Prometheus Bound (Browning Translation) — Part Two
_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!
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 twang the rapid arrow past the bow-- Approach them not; but siding in thy course The rugged shore-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 passage,--it is hard to pass,-- 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 ships 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 fortitude 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 pass From Europe's plain to Asia's continent.
How think ye, nymphs?
the king of gods appears Impartial in ferocious deeds?
Behold!
The god 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 god!
_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?
It ought not to be uttered, verily.
_Io.
_ Then It is his wife shall tear him from his throne?
_Prometheus.
_ It is his wife shall bear a son to him, More mighty than the father.
_Io.
_ From this doom Hath he no refuge?
_Prometheus.
_ None: or ere that I, Loosed from these fetters-- _Io.
_ Yea--but who shall loose While Zeus is adverse?
_Prometheus.
_ One who is born of thee: It is ordained so.
_Io.
_ What is this thou sayest?
A son of mine shall liberate thee from woe?
_Prometheus.
_ After ten generations, count three more, And find him in the third.
_Io.
_ The oracle Remains obscure.
_Prometheus.
_ And search it not, to learn Thine own griefs from it.
_Io.
_ Point me not to a good, To leave me straight bereaved.
_Prometheus.
_ I am prepared To grant thee one of two things.
_Io.
_ But which two?
Set them before me; grant me power to choose.
_Prometheus.
_ I grant it, choose now: shall I name aloud What griefs remain to wound thee, or what hand Shall save me out of mine?
_Chorus.
_ Vouchsafe, O god, The one grace of the twain to her who prays;
The next to me; and turn back neither prayer Dishonour'd by denial.
To herself Recount the future wandering of her feet;
Then point me to the looser of thy chain, Because I yearn to know him.
_Prometheus.
_ Since ye will, Of absolute will, this knowledge, I will set No contrary against it, nor keep back A word of all ye ask for.
Io, first To thee I must relate thy wandering course Far winding.
As I tell it, write it down In thy soul's book of memories.
When thou hast past The refluent bound that parts two continents, Track on the footsteps of the orient sun In his own fire, across the roar of seas,-- Fly till thou hast reached the Gorgonaean flats Beside Cisthene.
There, the Phorcides, Three ancient maidens, live, with shape of swan, One tooth between them, and one common eye: On whom the sun doth never look at all With all his rays, nor evermore the moon When she looks through the night.
Anear to whom Are the Gorgon sisters three, enclothed with wings, With twisted snakes for ringlets, man-abhorred: There is no mortal gazes in their face And gazing can breathe on.
I speak of such To guard thee from their horror.
Ay, and list Another tale of a dreadful sight; beware The Griffins, those unbarking dogs of Zeus, Those sharp-mouthed dogs!
--and the Arimaspian host Of one-eyed horsemen, habiting beside The river of Pluto that runs bright with gold: Approach them not, beseech thee!
Presently Thou'lt come to a distant land, a dusky tribe Of dwellers at the fountain of the Sun, Whence flows the river AEthiops; wind along Its banks and turn off at the cataracts, Just as the Nile pours from the Bybline hills His holy and sweet wave; his course shall guide Thine own to that triangular Nile-ground Where, Io, is ordained for thee and thine A lengthened exile.
Have I said in this Aught darkly or incompletely?
--now repeat The question, make the knowledge fuller!
Lo, I have more leisure than I covet, here.
_Chorus.
_ If thou canst tell us aught that's left untold, Or loosely told, of her most dreary flight, Declare it straight: but if thou hast uttered all, Grant us that latter grace for which we prayed, Remembering how we prayed it.
_Prometheus.
_ She has heard The uttermost of her wandering.
There it ends.
But that she may be certain not to have heard All vainly, I will speak what she endured Ere coming hither, and invoke the past To prove my prescience true.
And so--to leave A multitude of words and pass at once To the subject of thy course--when thou hadst gone To those Molossian plains which sweep around Dodona shouldering Heaven, whereby the fane Of Zeus Thesprotian keepeth oracle, And, wonder past belief, where oaks do wave Articulate adjurations--(ay, the same Saluted thee in no perplexed phrase But clear with glory, noble wife of Zeus That shouldst be,--there some sweetness took thy sense!
) Thou didst rush further onward, stung along The ocean-shore, toward Rhea's mighty bay And, tost back from it, wast tost to it again In stormy evolution:--and, know well, In coming time that hollow of the sea Shall bear the name Ionian and present A monument of Io's passage through Unto all mortals.
Be these words the signs Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil Of visible things.
The rest, to you and her I will declare in common audience, nymphs, Returning thither where my speech brake off.
There is a town Canobus, built upon The earth's fair margin at the mouth of Nile And on the mound washed up by it; Io, there Shall Zeus give back to thee thy perfect mind, And only by the pressure and the touch Of a hand not terrible; and thou to Zeus Shalt bear a dusky son who shall be called Thence, Epaphus, _Touched_.
That son shall pluck the fruit Of all that land wide-watered by the flow Of Nile; but after him, when counting out As far as the fifth full generation, then Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race, Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly, To fly the proffered nuptials of their kin, Their father's brothers.
These being passion struck, Like falcons bearing hard on flying doves, Shall follow, hunting at a quarry of love They should not hunt; till envious Heaven maintain A curse betwixt that beauty and their desire, And Greece receive them, to be overcome In murtherous woman-war, by fierce red hands Kept savage by the night.
For every wife Shall slay a husband, dyeing deep in blood The sword of a double edge--(I wish indeed As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes!
) One bride alone shall fail to smite to death The head upon her pillow, touched with love, Made impotent of purpose and impelled To choose the lesser evil,--shame on her cheeks, Than blood-guilt on her hands: which bride shall bear A royal race in Argos.
Tedious speech Were needed to relate particulars Of these things; 'tis enough that from her seed Shall spring the strong He, famous with the bow, Whose arm shall break my fetters off.
Behold, My mother Themis, that old Titaness, Delivered to me such an oracle,-- But how and when, I should be long to speak, And thou, in hearing, wouldst not gain at all.
_Io.
_ Eleleu, eleleu!
How the spasm and the pain And the fire on the brain Strike, burning me through!
How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, Pricks me onward again!
How my heart in its terror is spurning my breast, And my eyes, like the wheels of a chariot, roll round!
I am whirled from my course, to the east, to the west, In the whirlwind of phrensy all madly inwound-- And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate, And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, On the sea of my desolate fate.
[_IO rushes out.
_ _Chorus.
--Strophe.
_ Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he Who first within his spirit knew And with his tongue declared it true That love comes best that comes unto The equal of degree!
And that the poor and that the low Should seek no love from those above, Whose souls are fluttered with the flow Of airs about their golden height, Or proud because they see arow Ancestral crowns of light.
_Antistrophe.
_ Oh, never, never may ye, Fates, Behold me with your awful eyes Lift mine too fondly up the skies Where Zeus upon the purple waits!
Nor let me step too near--too near To any suitor, bright from heaven: Because I see, because I fear This loveless maiden vexed and laden By this fell curse of Here, driven On wanderings dread and drear.
_Epode.
_ Nay, grant an equal troth instead Of nuptial love, to bind me by!
It will not hurt, I shall not dread To meet it in reply.
But let not love from those above Revert and fix me, as I said, With that inevitable Eye!
I have no sword to fight that fight, I have no strength to tread that path, I know not if my nature hath The power to bear, I cannot see Whither from Zeus's infinite I have the power to flee.
_Prometheus.
_ Yet Zeus, albeit most absolute of will, Shall turn to meekness,--such a marriage-rite He holds in preparation, which anon Shall thrust him headlong from his gerent seat Adown the abysmal void, and so the curse His father Chronos muttered in his fall, As he fell from his ancient throne and cursed, Shall be accomplished wholly.
No escape From all that ruin shall the filial Zeus Find granted to him from any of his gods, Unless I teach him.
I the refuge know, And I, the means.
Now, therefore, let him sit And brave the imminent doom, and fix his faith On his supernal noises, hurtling on With restless hand the bolt that breathes out fire;
For these things shall not help him, none of them, Nor hinder his perdition when he falls To shame, and lower than patience: such a foe He doth himself prepare against himself, A wonder of unconquerable hate, An organizer of sublimer fire Than glares in lightnings, and of grander sound Than aught the thunder rolls, out-thundering it, With power to shatter in Poseidon's fist The trident-spear which, while it plagues the sea, Doth shake the shores around it.
Ay, and Zeus, Precipitated thus, shall learn at length The difference betwixt rule and servitude.
_Chorus.
_ Thou makest threats for Zeus of thy desires.
_Prometheus.
_ I tell you, all these things shall be fulfilled.
Even so as I desire them.
_Chorus.
_ Must we then Look out for one shall come to master Zeus?
_Prometheus.
_ These chains weigh lighter than his sorrows shall.
_Chorus.
_ How art thou not afraid to utter such words?
_Prometheus.
_ What should _I_ fear who cannot die?
_Chorus.
_ But _he_ Can visit thee with dreader woe than death's. _Prometheus.
_ Why, let him do it!
I am here, prepared For all things and their pangs.
_Chorus.
_ The wise are they Who reverence Adrasteia.
_Prometheus.
_ Reverence thou, Adore thou, flatter thou, whomever reigns, Whenever reigning!
but for me, your Zeus Is less than nothing.
Let him act and reign His brief hour out according to his will-- He will not, therefore, rule the gods too long.
But lo!
I see that courier-god of Zeus, That new-made menial of the new-crowned king: He doubtless comes to announce to us something new.
_HERMES enters.
_ _Hermes.
_ I speak to thee, the sophist, the talker-down Of scorn by scorn, the sinner against gods, The reverencer of men, the thief of fire,-- I speak to thee and adjure thee!
Zeus requires Thy declaration of what marriage-rite Thus moves thy vaunt and shall hereafter cause His fall from empire.
Do not wrap thy speech In riddles, but speak clearly!
Never cast Ambiguous paths, Prometheus, for my feet, Since Zeus, thou mayst perceive, is scarcely won To mercy by such means.
_Prometheus.
_ A speech well-mouthed In the utterance, and full-minded in the sense, As doth befit a servant of the gods!
New gods, ye newly reign, and think forsooth Ye dwell in towers too high for any dart To carry a wound there!
--have I not stood by While two kings fell from thence?
and shall I not Behold the third, the same who rules you now, Fall, shamed to sudden ruin?
--Do I seem To tremble and quail before your modern gods?
Far be it from me!
