The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 19

_Ocea.n.u.s._ The hate of him Who sits a new king on the absolute throne?

_Prometheus._ Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him.

_Ocea.n.u.s._ Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher!

_Prometheus._ Go.

Depart--beware--and keep the mind thou hast.

_Ocea.n.u.s._ 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.

[_OCEa.n.u.s 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 G.o.ds of old.

_1st Antistrophe._ All the land is moaning With a murmured plaint to-day; All the mortal nations Having habitations In the holy Asia Are a dirge entoning For thine honour and thy brothers', Once majestic beyond others In the old belief,-- Now are groaning in the groaning Of thy deep-voiced grief.

_2nd Strophe._ Mourn the maids inhabitant Of the Colchian land, Who with white, calm bosoms stand In the battle's roar: Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt The verge of earth, Maeotis' sh.o.r.e.

_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 t.i.tan! 'twas Atlas, who bears In a curse from the G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds, 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 G.o.ds, 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 bra.s.s, 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 G.o.ds 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 s.h.i.+ver 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 sh.o.r.e I may rest from my despair.

_Chorus._ Hearest thou what the ox-horned maiden saith?

_Prometheus._ How could I choose but hearken what she saith, The phrensied maiden?--Inachus's child?-- Who love-warms Zeus's heart, and now is lashed By Here's hate along the unending ways?

_Io._ Who taught thee to articulate that name,-- My father's? Speak to his child By grief and shame defiled!