Four Plays of Aeschylus Part 29

PROMETHEUS

Nay, speak thy need; nought would I hide from thee.

IO

p.r.o.nounce who nailed thee to the rocky cleft.

PROMETHEUS

Zeus, by intent; Hephaestus, by his hand.

IO

For what wrongdoing do these pains atone?

PROMETHEUS

What I have said, is said; suffice it thee!

IO

Yet somewhat add; forewarn me in my woe What time shall bring my wandering to its goal?

PROMETHEUS

Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow; ask it not.

IO

Nay, hide not from me destiny's decree.

PROMETHEUS

I grudge thee not the gift which I withhold.

IO

Then wherefore tarry ere thou tell me all?

PROMETHEUS

Nothing I grudge, but would not rack thy soul.

IO

Be not compa.s.sionate beyond my wish.

PROMETHEUS

Well, thou art fain, and I will speak. Attend!

CHORUS

Nay-ere thou speak, hear me, bestow on me A portion of the grace of granted prayers.

First let us learn how lo's frenzy came- (She telling her disasters manifold) Then of their sequel let her know from thee.

PROMETHEUS

Well were it, Io, thus to do their will- Right well! they are the sisters of thy sire.

'Tis worth the waste and effluence of time, To tell, with tears of perfect moan, the doom Of sorrows that have fallen, when 'tis sure The listeners will greet the tale with tears.

IO

I know not how I should mistrust your prayer; Therefore the whole that ye desire of me Ye now shall learn in one straightforward tale.

Yet, as it leaves my lips, I blush with shame To tell that tempest of the spite of Heaven, And all the wreck and ruin of my form, And whence they swooped upon me, woe is me!

Long, long in visions of the night there came Voices and forms into my maiden bower, Alluring me with smoothly glozing words- O maiden highly favoured of high Heaven, Why cherish thy virginity so long?

Thine is it to win wedlock's n.o.blest crown!

Know that Zeus' heart thro' thee is all aflame, Pierced with desire as with a dart, and longs To join in utmost rite of love with thee.

Therefore, O maiden, shun not with disdain Th' embrace of Zeits, but hie thee forth straightway To the lush growth of Lerna's meadow-land, Where are the flocks and steadings of thy home, And let Zeus' eye be eased of its desire.

Night after night, haunted by dreams like these, Heartsick, I ventured at the last to tell Unto my sire these visions of the dark.

Then sent he many a wight, on sacred quest, To Delphi and to far Dodona's shrine, Being fall fain to learn what deed or word Would win him favour from the powers of heaven.

But they came back repeating oracles Mystic, ambiguous, inscrutable, Till, at the last, an utterance direct, Obscure no more, was brought to Inachus- A peremptory charge to fling me forth Beyond my home and fatherland, a thing Sent loose in banishment o'er all the world; And-should he falter-Zeus should launch on him A fire-eyed bolt, to shatter and consume Himself and all his race to nothingness.

Bowing before such utterance from the shrine Of Loxias, he drave me from our halls, Barring the gates against me: loth he was To do, as I to suffer, this despite: But the strong curb of Zeus had overborne His will to me-ward. As I parted thence, In form and mind I grew dishumanized, And horned as now ye see me, poison-stung By the envenomed bitings of the brize, I leapt and flung in frenzy, rushed away To the bright waters of Cerchneia's stream And Lerna's beach: but ever at my side, A herdsman by his heifer, Argus moved, Earth-born, malevolent of mood, and peered, With myriad eyes, where'er my feet would roam.

But on him in a moment, unforeseen, Came Fate, and sundered him from life; but I, Still maddened by the gadfly's sting, the scourge Of G.o.d's infliction, roam the weary world.

How I have fared, thou hearest: be there aught Of what remains to bear, that thou canst tell, Speak on! but let not thy compa.s.sion warm Thy words to cheering falsehood. Worst of woes Are words that break their promise to our hope!

CHORUS

Woe! woe! avaunt-thou and thy tale of bane!

O never, never dared I dream Such horror of strange sounds should pierce mine ear; Such loathly sights, such tortures hard to bear, Outrage, pollution, agony supreme, Wasting my heart with double edge of pain!

Ah Fate, ah Fate! I gaze on Io's dole, And shudder to my soul!

PROMETHEUS

Thou wailest all too soon, fulfilled of fear- Tarry awhile, till thou have learned the whole.

CHORUS

Say on, reveal it! suffering souls are fain To know aright what yet remains to bear.

PROMETHEUS

Lightly, with help of mine, did ye achieve That which ye first desired: from Io's mouth craved to hear, recounted by herself, The story of her strivings. Listen now To what shall follow, to what woefulness The wrath of Hera must compel this maid.

(To Io) And thou, O child of Inachus, within Thine inmost heart store up these words of mine, That thou may'st learn thy wanderings and their goal.

First from this spot toward the sunrise turn, And cross the steppe that knoweth not the plough: Thus to the nomad Scythians shalt thou come, Who dwell in wattled homes, not built on earth But borne along on wains of st.u.r.dy wheel- Equipped, themselves, with bows of mighty reach.

Pa.s.s them avoidingly, and leave their land, And skirt the beaches where the tides make moan, Till lo! upon the left hand thou shalt find The Chalybes, stout craftsmen of the steel- Beware of them! no gentleness is theirs, No kindly welcome to a stranger's foot!

Thence to the Stream of Violence shalt thou come- Like name, like nature; see thou cross it not, ('Tis fatal to the forder!) till thou come Right to the very Caucasus, the peak That overtops the world, and from its brows The river pants in spray its wrathful stream.

Thence, o'er the pinnacles that court the stars, Onward and southward thou must take thy way, And reach the warlike horde of Amazons, Maidens through hate of man; and gladly they Will guide thy maiden feet. That host, in days That are not yet, shall fix their home and dwell At Themiscyra, on Thermodon's bank, Nigh whereunto the grim projecting fang Of Salmydessus' cape affronts the main, The seaman's curse, to s.h.i.+ps a stepmother!

Then at the jutting land, Cimmerian styled, That screens the narrowing portal of the mere, Thou shalt arrive; pa.s.s o'er it, brave at heart, And ferry thee across Macotis' ford.

So shall there be great rumour evermore, In ears of mortals, of thy pa.s.sage strange; And Bosporos shall be that channel's name, Because the ox-horned thing did pa.s.s thereby.

So, from the wilds of Europe wander'd o'er, To Asia's continent thou com'st at last.

(To the CHORUS) And ye, what think ye? Seems he not, that lord And tyrant of the G.o.ds, as tyrannous Unto all other lives? A high G.o.d's l.u.s.t Constrained this mortal maid to roam the world!

(To Io) Poor maid! a brutal wooer sure was thine!

For know that all which I have told thee now Is scarce the prelude of thy woes to come.

IO