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,
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 18