I touch old wounds?-\nOf Zeus, honoured above thy sex; stung thence\nIn torment, where the road runs by the sea,\nThou cam'st to the broad gulf of Rhea, whence\nBeat back by a strong wind, thou didst retrace\nMost painfully thy course; and it shall be\nThat times to come in memory of thy passage\nShall call that inlet the Ionian Sea.\nThus much for thee in witness that my mind\nBeholdeth more than that which leaps to light.\nNow for the things to come; what I shall say\nConcerns ye both alike. Return we then\nAnd follow our old track. There is a city\nYclept Canobus, built at the land's end,\nEven at the mouth and mounded silt of Nile,\nAnd there shall Zeus restore to thee thy mind\nWith touch benign and laying on of hands.\nAnd from that touch thou shalt conceive and bear\nSwarth Epaphus, touch-born; and he shall reap\nAs much of earth as Nilus watereth\nWith his broad-flowing river. In descent\nThe fifth from him there shall come back to Argos,\nThine ancient home, but driven by hard hap,\nTwo score and ten maids, daughters of one house,\nFleeing pollution of unlawful marriage\nWith their next kin, who winged with wild desire,\nAs hawks that follow hard on cushat-doves,\nShall harry prey which they should not pursue\nAnd hunt forbidden brides. But God shall be\nExceeding jealous for their chastity;\nAnd old Pelasgia, for the mortal thrust\nOf woman's hands and midnight murder done\nUpon their new-wed lords, shall shelter them;\nFor every wife shall strike her husband down\nDipping a two-edged broadsword in his blood.\nOh, that mine enemies might wed such wivesl\nBut of the fifty, one alone desire\nShall tame, as with the stroke of charming-wand,\nSo that she shall not lift her hands to slay\nThe partner of her bed; yea, melting love\nShall blunt her sharp-set will, and she shall choose\nRather to be called weak and womanly\nThan the dark stain of blood; and she shall be\nMother of kings in Argos. 'Tis a tale\nWere't told in full, would occupy us long.\nFor, of her sowing, there shall spring to fame\nThe lion's whelp, the archer bold, whose bow\nShall set me free. This is the oracle\nThemis, my ancient Mother, Titan-born,\nDisclosed to me; but how and in what wise\nWere long to tell, nor would it profit thee.\nIO Again they come, again\nThe fury and the pain!\nThe gangrened wound! The ache of pulses dinned\nWith raging throes\nIt beats upon my brain-the burning wind\nThat madness blows!\nIt pricks-the barb, the hook not forged with heat,\nThe gadfly dart!\nAgainst my ribs with thud of trampling feet\nHammers my heart!\nAnd like a bowling wheel mine eyeballs spin,\nAnd I am flung\nBy fierce winds from my course, nor can rein in\nMy frantic tongue\nThat raves I know not what!-a random tide\nOf words-a froth\nOf muddied waters buffeting the wide,\nHigh-crested, hateful wave of ruin and God's wrath! (Exit raving.)\nCHORUS I hold him wise who first in his own mind\nThis canon fixed and taught it to mankind:\nTrue marriage is the union that mates\nEqual with equal; not where wealth emasculates,\nOr mighty lineage is magnified,\nShould he who earns his bread look for a bride.\nTherefore, grave mistresses of fate, I pray\nThat I may never live to see the day\nWhen Zeus takes me for his bedfellow; or\nDraw near in love to husband from on high.\nFor I am full of fear when I behold\nIo, the maid no human love may fold,\nAnd her virginity disconsolate,\nHomeless and husbandless by Hera's hate.\nFor me, when love is level, fear is far.\nMay none of all the Gods that greater are\nEve me with his unshunnable regard;\nFir in that warfare victory is hard,\nAnd of that plenty cometh emptiness.\nWhat should befall me then I dare not guess;\nNor whither I should flee that I might shun\nThe craft and subtlety of Cronos' Son.\nPROMETHEUS I tell thee that the self-willed pride of Zeus\nShall surely be abased; that even now\nHe plots a marriage that shall hurl him forth\nFar out of sight of his imperial throne\nAnd kingly dignity. Then, in that hour,\nShall be fulfilled, nor in one tittle fail,\nThe curse wherewith his father Cronos cursed him,\nWhat time he fell from his majestic place\nEstablished from of old. And such a stroke\nNone of the Gods save me could turn aside.\nI know these things shall be and on what wise.\nTherefore let him secure him in his seat,\nAnd put his trust in airy noise, and swing\nHis bright, two-handed, blazing thunderbolt,\nFor these shall nothing stead him, nor avert\nFall insupportable and glory humbled.\nA wrestler of such might he maketh ready\nFor his own ruin; yea, a wonder, strong\nIn strength unmatchable; and he shall find\nFire that shall set at naught the burning bolt\nAnd blasts more dreadful that o'er-crow the thunder.\nThe pestilence that scourgeth the deep seas\nAnd shaketh solid earth, the three-pronged mace,\nPoseidon's spear, a mightier shall scatter;\nAnd when he stumbleth striking there his foot,\nFallen on evil days, the tyrant's pride\nShall measure all the miserable length\nThat parts rule absolute from servitude.\nCHORUS Methinks the wish is father to the thought\nAnd whets thy railing tongue.\nPROMETHEUS Not so: the wish And the accomplishment go hand in hand.\nCHORUS Then must we look for one who shall supplant\nAnd reign instead of Zeus?\nFar, far more grievous shall bow down his neck.\nCHORUS Hast thou no fear venting such blasphemy?\nPROMETHEUS What should I fear who have no part nor lot\nIn doom of dying?\nCHORUS But he might afflict the\nWith agony more dreadful, pain beyond\nThese pains.\nPROMETHEUS Why let him if he will\nAll evils I foreknow.\nCHORUS Ah, they are wise\nWho do obeisance, prostrate in the dust,\nTo the implacable, eternal Will.\nPROMETHEUS Go thou and worship; fold thy hands in prayer,\nAnd be the dog that licks the foot of power!\nNothing care I for Zeus; yea, less than naught!\nLet him do what he will, and sway the world\nHis little hour; he has not long to lord it\nAmong the Gods.\nOh here here runner comes\nThe upstart tyrant's lacquey! He'll bring news,\nA message, never doubt it, from his master. (Enter HERMES.) Hermes.\nYou, the sophistical rogue, the heart of gall,\nThe renegade of heaven, to short-lived men\nPurveyor of prerogatives and tities,\nFire-thief! Dost hear me? I've a word for thee.\nThou'rt to declare-this is the Father's pleasure\nThese marriage-feasts of thine, whereof thy tongue\nRattles a-pace, and by the which his greatness\nShall take a fall. And look you rede no riddles,\nBut tell the truth, in each particular\nExact. I am not to sweat for thee, Prometheus,\nUpon a double journey. And thou seest\nZeus by thy dark defiance is not moved.\nPROMETHEUS A very solemn piece of insolence\nSpoken like an underling of the Gods! Ye are young!\nYe are young! New come to power And ye suppose\nYour towered citadel Calamity\nCan never enter! Ah, and have not\nSeen from those pinnacles a two-fold fall\nOf tyrants? And the third, who his brief \"now\"\nOf lordship arrogates, I shall see yet\nBy lapse most swift' most ignominious,\nSink to perdition. And dost thou suppose\nI crouch and cower in reverence and awe\nTo Gods of yesterday? I fail of that\nSo much, the total all of space and time\nBulks in between. Take thyself hence and count\nThy toiling steps back by the way thou camest,\nIn nothing wiser for thy questionings.\nHERMES This is that former stubbornness of thine\nThat brought thee hither to foul anchorage.\nPROMETHEUS Mistake me not; I would not, if I might,\nChange my misfortunes for thy vassalage.\nHERMES Oh! better be the vassal of this rock\nThan born the trusty messenger of Zeus\nPROMETHEUS I answer insolence, as it deserves,\nWith insolence. How else should it be answered?\nHERMES Surely; and, being in trouble, it is plain\nYou revel in your plight.\nPROMETHEUS Revel, forsooth!\nI would my enemies might hold such revels\nAnd thou amongst the first.\nHERMES Dost thou blame me\nFor thy misfortunes?\nPROMETHEUS I hate all the Gods,\nBecause, having received good at my hands,\nThey have rewarded me with evil.\nProves thee stark mad!\nHERMES This proves thee stark mad!\nPROMETHEUS Mad as you please, if hating\nYour enemies is madness\nHERMES Were all well\nWith thee, thou'dst be insufferable!\nPROMETHEUS Alas!\nHERMES Alas, that Zeus knows not that word, Alas!\nPROMETHEUS But ageing Time teacheth all knowledge.\nHERMES Time\nHath not yet taught thy rash, imperious will\nOver wild impulse to win mastery.\nPROMETHEUS Nay: had Time taught me that, I had not stooped\nTo bandy words with such a slave as thou.\nHERMES This, then, is all thine answer: thou'lt not\nOne syllable of what our Father asks.\nPROMETHEUS Oh, that I were a debtor to his kindness!\nI would requite him to the uttermost!\nHERMES A cutting speech! You take me for a boy\nWhom you may taunt and tease.\nPROMETHEUS Why art thou not\nA boy-a very booby-to suppose\nThou wilt get aught from me? There is no wrong\nHowever shameful, nor no shift of malice\nWhereby Zeus shall persuade me to unlock\nMy lips until these shackles be cast loose.\nTherefore let lightning leap with smoke and flame,\nAnd all that is be beat and tossed together,\nWith whirl of feathery snowflakes and loud crack\nOf subterranean thunder; none of these\nShall bend my will or force me to disclose\nBy whom 'tis fated he shall fall from power.\nHERMES What good can come of this? Think yet again!\nPROMETHEUS I long ago have thought and long ago\nDetermined.\nHERMES Patience! patience! thou rash fool\nHave so much patience as to school thy mind\nTo a right judgment in thy present troubles.\nPROMETHEUS Lo, I am rockfast, and thy words are wave\nThat weary me in vain. Let not the thought\nEnter thy mind, that I in awe of Zeus\nShall change my nature for a girl's, or beg\nThe Loathed beyond all loathing-with my hands\nSpread out in woman's fashion-to cast loose\nThese bonds; from that I am utterly removed.\nHERMES I have talked much, yet further not my purpose;\nFor thou art in no whit melted or moved\nBy my prolonged entreaties: like a colt\nNew to the harness thou dost back and Plunge.\nSnap at thy bit and fight against the rein.\nAnd yet thy confidence is in a straw;\nFor stubbornness, if one be in the wrong,\nIs in itself weaker than naught at all.\nSee now, if thou wilt not obey my words,\nWhat storm, what triple-crested wave of woe\nUnshunnable shall come upon thee. First,\nThis rocky chasm shall the Father split\nWith earthquake thunder and his burning bolt,\nAnd he shall hide thy form, and thou shalt hang\nBolt upright, dandled in the rock's rude arms.\nNor till thou hast completed thy long term\nShalt thou come back into the light; and then\nThe hound of Zeus, the tawny eagle,\nShall violently fall upon thy flesh\nAnd rend it as 'twere rags; and every day\nAnd all day long shall thine unbidden guest\nSit at thy table, feasting on thy liver\nTill he hath gnawn it black. Look for no term\nTo such an agony till there stand forth\nAmong the Gods one who shall take upon him\nThy sufferings and consent to enter hell\nFar from the light of Sun, yea, the deep pit\nAnd mirk of Tartarus, for thee. Be advised;\nThis is not stuffed speech framed to frighten the\nBut woeful truth. For Zeus knows not to lie\nCHORUS To our mind\nThe words of Hermes fail not of the mark.\nFor he enjoins thee to let self-will go\nAnd follow after prudent counsels. Him\nHarken; for error in the wise is shame.\nPROMETHEUS These are stale tidings I foreknew;\nTherefore, since suffering is the due\nA foe must pay his foes,\nLet curled lightnings clasp and clash\nAnd close upon my limbs: loud crash\nThe thunder, and fierce throes\nOf savage winds convulse calm air:\nThe embowelled blast earth's roots uptear\nAnd toss beyond its bars,\nThe rough surge, till the roaring deep\nIn one devouring deluge sweep\nThe pathway of the stars\nFinally, let him fling my form\nDown whirling gulfs, the central storm\nOf being; let me lie\nPlunged in the black Tartarean gloom;\nYet-yet-his sentence shall not doom\nThis deathless self to die!\nHERMES These are the workings of a brain\nMore than a little touched; the vein\nOf voluble ecstasy!\nSurely he wandereth from the way,\nHis reason lost, who thus can pray\nA mouthing mad man he!\nTherefore, O ye who court his fate,\nRash mourners-ere it be too late\nAnd ye indeed are sad\nFor vengeance spurring hither fast-\nHence! lest the bellowing thunderblast\nLike him should strike you mad I\nCHORUS Words which might work persuasion speak\nIf thou must counsel me; nor seek\nThus, like a stream in spate,\nTo uproot mine honour. Dost thou dare\nUrge me to baseness! I will bear\nWith him all blows of fate;\nFor false forsakers I despise;\nAt treachery my gorge doth rise:\nI spew it forth with hate!\nHERMES Only-with ruin on your track-\nRail not at fortune; but look back\nAnd these my words recall;\nNeither blame Zeus that he hath sent\nSorrow no warning word forewent!\nYe labour for your fall\nWith your own hands I Not by surprise\nNor yet by stealth, but with clear eyes,\nKnowing the thing ye do,\nYe walk into the yawning net\nThat for the feet of is set\nAnd Ruin spreads for you. (Exit.)\nPROMETHEUS The time is past for words; earth quakes\nSensibly: hark! pent thunder rakes\nThe depths, with bellowing din\nOf echoes rolling ever nigher:\nLightnings shake out their locks of fire;\nThe dust cones dance and spin;\nThe skipping winds, as if possessed\nBy faction-north, south, east and west,\nPuff at each other; sea\nAnd sky are shook together: Lo\nThe swing and fury of the blow\nWherewith Zeus smiteth me\nSweepeth apace, and, visibly,\nTo strike my heart with fear. See, see,\nEarth, awful Mother! Air,\nThat shedd'st from the revolving sky\nOn all the light they see thee by,\nWhat bitter wrongs I bear! (The scene closes with earthquake and\nthunder, in the midst of which PROMETHEUS and the DAUGHTERS OF OCEANUS\nsink into the abyss.)\nTHE END","title":"Prometheus Bound","type":"page"}