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(Excerpt)
Translated by Mrs. E. B. Browning
PROMETHEUS (alone). O holy Æther, 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! | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave | |
| In silence or in speech. Because I gave | |
| Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul | |
| To this compelling fate! Because I stole | |
| The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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! | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| 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. | |
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CHORUS OF SEA NYMPHS, 1ST STROPHE Fear nothing! our troop | 45 |
| 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,— | 50 |
| 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 unsandalled, in haste to behold, | 55 |
| And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold. | |
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| PROM. 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! | 60 |
| 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. | 65 |
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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! | 70 |
| For new is the hand and the rudder that steers | |
| The ship of Olympus through surge and wind— | |
| And of old things passed, no track is behind. | |
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| PROM. Under earth, under Hades, | |
| Where the home of the shade is, | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
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CHORUS, 2D 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 | 90 |
| Right wrathfully | |
| Bears on his sceptral soul unbent, | |
| And rules thereby the heavenly seed, | |
| Nor will he cease, till he content | |
| His thirsty heart in a finished deed; | 95 |
| Or till Another shall appear, | |
| To win by fraud, to seize by fear | |
| The hard-to-be-captured government. | |
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| PROM. Yet even of me he shall have need, | |
| That monarch of the blessed seed, | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| Into speaking as they want me, | |
| Till he loose this savage chain, | |
| And accept the expiation | |
| Of my sorrow, in his pain. | |
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CHORUS, 2D ANTISTROPHE Thou art, sooth, a brave god, | 115 |
| And, for all thou hast borne | |
| From the stroke of the rod, | |
| Naught relaxest from scorn! | |
| But thou speakest unto me | |
| Too free and unworn— | 120 |
| 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— | 125 |
| Since the son of Saturnius is hard in his hate | |
| And unmoved in his heart evermore. * * * * * | |
| PROM. Beseech you, think not I am silent thus | |
| Through pride or scorn! I only gnaw my heart | |
| With meditation, seeing myself so wronged! | 130 |
| For so,—their honors 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 | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| 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 wicketed sides, nor any woodcraft knew, | |
| But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground | 145 |
| 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 | 150 |
| 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 | 155 |
| 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, | 160 |
| The seaman’s chariots, wandering on the brine | |
| With linen wings! And I—O, miserable!— | |
| Who did devise for mortals all these arts, | |
| Have no device left now to save myself | |
| From the woe I suffer! * * * * * | 165 |
CHORUS, 1ST STROPHE Never, O, never, | |
| May Zeus, the all-giver, | |
| Wrestle down from his throne | |
| In that might of his own | |
| To antagonize mine! | 170 |
| 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, | 175 |
| 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, | 180 |
| Nor evermore fail, nor evermore pine. | |
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1ST ANTISTROPHE ’T is sweet to have | |
| Life lengthened out | |
| With hopes proved brave | |
| By the very doubt, | 185 |
| Till the spirit enfold | |
| Those manifest joys which were foretold! | |
| But I thrill to behold | |
| Thee, victim doomed, | |
| By the countless cares | 190 |
| And the drear despairs, | |
| For ever consumed,— | |
| And all because thou, who art fearless now | |
| Of Zeus above, | |
| Dost overflow for mankind below | 195 |
| With a free-souled, reverent love. | |
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| Ah friend, behold and see! | |
| What ’s all the beauty of humanity? | |
| Can it be fair? | |
| What ’s all the strength?—is it strong? | 200 |
| 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 | 205 |
| 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! | 210 |
| 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,— | 215 |
| And thou didst lead, with gifts and vows, | |
| Hesione, my father’s child, | |
| To be thy wedded spouse. | |
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