Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts,

  But through all changes sense of present woe

  Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them

  There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked

  From love of man! and in that thou, a god,

  Didst brave the wrath of gods and give away

  Undue respect to mortals, for that crime

  Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock,

  Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee,

  And many a cry and unavailing moan

  To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern

  And new-made kings are cruel.

  Strength. Be it so.

  Why loiter in vain pity? Why not hate

  A god the gods hate? one too who betrayed

  Thy glory unto men?

  Hephaestus. An awful thing

  Is kinship joined to friendship.

  Strength. Grant it be;

  Is disobedience to the Father’s word

  A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that?

  Hephaestus. Thou, at least, art a stern one: ever bold.

  Strength. Why, if I wept, it were no remedy;

  And do not thou spend labour on the air

  To bootless uses.

  Hephaestus. Cursed handicraft!

  I curse and hate thee, O my craft!

  Strength. Why hate

  Thy craft most plainly innocent of all

  These pending ills?

  Hephaestus. I would some other hand

  Were here to work it!

  Strength. All work hath its pain,

  Except to rule the gods. There is none free

  Except King Zeus.

  Hephaestus. I know it very well:

  I argue not against it.

  Strength. Why not, then,

  Make haste and lock the fetters over HIM

  Lest Zeus behold thee lagging?

  Hephaestus. Here be chains.

  Zeus may behold these.

  Strength. Seize him: strike amain:

  Strike with the hammer on each side his hands —

  Rivet him to the rock.

  Hephaestus. The work is done,

  And thoroughly done.

  Strength. Still faster grapple him;

  Wedge him in deeper: leave no inch to stir.

  He’s terrible for finding a way out

  From the irremediable.

  Hephaestus. Here’s an arm, at least,

  Grappled past freeing.

  Strength. Now then, buckle me

  The other securely. Let this wise one learn

  He’s duller than our Zeus.

  Hephaestus. Oh, none but he

  Accuse me justly.

  Strength. Now, straight through the chest,

  Take him and bite him with the clenching tooth

  Of the adamantine wedge, and rivet him.

  Hephaestus. Alas, Prometheus, what thou sufferest here

  I sorrow over.

  Strength. 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