| |
EPIMETHEUS. The storm is past, but it hath left behind it | |
| Ruin and desolation. All the walks | |
| Are strewn with shattered boughs; the birds are silent; | |
| The flowers, downtrodden by the wind, lie dead; | |
| The swollen rivulet sobs with secret pain; | 5 |
| The melancholy reeds whisper together | |
| As if some dreadful deed had been committed | |
| They dare not name, and all the air is heavy | |
| With an unspoken sorrow! Premonitions, | |
| Foreshadowings of some terrible disaster | 10 |
| Oppress my heart. Ye Gods, avert the omen! | |
| |
PANDORA, coming from the house. O Epimetheus, I no longer dare | |
| To lift mine eyes to thine, nor hear thy voice, | |
| Being no longer worthy of thy love. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. What hast thou done?
PANDORA. Forgive me not, but kill me. | 15 |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. What hast thou done?
PANDORA. I pray for death, not pardon. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. What hast thou done?
PANDORA. I dare not speak of it. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Thy pallor and thy silence terrify me! | |
| |
PANDORA. I have brought wrath and ruin on thy house! | |
| My heart hath braved the oracle that guarded | 20 |
| The fatal secret from us, and my hand | |
| Lifted the lid of the mysterious chest! | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Then all is lost! I am indeed undone. | |
| |
PANDORA. I pray for punishment, and not for pardon. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Mine is the fault, not thine. On me shall fall | 25 |
| The vengeance of the Gods, for I betrayed | |
| Their secret when, in evil hour, I said | |
| It was a secret; when, in evil hour, | |
| I left thee here alone to this temptation. | |
Why did I leave thee?
PANDORA. Why didst thou return? | 30 |
| Eternal absence would have been to me | |
| The greatest punishment. To be left alone | |
| And face to face with my own crime, had been | |
| Just retribution. Upon me, ye Gods, | |
Let all your vengeance fall!
EPIMETHEUS. On thee and me. | 35 |
| I do not love thee less for what is done, | |
| And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness | |
| Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth | |
| My love will have a sense of pity in it, | |
| Making it less a worship than before. | 40 |
| |
PANDORA. Pity me not; pity is degradation. | |
Love me and kill me.
EPIMETHEUS. Beautiful Pandora! | |
Thou art a Goddess still!
PANDORA. I am a woman; | |
| And the insurgent demon in my nature, | |
| That made me brave the oracle, revolts | 45 |
| At pity and compassion. Let me die; | |
What else remains for me?
EPIMETHEUS. Youth, hope, and love: | |
| To build a new life on a ruined life, | |
| To make the future fairer than the past, | |
| And make the past appear a troubled dream. | 50 |
| Even now in passing through the garden walks | |
| Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest | |
| Ruined and full of rain; and over me | |
| Beheld the uncomplaining birds already | |
| Busy in building a new habitation. | 55 |
| |
PANDORA. Auspicious omen!
EPIMETHEUS>. May the Eumenides | |
| Put out their torches and behold us not, | |
| And fling away their whips of scorpions | |
And touch us not.
PANDORA. Me let them punish. | |
| Only through punishment of our evil deeds, | 60 |
| Only through suffering, are we reconciled | |
| To the immortal Gods and to ourselves. | |
| |
CHORUS OF THE EUMENIDES. Never shall souls like these | |
| Escape the Eumenides, | |
| The daughters dark of Acheron and Night! | 65 |
| Unquenched our torches glare, | |
| Our scourges in the air | |
| Send forth prophetic sounds before they smite. | |
| |
| Never by lapse of time | |
| The soul defaced by crime | 70 |
| Into its former self returns again; | |
| For every guilty deed | |
| Holds in itself the seed | |
| Of retribution and undying pain. | |
| |
| Never shall be the loss | 75 |
| Restored, till Helios | |
| Hath purified them with his heavenly fires; | |
| Then what was lost is won, | |
| And the new life begun, | |
| Kindled with nobler passions and desires. | 80 |
| |
