with help from me; you asked to hear the story
of this girl’s suffering from her own lips.
Now hear the sequel: what must be endured
by this young woman, at the hands of Hera.
(turning to Io) Daughter of Inachus, now heed these words,
that you may know the limits of your journey.
When you leave here, head east toward the sun’s risings.*34
Seek out the fields that have not known a plow.
You’ll reach the nomad Scythians, whose straw homes
710
stand off the ground, up high, on well-wheeled carts,
whose weapons are the arrow and twanging bow.
Do not approach them. Stay right by the shore,
your feet in briny sand, as you pass by them.
On your left hand you’ll find the Chalybes,*35
workers of iron; these you must watch out for.
They’re brutal men and do not take to strangers.
You’ll reach the Hybristes river, aptly named;
don’t cross it; this is not a stream to ford.
You’ll follow it to Caucasus,*36 highest of mountains;
720
from its steep sides the river gushes out
in torrents. You must cross sky-grazing peaks
and take a southern path, toward the noon sun,
to reach the Amazon host, haters of men,
who one day will remove to Themiscyra
and dwell around the river Thermodon,*37
where Salmydessus juts like a jaw in the sea,
hazard to sailors, stepmother to ships.*38
These Amazons will gladly be your guides.
You’ll reach an isthmus, by the narrow gates of the Marsh;
730
it’s called Cimmerian. You must steel yourself
to leave it and to swim the Maeotic straits.
Mortals will tell the legend of this crossing
forevermore, and the place will get its name:
the Cow-ford, Bosporus. This takes you out of Europe.
You’ll come to Asia now.*39
(to the Chorus) So now you see
the tyrant of the gods is even-handed
in cruelty. He set these wanderings
because he, a god, lusted for her, a mortal.
(to Io) How harsh a suitor came to seek your hand,
740
dear girl. For all the words I’ve said so far
are but a prologue to your tale of woe.
IO: (cries in pain as though stung) No! aiee! aiee!
PROMETHEUS: Again, you cry and moan. What will you do
when you have learned your full forecast of evils?
CHORUS: Can there be still more trials left to tell?
PROMETHEUS: Yes—a storm-tossed sea of woe and ruin.
IO: Then what’s the use of living? Why not jump
this moment from the rock on which I stand?
Smashed on the ground below, I would be free
750
of all my troubles. Better to die once
than live out all one’s days in suffering.
PROMETHEUS: How would my toils defeat you, then—since I
am fated to endure them and not die?
Death would be my release from pain, but no.
No endpoint lies ahead for my long labors,
except the fall of Zeus from off his throne.
IO: The fall of Zeus—but can that ever be?
PROMETHEUS: You would rejoice to see that fall, I think.
IO: How could I not? I’m ruined, thanks to Zeus.
760
PROMETHEUS: Rejoice then, for this will indeed take place.
IO: But who will take away the tyrant’s scepter?
PROMETHEUS: By foolish plans he’ll strip it from himself.
IO: What do you mean? Say more, if there’s no danger.
PROMETHEUS: He’ll make a marriage that will bring him grief.
IO: With god or mortal? If this can be spoken.
PROMETHEUS: Don’t ask me for a name. That can’t be spoken.*40
IO: Then will his wife remove him from his throne?
PROMETHEUS: She’ll bear a child who can defeat its father.
IO: There’s no escaping from this destiny?
770
PROMETHEUS: There isn’t, until I am freed from prison.
IO: But who will free you, if Zeus stands against it?
PROMETHEUS: One of your offspring*41—so it needs must be.
IO: What? A son of mine will end your troubles?
PROMETHEUS: The grandson of your tenth-removed descendant.
IO: The prophecies surpass my understanding.
PROMETHEUS: Then don’t seek out the secret of your future.
IO: Don’t offer me this boon and then refuse it!
PROMETHEUS: I’ll give you only one of two accounts.
IO: Which ones? Say what they are, then let me choose.
780
PROMETHEUS: Choose then. I’ll either say what lies ahead
in your tale of woe, or else tell who will free me.
CHORUS: Give one to her, the other tale to us.
Don’t disregard the ones who crave your story.
Tell her what still remains of wandering;
tell us of your deliverer. That’s my wish.
PROMETHEUS: (to Chorus)
Since you’re so eager, I will not refuse
to tell you everything you want to hear.
(to Io) First you—the tale of the road on which you’re driven.
Inscribe my words on the tablets of your mind.
790
When you have crossed the stream between the continents,*42
head toward the fiery risings of the sun.
You’ll cross a billowing sea,*43 and finally come
to Cisthene*44 and the Plain of Gorgons. There
the daughters of Phorcys dwell: three ancient virgins,
like swans in form, sharing a single eye,
each with one tooth.*45 Neither the sun’s bright rays
nor nightly moonshine ever reach these three.
Near them are their three sisters, winged creatures,
the Gorgons, snaky-haired, reviled by mortals;
800
no one who looks upon them still draws breath.
Guard against these as you would a hostile army.
Now hear your next unfriendly spectacle:
watch out for sharp-beaked, barkless hounds of Zeus,
the griffins, and the Arimaspian host,*46
the one-eyed horsemen who inhabit there,
beside the gold-flecked stream of river Pluto.*47
Avoid these men. You’ll reach a distant land
and a dark-skinned race that dwells by springs of the Sun,
there where the river flows called Aethiops.*48
810
Follow along its banks until you come
to a cataract, where from the Byblian mountains*49
the Nile pours forth its sweet and sacred waters.
This river leads you to a three-sided land,
the Delta, where you, Io, and your children
are fated to found a thriving settlement.
If any of what I’ve told you seems obscure,
just ask again, and I’ll repeat more clearly.
I have more leisure than I want just now.
CHORUS: If you’ve skipped anything, or if there’s more
820
to tell about her ruinous wanderings,
then tell it. But if that’s all, then grant us
the favor we requested. You recall it?
PROMETHEUS: She’s heard it all, the endpoint of her journey.
But lest she think she’s listened uselessly,
I’ll tell what she endured before she came here.
I offer this as pledge my words are truth.
(to Io) I’ll leave aside the bulk of storytelling
and go to the la
st leg of your past journey.
When first you reached the Molossian plains
830
that lie about the steep site of Dodona,*50
the seat of prophecy of Thesprotian Zeus,
the speaking oaks*51—a wonder past belief—
hailed you distinctly, in no riddling words,
as the illustrious wife-to-be of Zeus.
Does any of this story bring you pleasure?
Then, gadfly-stung, you took the seaside path
and reached the great bay named for a goddess, Rhea.*52
Storms drove you off from there, with backward steps.
But for the rest of time this gulf of sea
840
will have the name Ionian—know this well—
a signpost to all men that once you came there.
So there’s a token of my powers of mind,
which see things far beyond the reach of sight.
(to Io and to Chorus) I’ll tell the rest to both of you at once.
I here resume the track of my former tale.*53
A city, Canobus, lies by the Nile,
on the very tip of silt at the river’s mouth.
It’s here Zeus will restore you to your wits,
by merely touching you with a harmless hand.
850
You’ll bear a dark-skinned child named Epaphus
in memory of how Zeus sired him.*54 He will reap
the fruits of all the land the broad Nile waters.
But his great-great-grandchildren, a clan of fifty,*55
all women, will return to Argos, your homeland,
unwillingly, to avoid an incestuous marriage
with cousins. These men, quivering with impatience,
hawks in pursuit of doves, and catching up,
will chase them, hunting marriages they should not.
The god won’t let them have the women’s bodies.
860
Pelasgian land will drip with female slaughter;
the men will be crushed by a boldness that lurks in the night;
for each of the women will take the life of her husband,
dipping two-bladed swords in streams of gore.
Thus may the Cyprian*56 visit all my foes!
But passion will bewitch one of these women,
stop her from slaying her bed-mate, blunt her purpose;
she will prefer to hear herself called coward
rather than blood-stained murderess. She’s the one
who’ll bear a royal race to rule in Argos.
870
It would require long words to tell it clearly.
From her descendants there will come a bold one,*57
a famous archer, who will set me free
from these travails. Such was the prophecy
my ancient mother, Titan Themis, told me.
The how and why would need long explanation,
and learning it would be no use to you.
IO: (stung again, crying wildly) alalai! alalai!*58
Again the seizure, the mind-shaking madness!
It sets me ablaze. The gadfly, the barb
880
not forged by fire—it punctures me.
In fear my heart kicks against my chest,
my eyes whirl round in spiral orbits,
I’m off the track, beyond what’s sane,
blown by a raging wind, my tongue babbling.
A torrent of words dashes disordered
into the waves of my hateful folly.
(She runs offstage.)
strophe
CHORUS: Wise, wise indeed was he
who first weighed this in his mind and proclaimed it with his tongue:
890
marriage on equal terms is much the best lot.
A poor farm-hand ought not yearn for a spouse
whose life has been made soft by wealth
or whose lineage contains exalted names.
antistrophe
Never, O Fates,
may you see me becoming the sharer of Zeus’ bed.
Never may I wed one of the sky-dwellers.
I’m afraid as I look upon Io,
her maidenhood, which lacked man’s love, destroyed
900
by Hera, with wanderings and hard travels.*59
epode
But if my marriage is on equal terms,
I’ve nothing to fear.
Let not the passion of powerful gods
cast inescapable eyes on me.
That’s a war that can’t be fought,
contriving things beyond contrivance.
Who would I be? For I can’t see a way
to flee from the guile of Zeus.
PROMETHEUS: Zeus! However insolent his thoughts,
Zeus will be humbled. He’s headed toward a marriage
that will eject him from his tyrant’s throne
910
and make him nothing. Thus his father’s curse,
the curse of Cronus, uttered as he fell
from the throne he long had held, will be fulfilled.*60
No one among the gods can show him clearly
how to avert these toils, except for me.
I know what’s coming, and how it’ll come. Let Zeus
sit there, unfearing, trusting in thunderclaps,
holding aloft the fiery lightning bolt;
these weapons will do nothing to protect him
from falling a shameful fall, a fall past bearing.
920
He himself is preparing to beget
his own opponent: a dangerous foe to fight,
who will discover a fire greater than lightning
and mighty crashing louder than any thunder;
he’ll splinter, too, the trident, spear of Poseidon,*61
that sickly staff he wields to shake the seas.
Once broken by this evil, Zeus will learn
how far apart is rule from slavery.
CHORUS: This prophecy is merely what you wish for.
PROMETHEUS: It’s what will come to pass, and what I want.
930
CHORUS: Zeus will be conquered—this is what awaits us?
PROMETHEUS: He’ll suffer pains more arduous than mine.
CHORUS: Why are you not afraid to make such boasts?
PROMETHEUS: Why should I fear, since death is not my fate?
CHORUS: Zeus might send trouble even worse than this.
PROMETHEUS: Well, let him do so. I’ve foreseen it all.
CHORUS: It’s wise to bow before Necessity.
PROMETHEUS: Go fawn upon the ruler of the hour.
This Zeus is less than nothing in my eyes.
Let him rule on for his short time, and do
940
what pleases him; his reign will not be long.
(seeing Hermes, son of Zeus, approaching his rock)
But look! The errand-boy of Zeus is coming,
the lackey of the tyrant’s new regime.
No doubt we are to have some fresh decree.
HERMES: You there—the clever one,*62 the rebels’ rebel,
the one who wronged the gods and gave their honors
to lowly humans—the famous thief of fire—
My father orders you: Reveal this marriage
you boast about, the one that brings his downfall.
And tell it all in detail, don’t use riddles.
950
Don’t give me cause to come back here again,
Prometheus. You see that Father Zeus
will never yield to idle threats like yours.
PROMETHEUS: A lofty speech, and full of self-regard—
how fitting for the boot-lick of the gods.
You young gods, new in rule—you think you dwell
in towers that never topple. Have I not
seen tyrants twice already hurled from them?*63
And I shall see a third, the one now reigning,
fall shamefully and s
oon. Now do I tremble?
960
Or do I seem to fear these greenhorn gods?
Not much; no, not at all. But as for you:
Trot back along the road on which you came.
You’ll get no answers to your questions here.
HERMES: More insolence—the same kind as before
that got you anchored in this misery.
PROMETHEUS: Perhaps, but I choose punishment like mine
over servitude like yours. Go think on that.
HERMES: (with sarcasm) Oh, sure—to be a servant to a rock
is better than trusted messenger of Zeus.
PROMETHEUS: […]*64
970
—an insult that insulters well deserve.
HERMES: You seem to revel in imprisonment.
PROMETHEUS: Revel, do I? Then may I see my foes
reveling just like me. And you among them.
HERMES: Do you hold me to blame for your misfortune?
PROMETHEUS: I’ll make this easy: I hate all the gods
who hurt me so unjustly, and still prosper.
HERMES: Your words are proof: You’re mad. Your mind’s diseased.
PROMETHEUS: If hating the gods is sick, then I’ll be sick.
HERMES: If you were well, you’d be unbearable.
PROMETHEUS: (groans in mock distress) ōmoi!
980
HERMES: What was that cry of pain? Zeus doesn’t know it.
PROMETHEUS: Just wait. Great lengths of time teach every lesson.
HERMES: Yet here you are, not learning to be wise.
PROMETHEUS: True—or I wouldn’t be talking to you, chore-boy.
HERMES: Clearly you’ll give my father no information.
PROMETHEUS: I’d happily pay him back what he’s got coming.
HERMES: You taunt me just as though I were a child.
PROMETHEUS: But aren’t you one, or something even simpler,
if you think you’ll learn anything from me?
There’s no invention, no new form of torture,
that Zeus could use to make me tell him this
990
before he loosens these disgraceful shackles.
Rain down the scorching fire on my head,
whirl everything into chaos, let the air
be filled with blizzards and the ground with thunder;
nothing of this will make me bend, or tell
at whose hands he must fall from off his throne.
HERMES: You’d best consider: will this help your cause?
PROMETHEUS: It’s been considered and planned out, long ago.
HERMES: You are misguided. Look at your present woes
1000
and bring yourself, one day, to change your mind.
PROMETHEUS: You swamp me with a useless wave of words.
Don’t ever let this thought enter your head:
The Greek Plays Page 26