No More Learning

_ Dost thou flinch again
And breathe groans for the enemies of Zeus?
Beware lest thine own pity find thee out.

_Hephaestus. _ Thou dost behold a spectacle that turns
The sight o' the eyes to pity.

_Strength. _ I behold
A sinner suffer his sin's penalty.
But lash the thongs about his sides.

_Hephaestus. _ So much,
I must do. Urge no farther than I must.

_Strength. _ Ay, but I _will_ urge! --and, with shout on shout,
Will hound thee at this quarry. Get thee down
And ring amain the iron round his legs.

_Hephaestus. _ That work was not long doing.

_Strength. _ Heavily now
Let fall the strokes upon the perforant gyves:
For He who rates the work has a heavy hand.

_Hephaestus. _ Thy speech is savage as thy shape.

_Strength. _ Be thou
Gentle and tender! but revile not me
For the firm will and the untruckling hate.

_Hephaestus. _ Let us go. He is netted round with chains.

_Strength. _ Here, now, taunt on! and having spoiled the gods
Of honours, crown withal thy mortal men
Who live a whole day out. Why how could _they_
Draw off from thee one single of thy griefs?
Methinks the Daemons gave thee a wrong name,
"Prometheus," which means Providence,--because
Thou dost thyself need providence to see
Thy roll and ruin from the top of doom.

_Prometheus (alone). _ O holy AEther, and swift-winged Winds,
And River-wells, and laughter innumerous
Of yon sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all,
And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,--
Behold me, a god, what I endure from gods!
Behold, with throe on throe,
How, wasted by this woe,
I wrestle down the myriad years of time!
Behold, how fast around me,
The new King of the happy ones sublime
Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me!
Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's
I cover with one groan. And where is found me
A limit to these sorrows?
And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown
Clearly all things that should be; nothing done
Comes sudden to my soul; and I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse
Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave
In silence or in speech. Because I gave
Honour to mortals, I have yoked my soul
To this compelling fate. Because I stole
The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went
Over the ferule's brim, and manward sent
Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment,
That sin I expiate in this agony,
Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky.
Ah, ah me! what a sound,
What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen
Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,
Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,
To have sight of my pangs or some guerdon obtain.
Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain!
The god, Zeus hateth sore
And his gods hate again,
As many as tread on his glorified floor,
Because I loved mortals too much evermore.
Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,
As of birds flying near!
And the air undersings
The light stroke of their wings--
And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.

_Chorus of Sea Nymphs, 1st Strophe. _
Fear nothing! our troop
Floats lovingly up
With a quick-oaring stroke
Of wings steered to the rock,
Having softened the soul of our father below.
For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound,
And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow,
Smote down the profound
Of my caverns of old,
And struck the red light in a blush from my brow,--
Till I sprang up unsandaled, in haste to behold,
And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold.

_Prometheus. _ Alas me! --alas me!
Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast
Many children, and eke of Oceanus, he
Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest!
Behold me and see
How transfixed with the fang
Of a fetter I hang
On the high-jutting rocks of this fissure and keep
An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep.

_Chorus, 1st Antistrophe. _
I behold thee, Prometheus; yet now, yet now,
A terrible cloud whose rain is tears
Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how
Thy body appears
Hung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains:
For new is the Hand, new the rudder that steers
The ship of Olympus through surge and wind--
And of old things passed, no track is behind.

_Prometheus. _ Under earth, under Hades
Where the home of the shade is,
All into the deep, deep Tartarus,
I would he had hurled me adown.
I would he had plunged me, fastened thus
In the knotted chain with the savage clang,
All into the dark where there should be none,
Neither god nor another, to laugh and see.
But now the winds sing through and shake
The hurtling chains wherein I hang,
And I, in my naked sorrows, make
Much mirth for my enemy.

_Chorus, 2nd Strophe. _
Nay! who of the gods hath a heart so stern
As to use thy woe for a mock and mirth?
Who would not turn more mild to learn
Thy sorrows? who of the heaven and earth
Save Zeus? But he
Right wrathfully
Bears on his sceptral soul unbent
And rules thereby the heavenly seed,
Nor will he pause till he content
His thirsty heart in a finished deed;
Or till Another shall appear,
To win by fraud, to seize by fear
The hard-to-be-captured government.

_Prometheus. _ Yet even of _me_ he shall have need,
That monarch of the blessed seed,
Of me, of me, who now am cursed
By his fetters dire,--
To wring my secret out withal
And learn by whom his sceptre shall
Be filched from him--as was, at first,
His heavenly fire.
But he never shall enchant me
With his honey-lipped persuasion;
Never, never shall he daunt me
With the oath and threat of passion
Into speaking as they want me,
Till he loose this savage chain,
And accept the expiation
Of my sorrow, in his pain.

_Chorus, 2nd Antistrophe. _
Thou art, sooth, a brave god,
And, for all thou hast borne
From the stroke of the rod,
Nought relaxest from scorn.
But thou speakest unto me
Too free and unworn;
And a terror strikes through me
And festers my soul
And I fear, in the roll
Of the storm, for thy fate
In the ship far from shore:
Since the son of Saturnus is hard in his hate
And unmoved in his heart evermore.

_Prometheus. _ I know that Zeus is stern;
I know he metes his justice by his will;
And yet, his soul shall learn
More softness when once broken by this ill:
And curbing his unconquerable vaunt
He shall rush on in fear to meet with me
Who rush to meet with him in agony,
To issues of harmonious covenant.

_Chorus. _ Remove the veil from all things and relate
The story to us,--of what crime accused,
Zeus smites thee with dishonourable pangs.
Speak: if to teach us do not grieve thyself.

_Prometheus. _ The utterance of these things is torture to me,
But so, too, is their silence; each way lies
Woe strong as fate.
When gods began with wrath,
And war rose up between their starry brows,
Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne
That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste
With opposite oaths that they would have no Zeus
To rule the gods for ever,--I, who brought
The counsel I thought meetest, could not move
The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth,
What time, disdaining in their rugged souls
My subtle machinations, they assumed
It was an easy thing for force to take
The mastery of fate. My mother, then,
Who is called not only Themis but Earth too,
(Her single beauty joys in many names)
Did teach me with reiterant prophecy
What future should be, and how conquering gods
Should not prevail by strength and violence
But by guile only. When I told them so,
They would not deign to contemplate the truth
On all sides round; whereat I deemed it best
To lead my willing mother upwardly
And set my Themis face to face with Zeus
As willing to receive her. Tartarus,
With its abysmal cloister of the Dark,
Because I gave that counsel, covers up
The antique Chronos and his siding hosts,
And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods
Hath recompensed me with these bitter pangs:
For kingship wears a cancer at the heart,--
Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask
What crime it is for which he tortures me?
That shall be clear before you. When at first
He filled his father's throne, he instantly
Made various gifts of glory to the gods
And dealt the empire out. Alone of men,
Of miserable men, he took no count,
But yearned to sweep their track off from the world
And plant a newer race there. Not a god
Resisted such desire except myself.
_I_ dared it! _I_ drew mortals back to light,
From meditated ruin deep as hell!
For which wrong, I am bent down in these pangs
Dreadful to suffer, mournful to behold,
And I, who pitied man, am thought myself
Unworthy of pity; while I render out
Deep rhythms of anguish 'neath the harping hand
That strikes me thus--a sight to shame your Zeus!

_Chorus. _ Hard as thy chains and cold as all these rocks
Is he, Prometheus, who withholds his heart

From joining in thy woe. I yearned before
To fly this sight; and, now I gaze on it,
I sicken inwards.

_Prometheus. _ To my friends, indeed,
I must be a sad sight.

_Chorus. _ And didst thou sin
No more than so?

_Prometheus. _ I did restrain besides
My mortals from premeditating death.

_Chorus. _ How didst thou medicine the plague-fear of death?

_Prometheus. _ I set blind Hopes to inhabit in their house.

_Chorus. _ By that gift thou didst help thy mortals well.

_Prometheus. _ I gave them also fire.

_Chorus. _ And have they now,
Those creatures of a day, the red-eyed fire?

_Prometheus. _ They have: and shall learn by it many arts.

_Chorus. _ And truly for such sins Zeus tortures thee
And will remit no anguish? Is there set
No limit before thee to thine agony?

_Prometheus. _ No other: only what seems good to HIM.

_Chorus. _ And how will it seem good? what hope remains?
Seest thou not that thou hast sinned? But that thou hast sinned
It glads me not to speak of, and grieves thee:
Then let it pass from both, and seek thyself
Some outlet from distress.

_Prometheus. _ It is in truth
An easy thing to stand aloof from pain
And lavish exhortation and advice
On one vexed sorely by it. I have known
All in prevision. By my choice, my choice,
I freely sinned--I will confess my sin--
And helping mortals, found my own despair.
I did not think indeed that I should pine
Beneath such pangs against such skyey rocks,
Doomed to this drear hill and no neighbouring
Of any life: but mourn not ye for griefs
I bear to-day: hear rather, dropping down
To the plain, how other woes creep on to me,
And learn the consummation of my doom.
Beseech you, nymphs, beseech you, grieve for me
Who now am grieving; for Grief walks the earth,
And sits down at the foot of each by turns.

_Chorus. _ We hear the deep clash of thy words,
Prometheus, and obey.
And I spring with a rapid foot away
From the rushing car and the holy air,
The track of birds;
And I drop to the rugged ground and there
Await the tale of thy despair.

_OCEANUS enters. _

_Oceanus. _ I reach the bourn of my weary road
Where I may see and answer thee,
Prometheus, in thine agony.
On the back of the quick-winged bird I glode,
And I bridled him in
With the will of a god.
Behold, thy sorrow aches in me
Constrained by the force of kin.
Nay, though that tie were all undone,
For the life of none beneath the sun
Would I seek a larger benison
Than I seek for thine.
And thou shalt learn my words are truth,--
That no fair parlance of the mouth
Grows falsely out of mine.
Now give me a deed to prove my faith;
For no faster friend is named in breath
Than I, Oceanus, am thine.

_Prometheus. _ Ha! what has brought thee? Hast thou also come
To look upon my woe? How hast thou dared
To leave the depths called after thee, the caves
Self-hewn and self-roofed with spontaneous rock,
To visit earth, the mother of my chain?
Hast come indeed to view my doom and mourn
That I should sorrow thus? Gaze on, and see
How I, the fast friend of your Zeus,--how I
The erector of the empire in his hand,
Am bent beneath that hand, in this despair.

_Oceanus. _ Prometheus, I behold: and I would fain
Exhort thee, though already subtle enough,
To a better wisdom. Titan, know thyself,
And take new softness to thy manners since
A new king rules the gods. If words like these,
Harsh words and trenchant, thou wilt fling abroad,
Zeus haply, though he sit so far and high,
May hear thee do it, and so, this wrath of his
Which now affects thee fiercely, shall appear
A mere child's sport at vengeance. Wretched god,
Rather dismiss the passion which thou hast,
And seek a change from grief. Perhaps I seem
To address thee with old saws and outworn sense,--
Yet such a curse, Prometheus, surely waits
On lips that speak too proudly: thou, meantime,
Art none the meeker, nor dost yield a jot
To evil circumstance, preparing still
To swell the account of grief with other griefs
Than what are borne. Beseech thee, use me then
For counsel: do not spurn against the pricks,--
Seeing that who reigns, reigns by cruelty
Instead of right. And now, I go from hence,
And will endeavour if a power of mine
Can break thy fetters through. For thee,--be calm,
And smooth thy words from passion. Knowest thou not
Of perfect knowledge, thou who knowest too much,
That where the tongue wags, ruin never lags?

_Prometheus. _ I gratulate thee who hast shared and dared
All things with me, except their penalty.
Enough so! leave these thoughts. It cannot be
That thou shouldst move HIM. HE may _not_ be moved;
And _thou_ beware of sorrow on this road.

_Oceanus. _ Ay! ever wiser for another's use
Than thine! the event, and not the prophecy,
Attests it to me. Yet where now I rush,
Thy wisdom hath no power to drag me back;
Because I glory, glory, to go hence
And win for thee deliverance from thy pangs,
As a free gift from Zeus.

_Prometheus. _ Why there, again,
I give thee gratulation and applause.
Thou lackest no goodwill. But, as for deeds,
Do nought! 'twere all done vainly; helping nought,
Whatever thou wouldst do. Rather take rest
And keep thyself from evil. If I grieve,
I do not therefore wish to multiply
The griefs of others. Verily, not so!
For still my brother's doom doth vex my soul,--
My brother Atlas, standing in the west,
Shouldering the column of the heaven and earth,
A difficult burden! I have also seen,
And pitied as I saw, the earth-born one,
The inhabitant of old Cilician caves,
The great war-monster of the hundred heads,
(All taken and bowed beneath the violent Hand,)
Typhon the fierce, who did resist the gods,
And, hissing slaughter from his dreadful jaws,
Flash out ferocious glory from his eyes
As if to storm the throne of Zeus. Whereat,
The sleepless arrow of Zeus flew straight at him,
The headlong bolt of thunder breathing flame,
And struck him downward from his eminence
Of exultation; through the very soul,
It struck him, and his strength was withered up
To ashes, thunder-blasted. Now he lies
A helpless trunk supinely, at full length
Beside the strait of ocean, spurred into
By roots of AEtna; high upon whose tops
Hephaestus sits and strikes the flashing ore.
From thence the rivers of fire shall burst away
Hereafter, and devour with savage jaws
The equal plains of fruitful Sicily,
Such passion he shall boil back in hot darts
Of an insatiate fury and sough of flame,
Fallen Typhon,--howsoever struck and charred
By Zeus's bolted thunder. But for thee,
Thou art not so unlearned as to need
My teaching--let thy knowledge save thyself.
_I_ quaff the full cup of a present doom,
And wait till Zeus hath quenched his will in wrath.

_Oceanus. _ Prometheus, art thou ignorant of this,
That words do medicine anger?

_Prometheus. _ If the word
With seasonable softness touch the soul
And, where the parts are ulcerous, sear them not
By any rudeness.

_Oceanus. _ With a noble aim
To dare as nobly--is there harm in _that_?
Dost thou discern it? Teach me.

_Prometheus. _ I discern
Vain aspiration, unresultive work.

_Oceanus. _ Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this!
Since it is profitable that one who is wise
Should seem not wise at all.

_Prometheus. _ And such would seem
My very crime.

_Oceanus. _ In truth thine argument
Sends me back home.

_Prometheus. _ Lest any lament for me
Should cast thee down to hate.

_Oceanus. _ The hate of him
Who sits a new king on the absolute throne?

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

_Oceanus. _ Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher!

_Prometheus. _ Go.
Depart--beware--and keep the mind thou hast.

_Oceanus. _ 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.

[_OCEANUS 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 gods 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' shore.

_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 Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears
In a curse from the gods, 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 gods,
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 ships,
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 gods, 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 brass, 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 gods 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 shiver
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 shore
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!
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 noblest 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 passion 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 gods.
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 gods 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!