Everything
to me is fearful which creeps this way.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
I complain of arctic voyagers that they do not enough remind us of the
constant peculiar dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual
twilight of the arctic night. So he whose theme is moonlight, though
he may find it difficult, must, as it were, illustrate it with the
light of the moon alone.
Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different
season. Take a July night, for instance. About ten o'clock,--when man
is asleep, and day fairly forgotten,--the beauty of moonlight is seen
over lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding. On all sides
novelties present themselves. Instead of the sun there are the moon
and stars; instead of the wood thrush there is the whip-poor-will;
instead of butterflies in the meadows, fireflies, winged sparks of
fire! who would have believed it? What kind of cool deliberate life
dwells in those dewy abodes associated with a spark of fire? So man
has fire in his eyes, or blood, or brain. Instead of singing birds,
the half-throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the croaking of
frogs, and the intenser dream of crickets. But above all, the
wonderful trump of the bullfrog, ringing from Maine to Georgia. The
potato vines stand upright, the corn grows apace, the bushes loom, the
grain-fields are boundless. On our open river terraces once cultivated
by the Indian, they appear to occupy the ground like an army, their
heads nodding in the breeze. Small trees and shrubs are seen in the
midst overwhelmed as by an inundation. The shadows of rocks and trees,
and shrubs and hills, are more conspicuous than the objects
themselves. The slightest irregularities in the ground are revealed by
the shadows, and what the feet find comparatively smooth appears rough
and diversified in consequence. For the same reason the whole
landscape is more variegated and picturesque than by day. The smallest
recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous; the ferns in the wood
appear of tropical size. The sweet-fern and indigo in overgrown
wood-paths wet you with dew up to your middle. The leaves of the shrub
oak are shining as if a liquid were flowing over them. The pools seen
through the trees are as full of light as the sky. "The light of the
day takes refuge in their bosoms," as the Purana says of the ocean.
All white objects are more remarkable than by day. A distant cliff
looks like a phosphorescent space on a hillside. The woods are heavy
and dark. Nature slumbers. You see the moonlight reflected from
particular stumps in the recesses of the forest, as if she selected
what to shine on. These small fractions of her light remind one of the
plant called moonseed,--as if the moon were sowing it in such places.
In the night the eyes are partly closed or retire into the head. Other
senses take the lead. The walker is guided as well by the sense of
smell. Every plant and field and forest emits its odor now, swamp-pink
in the meadow and tansy in the road; and there is the peculiar dry
scent of corn which has begun to show its tassels. The senses both of
hearing and smelling are more alert. We hear the tinkling of rills
which we never detected before. From time to time, high up on the
sides of hills, you pass through a stratum of warm air, a blast which
has come up from the sultry plains of noon. It tells of the day, of
sunny noontide hours and banks, of the laborer wiping his brow and the
bee humming amid flowers. It is an air in which work has been
done,--which men have breathed. It circulates about from woodside to
hillside like a dog that has lost its master, now that the sun is
gone. The rocks retain all night the warmth of the sun which they have
absorbed. And so does the sand. If you dig a few inches into it you
find a warm bed. You lie on your back on a rock in a pasture on the
top of some bare hill at midnight, and speculate on the height of the
starry canopy. The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance
surpass anything which day has to show. A companion with whom I was
sailing one very windy but bright moonlight night, when the stars were
few and faint, thought that a man could get along with _them_, though
he was considerably reduced in his circumstances,--that they were a
kind of bread and cheese that never failed.
No wonder that there have been astrologers, that some have conceived
that they were personally related to particular stars. Dubartas, as
translated by Sylvester, says he'll
"not believe that the great architect
With all these fires the heavenly arches decked
Only for show, and with these glistering shields,
T' awake poor shepherds, watching in the fields. "
He'll "not believe that the least flower which pranks
Our garden borders, or our common banks,
And the least stone, that in her warming lap
Our mother earth doth covetously wrap,
Hath some peculiar virtue of its own,
And that the glorious stars of heav'n have none. "
And Sir Walter Raleigh well says, "The stars are instruments of far
greater use than to give an obscure light, and for men to gaze on
after sunset;" and he quotes Plotinus as affirming that they "are
significant, but not efficient;" and also Augustine as saying, "_Deus
regit inferiora corpora per superiora_:" God rules the bodies below by
those above. But best of all is this which another writer has
expressed: "_Sapiens adjuvabit opus astrorum quemadmodum agricola
terrae naturam_:" a wise man assisteth the work of the stars as the
husbandman helpeth the nature of the soil.
It does not concern men who are asleep in their beds, but it is very
important to the traveler, whether the moon shines brightly or is
obscured. It is not easy to realize the serene joy of all the earth,
when she commences to shine unobstructedly, unless you have often been
abroad alone in moonlight nights. She seems to be waging continual war
with the clouds in your behalf. Yet we fancy the clouds to be _her_
foes also. She comes on magnifying her dangers by her light,
revealing, displaying them in all their hugeness and blackness, then
suddenly casts them behind into the light concealed, and goes her way
triumphant through a small space of clear sky.
In short, the moon traversing, or appearing to traverse, the small
clouds which lie in her way, now obscured by them, now easily
dissipating and shining through them, makes the drama of the moonlight
night to all watchers and night-travelers. Sailors speak of it as the
moon eating up the clouds. The traveler all alone, the moon all alone,
except for his sympathy, overcoming with incessant victory whole
squadrons of clouds above the forests and lakes and hills. When she is
obscured he so sympathizes with her that he could whip a dog for her
relief, as Indians do. When she enters on a clear field of great
extent in the heavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when
she has fought her way through all the squadron of her foes, and rides
majestic in a clear sky unscathed, and there are no more any
obstructions in her path, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his
way, and rejoices in his heart, and the cricket also seems to express
joy in its song.
How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and
darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades
begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we
steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in
search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural
prey of the intellect.
Richter says that "the earth is every day overspread with the veil of
night for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened, viz. ,
that we may the more readily apprehend the higher harmonies of thought
in the hush and quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns into smoke
and mist stand about us in the night as light and flames; even as the
column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the daytime
appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire. "
There are nights in this climate of such serene and majestic beauty,
so medicinal and fertilizing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive
nature would not devote them to oblivion, and perhaps there is no man
but would be better and wiser for spending them out-of-doors, though
he should sleep all the next day to pay for it,--should sleep an
Endymion sleep, as the ancients expressed it,--nights which warrant
the Grecian epithet ambrosial, when, as in the land of Beulah, the
atmosphere is charged with dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take
our repose and have our dreams awake,--when the moon, not secondary to
the sun,--
"gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. "
Diana still hunts in the New England sky.
"In Heaven queen she is among the spheres.
She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.
Eternity in her oft change she bears;
She Beauty is; by her the fair endure.
"Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed;
By her the virtues of the stars down slide;
By her is Virtue's perfect image cast. "
The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly being who has reached the
last stage of bodily existence.
Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter! In a mild night when the
harvest or hunter's moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our
village, whatever architect they may have had by day, acknowledge only
a master. The village street is then as wild as the forest. New and
old things are confounded. I know not whether I am sitting on the
ruins of a wall, or on the material which is to compose a new one.
Nature is an instructed and impartial teacher, spreading no crude
opinions, and flattering none; she will be neither radical nor
conservative. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so savage!
The light is more proportionate to our knowledge than that of day. It
is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual
atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminated
moments are.
"In such a night let me abroad remain
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again. "
Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of
an inward dawn? --to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if
the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and
glaring.
When Ossian, in his address to the sun, exclaims,--
"Where has darkness its dwelling?
Where is the cavernous home of the stars,
When thou quickly followest their steps,
Pursuing them like a hunter in the sky,--
Thou climbing the lofty hills,
They descending on barren mountains? "
who does not in his thought accompany the stars to their "cavernous
home," "descending" with them "on barren mountains"?
Nevertheless, even by night the sky is blue and not black, for we see
through the shadow of the earth into the distant atmosphere of day,
where the sunbeams are reveling.
TRANSLATIONS
THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS
PERSONS OF THE DRAMA
KRATOS _and_ BIA (Strength and Force).
HEPHAISTUS (Vulcan).
PROMETHEUS.
CHORUS OF OCEAN NYMPHS.
OCEANUS.
IO, _Daughter of Inachus_.
HERMES.
KRATOS _and_ BIA, HEPHAISTUS, PROMETHEUS.
_Kr. _ We are come to the far-bounding plain of earth,
To the Scythian way, to the unapproached solitude.
Hephaistus, orders must have thy attention,
Which the Father has enjoined on thee, this bold one
To the high-hanging rocks to bind
In indissoluble fetters of adamantine bonds.
For thy flower, the splendor of fire useful in all arts,
Stealing, he bestowed on mortals; and for such
A crime 't is fit he should give satisfaction to the gods;
That he may learn the tyranny of Zeus
To love, and cease from his man-loving ways.
_Heph. _ Kratos and Bia, your charge from Zeus
Already has its end, and nothing further in the way;
But I cannot endure to bind
A kindred god by force to a bleak precipice,--
Yet absolutely there's necessity that I have courage for
these things;
For it is hard the Father's words to banish.
High-plotting son of the right-counseling Themis,
Unwilling thee unwilling in brazen fetters hard to be loosed
I am about to nail to this inhuman hill,
Where neither voice [you'll hear], nor form of any mortal
See, but, scorched by the sun's clear flame,
Will change your color's bloom; and to you glad
The various-robed night will conceal the light,
And sun disperse the morning frost again;
And always the burden of the present ill
Will wear you; for he that will relieve you has not yet been born.
Such fruits you've reaped from your man-loving ways,
For a god, not shrinking from the wrath of gods,
You have bestowed honors on mortals more than just,
For which this pleasureless rock you'll sentinel,
Standing erect, sleepless, not bending a knee;
And many sighs and lamentations to no purpose
Will you utter; for the mind of Zeus is hard to be changed;
And he is wholly rugged who may newly rule.
_Kr. _ Well, why dost thou delay and pity in vain?
Why not hate the god most hostile to gods,
Who has betrayed thy prize to mortals?
_Heph. _ The affinity indeed is appalling, and the familiarity.
_Kr. _ I agree, but to disobey the Father's words
How is it possible? Fear you not this more?
_Heph. _ Ay, you are always without pity, and full of confidence.
_Kr. _ For 't is no remedy to bewail this one;
Cherish not vainly troubles which avail naught.
_Heph. _ O much hated handicraft!
_Kr. _ Why hatest it? for in simple truth, for these misfortunes
Which are present now Art's not to blame.
_Heph. _ Yet I would 't had fallen to another's lot.
_Kr. _ All things were done but to rule the gods,
For none is free but Zeus.
_Heph. _ I knew it, and have naught to say against these things.
_Kr. _ Will you not haste, then, to put the bonds about him,
That the Father may not observe you loitering?
_Heph. _ Already at hand the shackles you may see.
_Kr. _ Taking them, about his hands with firm strength
Strike with the hammer, and nail him to the rocks.
_Heph. _ 'T is done, and not in vain this work.
_Kr. _ Strike harder, tighten, nowhere relax,
For he is skillful to find out ways e'en from the impracticable.
_Heph. _ Ay, but this arm is fixed inextricably.
_Kr. _ And this now clasp securely, that
He may learn he is a duller schemer than is Zeus.
_Heph. _ Except him would none justly blame me.
_Kr. _ Now with an adamantine wedge's stubborn fang
Through the breasts nail strongly.
_Heph. _ Alas! alas! Prometheus, I groan for thy afflictions.
_Kr. _ And do you hesitate? for Zeus' enemies
Do you groan? Beware lest one day you yourself will pity.
_Heph. _ You see a spectacle hard for eyes to behold.
_Kr. _ I see him meeting his deserts;
But round his sides put straps.
_Heph. _ To do this is necessity, insist not much.
_Kr. _ Surely I will insist and urge beside;
Go downward, and the thighs surround with force.
_Heph. _ Already it is done, the work, with no long labor.
_Kr. _ Strongly now drive the fetters, through and through,
For the critic of the works is difficult.
_Heph. _ Like your form your tongue speaks.
_Kr. _ Be thou softened, but for my stubbornness
Of temper and harshness reproach me not.
_Heph. _ Let us withdraw, for he has a net about his limbs.
_Kr. _ There now insult, and the shares of gods
Plundering on ephemerals bestow; what thee
Can mortals in these ills relieve?
Falsely thee the divinities Prometheus
Call; for you yourself need one _foreseeing_
In what manner you will escape this fortune.
PROMETHEUS, _alone_.
O divine ether, and ye swift-winged winds,
Fountains of rivers, and countless smilings
Of the ocean waves, and earth, mother of all,
And thou all-seeing orb of the sun I call.
Behold me what a god I suffer at the hands of gods.
See by what outrages
Tormented the myriad-yeared
Time I shall endure; such the new
Ruler of the blessed has contrived for me,
Unseemly bonds.
Alas! alas! the present and the coming
Woe I groan; where ever of these sufferings
Must an end appear.
But what say I? I know beforehand all,
Exactly what will be, nor to me strange
Will any evil come. The destined fate
As easily as possible it behooves to bear, knowing
Necessity's is a resistless strength.
But neither to be silent nor unsilent about this
Lot is possible for me; for a gift to mortals
Giving, I wretched have been yoked to these necessities;
Within a hollow reed by stealth I carry off fire's
Stolen source, which seemed the teacher
Of all art to mortals, and a great resource.
For such crimes penalty I pay,
Under the sky, riveted in chains.
Ah! ah! alas! alas!
What echo, what odor has flown to me obscure,
Of god, or mortal, or else mingled,--
Came it to this terminal hill
A witness of my sufferings, or wishing what?
Behold bound me an unhappy god,
The enemy of Zeus, fallen under
The ill will of all the gods, as many as
Enter into the hall of Zeus,
Through too great love of mortals.
Alas! alas! what fluttering do I hear
Of birds near? for the air rustles
With the soft rippling of wings.
Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way.
PROMETHEUS _and_ CHORUS.
_Ch. _ Fear nothing; for friendly this band
Of wings with swift contention
Drew to this hill, hardly
Persuading the paternal mind.
The swift-carrying breezes sent me;
For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses
Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty;
And I rushed unsandaled in a winged chariot.
_Pr. _ Alas! alas! alas! alas!
Offspring of the fruitful Tethys,
And of him rolling around all
The earth with sleepless stream children,
Of Father Ocean; behold, look on me;
By what bonds embraced
On this cliff's topmost rocks
I shall maintain unenvied watch.
_Ch. _ I see, Prometheus; but to my eyes a fearful
Mist has come surcharged
With tears, looking upon thy body
Shrunk to the rocks
By these mischiefs of adamantine bonds;
Indeed, new helmsmen rule Olympus;
And with new laws Zeus strengthens himself, annulling the old,
And the before great now makes unknown.
_Pr. _ Would that under earth, and below Hades,
Receptacle of dead, to impassable
Tartarus he had sent me, to bonds indissoluble
Cruelly conducting, that neither god
Nor any other had rejoiced at this.
But now the sport of winds, unhappy one,
A source of pleasure to my foes, I suffer.
_Ch. _ Who so hard-hearted
Of the gods, to whom these things are pleasant?
Who does not sympathize with thy
Misfortunes, excepting Zeus? for he in wrath always
Fixing his stubborn mind,
Afflicts the heavenly race;
Nor will he cease, until his heart is sated;
Or with some palm some one may take the power hard to be taken.
_Pr. _ Surely yet, though in strong
Fetters I am now maltreated,
The ruler of the blessed will have need of me,
To show the new conspiracy by which
He's robbed of sceptre and of honors,
And not at all me with persuasion's honey-tongued
Charms will he appease, nor ever,
Shrinking from his firm threats, will I
Declare this, till from cruel
Bonds he may release, and to do justice
For this outrage be willing.
_Ch. _ You are bold; and to bitter
Woes do nothing yield,
But too freely speak.
But my mind piercing fear disturbs;
For I'm concerned about thy fortunes,
Where at length arriving you may see
An end to these afflictions. For manners
Inaccessible, and a heart hard to be dissuaded has the son
of Kronos.
_Pr. _ I know, that--Zeus is stern and having
Justice to himself. But after all
Gentle-minded
He will one day be, when thus he's crushed,
And his stubborn wrath allaying,
Into agreement with me and friendliness
Earnest to me earnest he at length will come.
_Ch. _ The whole account disclose and tell us plainly,
In what crime taking you Zeus
Thus disgracefully and bitterly insults;
Inform us, if you are nowise hurt by the recital.
_Pr. _ Painful indeed it is to me to tell these things,
And a pain to be silent, and every way unfortunate.
When first the divinities began their strife,
And discord 'mong themselves arose,
Some wishing to cast Kronos from his seat,
That Zeus might reign, forsooth, others the contrary
Striving, that Zeus might never rule the gods;
Then I, the best advising, to persuade
The Titans, sons of Uranus and Chthon,
Unable was; but crafty stratagems
Despising with rude minds,
They thought without trouble to rule by force;
But to me my mother not once only, Themis,
And Gaea, of many names one form,
How the future should be accomplished had foretold,
That not by power nor by strength
Would it be necessary, but by craft the victors should prevail.
Such I in words expounding,
They deigned not to regard at all.
The best course, therefore, of those occurring then
Appeared to be, taking my mother to me,
Of my own accord to side with Zeus glad to receive me;
And by my counsels Tartarus' black-pitted
Depths conceals the ancient Kronos,
With his allies. In such things by me
The tyrant of the gods having been helped,
With base rewards like these repays me;
For there is somehow in kingship
This disease, not to trust its friends.
What then you ask, for what cause
He afflicts me, this will I now explain.
As soon as on his father's throne
He sat, he straightway to the gods distributes honors,
Some to one and to another some, and arranged
The government; but of unhappy mortals account
Had none; but blotting out the race
Entire, wished to create another new.
And these things none opposed but I,
But I adventured; I rescued mortals
From going destroyed to Hades.
Therefore, indeed, with such afflictions am I bent,
To suffer grievous, and piteous to behold,
And, holding mortals up to pity, myself am not
Thought worthy to obtain it; but without pity
Am I thus corrected, a spectacle inglorious to Zeus.
_Ch. _ Of iron heart and made of stone,
Whoe'er, Prometheus, with thy sufferings
Does not grieve; for I should not have wished to see
These things, and having seen them I am grieved at heart.
_Pr. _ Indeed to friends I'm piteous to behold.
_Ch. _ Did you in no respect go beyond this?
_Pr. _ True, mortals I made cease foreseeing fate.
_Ch. _ Having found what remedy for this all?
_Pr. _ Blind hopes in them I made to dwell.
_Ch. _ A great advantage this you gave to men.
_Pr. _ Beside these, too, I bestowed on them fire.
_Ch. _ And have mortals flamy fire?
_Pr. _ From which, indeed, they will learn many arts.
_Ch. _ Upon such charges, then, does Zeus
Maltreat you, and nowhere relax from ills?
Is there no term of suffering lying before thee?
_Pr. _ Nay, none at all, but when to him it may seem good.
_Ch. _ And how will it seem good? What hope? See you not that
You have erred? But how you've erred, for me to tell
Not pleasant, and to you a pain. But these things
Let us omit, and seek you some release from sufferings.
_Pr. _ Easy, whoever out of trouble holds his
Foot, to admonish and remind those faring
Ill. But all these things I knew;
Willing, willing I erred, I'll not deny;
Mortals assisting I myself found trouble.
Not indeed with penalties like these thought I
That I should pine on lofty rocks,
Gaining this drear unneighbored hill.
But bewail not my present woes,
But alighting, the fortunes creeping on
Hear ye, that ye may learn all to the end.
Obey me, obey, sympathize
With him now suffering. Thus indeed affliction,
Wandering round, sits now by one, then by another.
_Ch. _ Not to unwilling ears do you urge
This, Prometheus.
And now with light foot the swift-rushing
Seat leaving, and the pure ether,
Path of birds, to this peaked
Ground I come; for thy misfortunes
I wish fully to hear.
PROMETHEUS, CHORUS, _and_ OCEANUS.
_Oc. _ I come to the end of a long way
Traveling to thee, Prometheus,
By my will without bits directing
This wing-swift bird;
For at thy fortunes know I grieve.
And, I think, affinity thus
Impels me, but apart from birth,
There's not to whom a higher rank
I would assign than thee.
And you will know these things as true, and not in vain
To flatter with the tongue is in me. Come, therefore,
Show how it is necessary to assist you;
For never will you say, than Ocean
There's a firmer friend to thee.
_Pr. _ Alas! what now? And you, then, of my sufferings
Come spectator? How didst thou dare, leaving
The stream which bears thy name, and rock-roofed
Caves self-built, to the iron-mother
Earth to go? To behold my fate
Hast come, and to compassionate my ills?
Behold a spectacle, this, the friend of Zeus,
Having with him stablished his tyranny,
With what afflictions by himself I'm bent.
_Oc. _ I see, Prometheus, and would admonish
Thee the best, although of varied craft.
Know thyself, and fit thy manners
New; for new also the king among the gods.
For if thus rude and whetted words
Thou wilt hurl out, quickly may Zeus, though sitting
Far above, hear thee, so that thy present wrath
Of troubles child's play will seem to be.
But, O wretched one, dismiss the indignation which thou hast,
And seek deliverance from these woes.
Like an old man, perhaps, I seem to thee to say these things;
Such, however, are the wages
Of the too lofty speaking tongue, Prometheus;
But thou art not yet humble, nor dost yield to ills,
And beside the present wish to receive others still.
But thou wouldst not, with my counsel,
Against the pricks extend your limbs, seeing that
A stern monarch irresponsible reigns.
And now I go, and will endeavor,
If I can, to release thee from these sufferings.
But be thou quiet, nor too rudely speak.
Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?
_Pr. _ I congratulate thee that thou art without blame,
Having shared and dared all with me;
And now leave off, and let it not concern thee.
For altogether thou wilt not persuade him, for he's not easily
persuaded,
But take heed yourself lest you be injured by the way.
_Oc. _ Far better thou art to advise those near
Than thyself; by deed and not by word I judge.
But me hastening by no means mayest thou detain,
For I boast, I boast, this favor will Zeus
Grant me, from these sufferings to release thee.
_Pr. _ So far I praise thee, and will never cease;
For zeal you nothing lack. But
Strive not; for in vain, naught helping
Me, thou 'lt strive, if aught to strive you wish.
But be thou quiet, holding thyself aloof,
For I would not, though I'm unfortunate, that on this account
Evils should come to many.
_Oc. _ Surely not, for me too the fortunes of thy brother
Atlas grieve, who towards the evening-places
Stands, the pillar of heaven and earth
Upon his shoulders bearing, a load not easy to be borne.
And the earth-born inhabitant of the Cilician
Caves seeing, I pitied, the savage monster
With a hundred heads, by force o'ercome,
Typhon impetuous, who stood 'gainst all the gods,
With frightful jaws hissing out slaughter;
And from his eyes flashed a Gorgonian light,
Utterly to destroy by force the sovereignty of Zeus;
But there came to him Zeus' sleepless bolt,
Descending thunder, breathing flame,
Which struck him out from lofty
Boastings. For, struck to his very heart,
His strength was scorched and thundered out.
And now a useless and extended carcass
Lies he near a narrow passage of the sea,
Pressed down under the roots of AEtna.
And on the topmost summit seated, Hephaistus
Hammers the ignited mass, whence will burst out at length
Rivers of fire, devouring with wild jaws
Fair-fruited Sicily's smooth fields;
Such rage will Typhon make boil over
With hot discharges of insatiable fire-breathing tempest,
Though by the bolt of Zeus burnt to a coal.
_Pr. _ Thou art not inexperienced, nor dost want
My counsel; secure thyself as thou know'st how;
And I against the present fortune will bear up,
Until the thought of Zeus may cease from wrath.
_Oc. _ Know'st thou not this, Prometheus, that
Words are healers of distempered wrath?
_Pr. _ If any seasonably soothe the heart,
And swelling passion check not rudely.
_Oc. _ In the consulting and the daring
What harm seest thou existing? Teach me.
_Pr. _ Trouble superfluous, and light-minded folly.
_Oc. _ Be this my ail then, since it is
Most profitable, being wise, not to seem wise.
_Pr. _ This will seem to be my error.
_Oc. _ Plainly homeward thy words remand me.
_Pr. _ Aye, let not grief for me into hostility cast thee.
_Oc. _ To the new occupant of the all-powerful seats?
_Pr. _ Beware lest ever his heart be angered.
_Oc. _ Thy fate, Prometheus, is my teacher.
_Pr. _ Go thou, depart; preserve the present mind.
_Oc. _ To me rushing this word you utter.
For the smooth path of the air sweeps with his wings
The four-legged bird; and gladly would
In the stalls at home bend a knee.
PROMETHEUS _and_ CHORUS.
_Ch. _ I mourn for thee thy ruinous
Fate, Prometheus,
And tear-distilling from my tender
Eyes a stream has wet
My cheeks with flowing springs;
For these, unenvied, Zeus
By his own laws enforcing,
Haughty above the gods
That were displays his sceptre.
And every region now
With groans resounds,
Mourning the illustrious
And ancient honor
Of thee and of thy kindred;
As many mortals as the habitable seat
Of sacred Asia pasture,
With thy lamentable
Woes have sympathy;
And of the Colchian land, virgin
Inhabitants, in fight undaunted,
And Scythia's multitude, who the last
Place of earth, about
Maeotis lake possess,
And Arabia's martial flower,
And who the high-hung citadels
Of Caucasus inhabit near,
A hostile army, raging
With sharp-prowed spears.
Only one other god before, in sufferings
Subdued by injuries
Of adamantine bonds, I've seen, Titanian
Atlas, who always with superior strength
The huge and heavenly globe
On his back bears;
And with a roar the sea waves
Dashing, groans the deep,
And the dark depth of Hades murmurs underneath
The earth, and fountains of pure-running rivers
Heave a pitying sigh.
_Pr. _ Think not, indeed, through weakness or through pride
That I am silent; for with the consciousness I gnaw my heart,
Seeing myself thus basely used.
And yet to these new gods their shares
Who else than I wholly distributed?
But of these things I am silent; for I should tell you
What you know; the sufferings of mortals too
You've heard, how I made intelligent
And possessed of sense them ignorant before.
But I will speak, not bearing any grudge to men,
But showing in what I gave the good intention;
At first, indeed, seeing they saw in vain,
And hearing heard not; but like the forms
Of dreams, for that long time, rashly confounded
All, nor brick-woven dwellings
Knew they, placed in the sun, nor woodwork;
But digging down they dwelt, like puny
Ants, in sunless nooks of caves.
And there was naught to them, neither of winter sign,
Nor of flower-giving spring, nor fruitful
Summer, that was sure; but without knowledge
Did they all, till I taught them the risings
Of the stars, and goings down, hard to determine.
And numbers, chief of inventions,
I found out for them, and the assemblages of letters,
And memory, Muse-mother, doer of all things;
And first I joined in pairs wild animals
Obedient to the yoke; and that they might be
Alternate workers with the bodies of men
In the severest toils, I harnessed the rein-loving horses
To the car, the ornament of over-wealthy luxury.
And none else than I invented the sea-wandering
Flaxen-winged vehicles of sailors.
Such inventions I wretched having found out
For men, myself have not the ingenuity by which
From the now present ill I may escape.
_Ch. _ You suffer unseemly ill; deranged in mind
You err; and as some bad physician, falling
Sick you are dejected, and cannot find
By what remedies you may be healed.
_Pr. _ Hearing the rest from me more will you wonder
What arts and what expedients I planned.
That which was greatest, if any might fall sick,
There was alleviation none, neither to eat,
Nor to anoint, nor drink, but for the want
Of medicines they were reduced to skeletons, till to them
I showed the mingling of mild remedies,
By which all ails they drive away.
And many modes of prophecy I settled,
And distinguished first of dreams what a real
Vision is required to be, and omens hard to be determined
I made known to them; and tokens by the way,
And flight of crooked-taloned birds I accurately
Defined, which lucky are,
And unlucky, and what mode of life
Have each, and to one another what
Hostilities, attachments, and assemblings;
The entrails' smoothness, and what color having
They would be to the divinities acceptable;
Of the gall and liver the various symmetry,
And the limbs concealed in fat; and the long
Flank burning, to an art hard to be guessed
I showed the way to mortals; and flammeous signs
Explained, before obscure.
Such indeed these; and under ground
Concealed the helps to men;
Brass, iron, silver, gold, who
Would affirm that he discovered before me?
None, I well know, not wishing in vain to boast.
But learn all in one word,
_All arts to mortals from Prometheus_.
_Ch. _ Assist not mortals now unseasonably,
And neglect yourself unfortunate; for I
Am of good hope that, from these bonds
Released, you will yet have no less power than Zeus.
_Pr. _ Never thus has Fate the Accomplisher
Decreed to fulfill these things, but by a myriad ills
And woes subdued, thus bonds I flee;
For art 's far weaker than necessity.
_Ch. _ Who, then, is helmsman of necessity?
_Pr. _ The Fates three-formed, and the remembering Furies.
_Ch. _ Than these, then, is Zeus weaker?
_Pr. _ Ay, he could not escape what has been fated.
_Ch. _ But what to Zeus is fated, except always to rule?
_Pr. _ This thou wilt not learn; seek not to know.
_Ch. _ Surely some awful thing it is which you withhold.
_Pr. _ Remember other words, for this by no means
Is it time to tell, but to be concealed
As much as possible; for keeping this do I
Escape unseemly bonds and woes.
_Ch. _ Never may the all-ruling
Zeus put into my mind
Force antagonist to him.
Nor let me cease drawing near
The gods with holy sacrifices
Of slain oxen, by Father Ocean's
Ceaseless passage,
Nor offend with words,
But in me this remain
And ne'er be melted out.
'Tis something sweet with bold
Hopes the long life to
Extend, in bright
Cheerfulness the cherishing spirit.
But I shudder, thee beholding
By a myriad sufferings tormented. . .
