The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 20

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 Here 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 Hephaestus.

_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 n.o.blest 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 Lerne's mead That's green around thy father's flocks and stalls, Until the pa.s.sion 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 G.o.ds.

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 changed and distraught, And, horned as ye see, and spurred along By the fanged insect, with a maniac leap I rushed on to Cenchrea's limpid stream And Lerne'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 G.o.ds 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 Here. 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 tw.a.n.g the rapid arrow past the bow-- Approach them not; but siding in thy course The rugged sh.o.r.e-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 pa.s.sage,--it is hard to pa.s.s,-- 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 fort.i.tude of soul The strait Maeotis. 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 pa.s.s From Europe's plain to Asia's continent.

How think ye, nymphs? the king of G.o.ds appears Impartial in ferocious deeds? Behold!

The G.o.d 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 G.o.d!

_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?