The Greek Plays
Page 25
such is the bile that Typho will set boiling,
with hot blasts of a deadly fire-storm—
despite the bolts of Zeus that cindered him.
But you know this, no need to have me teach you.
So save yourself the best way you know how.
As for me, I’ll plumb the depths of troubles
until such time as Zeus relents from wrath.
OCEAN: But you must know, Prometheus, that words are healers.
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They cure the temper of a mind that’s sick.
PROMETHEUS: True—if the time is ripe for hearts to soften.
When the tumor of pride still swells, don’t use the lance.
OCEAN: What cost do you discern in eagerness
and trying something bold? Teach me your thoughts.
PROMETHEUS: I see a useless toil and empty folly.
OCEAN: Then let me suffer this disease. It’s better
to think right thoughts, though others deem them wrong.
PROMETHEUS: But your misstep will seem to come from me.
OCEAN: Clearly your words would have me travel homeward.
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PROMETHEUS: Yes, lest your dirge for me make you a target.
OCEAN: For the one new-seated on the throne of might?
PROMETHEUS: It’s his heart you must take care not to anger.
OCEAN: Your ruin is my teacher, Prometheus.
PROMETHEUS: Get going then. Keep to the course you’re on.
OCEAN: You speak to one already under way.
My four-foot bird is skimming with his wings
the level paths of air. He will be glad
to bend his knee, I think, in his own stall.
(Ocean exits as he had entered, flying on his winged beast.)
strophe a
CHORUS: I grieve for your fate, Prometheus.
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A tear-dropping stream from my delicate eyes
runs down my cheek;
wet fountains bedew me.
This is the baneful rule of Zeus,
the self-made laws, the arrogant might
he brandishes over
the gods who once were.
antistrophe a
Every land groans in lament for you.
The […]*21 cry for your honor,
so grand and age-renowned,
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and that of your kindred gods, too.
All those who inhabit the settled land
of holy Asia, mortal men,
suffer along with
the sufferings you groan for.
strophe b
Those in the Colchian land—
maidens fearless in battle*22—
and the Scythian race that inhabits
the uttermost region of earth
around Lake Maeotis,*23
antistrophe b
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the warrior chiefs of Arabia,
who dwell in the high-walled city
near to the Caucasus mountains,
their terrible host battle-roaring
with sharp-pointed spears.
epode*24
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The waves of the sea shout their grief
by splashing together; the depths moan,
the black cave of Hades groans below ground,
the springs of sacred rivers lament
for a pain deserving of pity.
PROMETHEUS: Don’t imagine that pride or self-regard
keeps me from speaking. It’s rather the agony
of seeing myself misused; I’m bit to the heart.
Who else but I gave out, from first to last,
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rewards and honors to these younger gods?
But I’ll not speak of that. You know already.
Instead, hear now the pains of humankind.
They were like children in their wits before,
until I taught them how to use their minds.
I speak as one who has no blame for humans.
I only mean to show what good I did them.
Though they had power of sight, they did not see,
hearing, they did not hear; like shapes of dreams
they spent their whole lives shuffling things together
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in random patterns. They knew no brick-built houses
to shield them from the sun, nor works of wood;
like crawling ants they hid themselves in holes,
in dark and sunless caverns underground.
No signposts did they have of winter’s coming,
nor that of flowery spring, nor fecund summer;
no certainties, haphazard all year long,
until I showed the risings of the stars
to them, and settings, too, both hard to read.
There’s more. The ways of numbers, wisdom’s crown,
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I found for them, and letters forming words,
from which come memory’s power and every art.
I was the first to tie their beasts in teams,
enslaving these to yokes and saddle-bags,
that they might take men’s burdens on their backs;
I put their horses under reins and tamed them,
to be the badge of wealth and luxury.
And none but I discovered carriages
that cross the seas on wings of woven flax.*25
All these things I devised for mortal men.
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But now I’m lost myself. There’s no contrivance
to get me free from all this suffering.
CHORUS: Disgraceful pain indeed: your wits have failed you.
You’re like a doctor who has fallen ill,
no courage left and no way to discover
what medicine to take to get you well.
PROMETHEUS: But hear the rest, you’ll marvel even more—
the arts that I devised, the smart solutions.
This was the greatest: whenever men got sick,
there was no remedy, no drink nor salve
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nor healing food; and lacking medicines
they simply wasted away—until I showed them
how to mix up the gentle curatives
with which they now ward off every disease.
I showed them, too, the ways of prophecy,
how to divine from dreams what was to come,
and how to find the meanings in odd sounds
or chance encounters on the paths and ways.
I marked out patterns in the flights of birds—
the lucky from the right, the left unlucky—
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and habits of each kind—which birds they favor,
which they avoid, or which they prey upon.*26
I taught them to read entrails: which are smooth,
what color gives most pleasure to the gods,
what spotting is most lovely in a liver.
I showed the mantic arts of sacrifice:
the burning of the thighbones wrapped in fat
and great backbone, and how to read the signs
they give when burnt, which used to be obscure.*27
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So much for that. The things below the earth,
the hidden benefits for humans, namely
iron, bronze, and gold and silver—who
could say he found them earlier than I?
No one, except a braggart blowing smoke.
To sum it all up in the briefest words:
All arts that mortals use come from Prometheus.
CHORUS: But don’t give mortals too much benefit
while you neglect your own unhappy lot.
I’m hopeful that you’ll one day be set free
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from these harsh bonds, and be as strong as Zeus.
PROMETHEUS: Not yet does Fate, which brings all things to pass,
allow this outcome: that I flee these bonds,
though broken by a thousand pains and woe
s.
All art is weaker than necessity.
CHORUS: Who charts the course of this “necessity”?
PROMETHEUS: The threefold Fates, and unforgetting Furies.
CHORUS: Does even Zeus lack power over these?
PROMETHEUS: He can’t escape from things that are ordained.
CHORUS: And what’s ordained for Zeus, except his rule?
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PROMETHEUS: You won’t learn that from me. Don’t ask again.
CHORUS: I see. You have some holy secret—so?
PROMETHEUS: Let’s talk of something else. It’s not yet time
that this be spoken of. It must stay hid,
as much as is in my power. If I hide it,
someday I’ll flee these shameful bonds and pains.
strophe 1
CHORUS: This be my prayer: May Zeus,
ruler of all, never set his power
against my mind. May I not be slow
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when I make for the gods holy slaughters of oxen
by the ceaseless stream of my father, Ocean.
May I never give offense with my words.
May these prayers abide and not melt away.
antistrophe 2
Sweet it is to stretch out life
amid confident hopes, and to feed
one’s heart on bright and cheery things.
But looking at you, your countless wounds
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and lacerations, I shudder.
You have too little fear of Zeus
and too much reverence for mortals, Prometheus.
strophe 2
What help is there for the help you gave?
Where is your rescue? Tell me, friend.
What can mere mortals do to save you?
Didn’t you see the weakness, the trance,
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that fetters all of their blind race?
Their plans can never evade the orchestration of Zeus.
antistrophe 2
So I discovered as I beheld
your fate, Prometheus.
How different the song—I hear it now!—
that I sang around your bath and your bed
on your wedding day, when you married my sister,
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Hesione, and brought her home as your wife.
IO: (entering in wild confusion, her form partly that of a cow) What place?
What people? Whom do I see here?
He’s chained to the rocks and beaten by storms!
You there—what crime are you paying for? Tell me,
what land have my miseries brought me to?
(Struck by sudden pain) ai! ai! aiee! aiee!
That stinger—it sticks me again, again!
It’s Argus’ ghost—the earth-born monster.*28
Get him off! Help me! It’s horrible,
the sight of the hundred-eyed shepherd!
He walks about with his magical eyes,
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he’s dead—but he won’t stay underground.
He comes from below and hunts poor me,
won’t let me eat, drives me about
across the sands by the barren shore.
strophe
Wait! I hear the wax-joined pipes
answering me with sleep-bringing song.*29
Oh, the pain! Where have my far-roving wanderings brought me?
Why, son of Cronus, why? What wrong did I do
that you yoke me to torments like these—
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(cries again) aiee!—and drive a wretched girl to madness
in fear of the gadfly’s sting?
Scorch me with flame, bury me alive, feed me to monsters of the deep;
only grant my prayer, O king. My travels have traveled far enough.
They’ve done me in. I cannot see
a way to flee from this torment.
Do you hear? It’s the voice of the cow-horned girl.
PROMETHEUS: Hear? Yes of course. It’s the daughter of Inachus speaking,
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the one driven on by the gadfly. She heats Zeus’ heart
with passion, and so, the target of Hera’s hate,
she is driven perforce to run her unending races.
antistrophe
IO: How did you learn my father’s name?
Who are you? Tell me, wretch though I am.
One wretch to another, who are you to speak so much truth—
putting a name to my god-sent disease,
whose touches destroy me with far-roaming stings?
(she is stung again) aiee!
Here I come, leaping and jerking,
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unable to eat, an outrageous fate,
a victim of Hera’s spite and schemes. Tell me, who else
among the unlucky have suffered as I?
Or else show me clearly, what troubles await me?
Is there a help or a cure for my illness?
If you know this, then tell me.
Speak out, for the sake of the maid of hard travels.
PROMETHEUS: I’ll tell you clearly all you want to know.
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I won’t use riddles, only simple speech,
the right way for a friend to talk to friends.
I am Prometheus, who gave fire to mortals.
IO: Alas, Prometheus, boon to humankind!
For what, then, do you pay this penalty?
PROMETHEUS: I’ve just now reached the end of telling those troubles.
IO: Well, would you offer this small boon, to me?
PROMETHEUS: Ask what you will, I’ll answer anything.
IO: Then tell me who has bound you to this cliff.
PROMETHEUS: Zeus made the plan; Hephaestus did the deed.
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IO: What sort of errors do you thus atone for?
PROMETHEUS: I’ve made this clear already. That’s enough.
IO: Then let me ask about my end of wandering.
How much time yet remains for my misfortunes?
PROMETHEUS: It’s better not to know this than to know.
IO: Whatever lies ahead, don’t hide it from me.
PROMETHEUS: I don’t withhold it simply out of spite.
IO: Why, then, will you not utter everything?
PROMETHEUS: I grudge you not, but fear to shake your wits.
IO: Don’t take more care for me than I would want.
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PROMETHEUS: It seems you’re firm, and I must speak. So hear.
CHORUS: Not yet! Give me a portion, too, of pleasure.
Allow us first to learn of her disease,
and let her tell the perils in her past;
then you can add the sequel of her sufferings.
PROMETHEUS: It’s up to you, Io, to grant this favor,
especially since they are your father’s sisters.*30
To make lament and to bewail one’s troubles
before an audience that will be moved
to weep for them, is hardly wasted time.
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IO: (to Chorus) I don’t see why I shouldn’t trust you all.
You’ll learn in clear words everything you ask,
though telling it brings grief—the god-sent storm
that wrought this transformation of my body,
from where it came to strike a wretched girl.
Dream visions used to come and visit me
within my maidens’ chambers; they spoke to me
with cloying words: “You lucky, lucky girl!
Why stay so long a virgin, when you can
contract a royal marriage? Zeus himself
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has felt the heat of passion’s dart, for you;
he yearns for Aphrodite’s rites. Don’t spurn him!
Go from your home, to Lerna’s deepest meadow,
There where your father has his flocks and cow-stalls,
So that the eye of Zeus may cease from longing.”
Such dreams held
me in thrall, night after night,
until, downcast, I dared to tell my father
about what I was seeing in the dark.
He sent off swarms of messengers to ask
at Delphi and Dodona*31 what to do,
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or what to say, to satisfy the gods.
They came back bearing slippery replies,
obscure and hard to read, until one day
a clear instruction came to Inachus,
enjoining him to thrust me from my home
and from my native land, and set me roving
like some untethered beast in furthest realms,
saying that if he did not, Zeus would send
a fiery bolt to blot out all his kin.
He trusted in these oracles of Apollo;*32
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he drove me out, and locked the doors against me,
a heartache to us both, but forced upon him,
for Zeus’ reins were driving all he did.
My shape and mind now both became contorted.
My gait became mad leaping, as I went
toward Lerna’s spring and the sweet stream of Cerchne,
and I had horns—you see them;*33 a stinging fly
now grazed on me. And the earth-born herdsman, Argus,
implacable, now walked beside me, watching
with all his many eyes my every step.
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But suddenly, against all expectations,
Fate robbed him of his life. Meanwhile, fly-bitten,
I ranged from land to land, the gods my goaders.
(to Prometheus) You’ve heard what’s happened. If you know anything
about the toils ahead, speak out; don’t give me
the comfort of false tales. For I proclaim
invented words to be the basest illness.
CHORUS: (with cries of dismay)
Keep her away! Keep her away!
Never did I think I’d hear
such alien words. I never thought
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my soul would ever be stung like this
by sufferings, outrages, terrors,
hard to see and hard to bear.
Alas for Fate!
The sight of Io fills me with fear.
PROMETHEUS: Your groans and fearfulness have come too soon.
Hold back a while, until you learn the rest.
CHORUS: Speak on and teach it. It’s always best,
when one is ill, to know the pains ahead.
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PROMETHEUS: (to the Chorus) The first of your requests has now been granted