University of Virginia Library

2. SECOND PART

Re-enter from the palace Inachus, with Argeia and Io.
INACHUS.
That but a small and easy thing now seems,
Which from my house when I came forth at noon
A dream was and beyond the reach of man.
'Tis now a fancy of the will, a word,
Liberty's lightest prize. Yet still as one
Who loiters on the threshold of delight,
Delaying pleasure for the love of pleasure,
I dally—Come, Argeia, and share my triumph!
And set our daughter by thee; though her eyes
Are young, there are no eyes this day so young
As shall forget this day—while one thing more
I ask of thee; this evil, will it light
On me or on my house or on mankind?

Pr.
Scarce on mankind, O Inachus, for Zeus
A second time failing will not again
Measure his spite against their better fate.
And now the terror, which awhile o'er Earth
Its black wings spread, shall up to Heaven ascend
And gnaw the tyrant's heart: for there is whispered
A word gone forth to scare the mighty gods;
How one must soon be born, and born of men,
Who shall drive out their impious host from heaven,
And from their skyey dwellings rule mankind
In truth and love. So scarce on man will fall
This evil, nay, nor on thyself, O king;
Thy name shall live an honoured name in Greece.

In.
Then on my house 'twill be. Know'st thou no more?

Pr.
Know I no more? Ay, if my purpose fail
'Tis not for lack of knowing: if I suffer,
'Tis not that poisonous fear hath slurred her task,
Or let brave resolution walk unarmed.
My ears are callous to the threats of Zeus,
The direful penalties his oath hath laid
On every good that I in heart and hand
Am sworn to accomplish, and for all his threats,
Lest their accomplishment should outrun mine,
Am bound the more. Nay, nor his evil minions,
Nor force, nor strength, shall bend me to his will.

ARGEIA.
Alas, alas, what heavy words are these,
That in the place of joy forbid your tongue,
That cloud and change his face, while desperate sorrow
Sighs in his heart? I came to share a triumph:
All is dismay and terror. What is this?

In.
True, wife, I spake of triumph, and I told thee
The winter-withering hope of my whole life
Has flower'd to-day in amaranth: what the hope
Thou knowest, who hast shared; but the condition
I told thee not and thou hast heard: this prophet,
Who comes to bring us fire, hath said that Zeus
Wills not the gift he brings, and will be wroth
With us that take it.

Ar.
O doleful change, I came
In pious purpose, nay, I heard within
The hymn to glorious Zeus: I rose and said,
The mighty god now bends, he thrusts aside
His heavenly supplicants to hear the prayer
Of Inachus his servant; let him hear.
O let him turn away now lest he hear.
Nay, frown not on me; though a woman's voice
That counsels is but heard impatiently,
Yet by thy love, and by the sons I bare thee,
By this our daughter, our last ripening fruit,
By our long happiness and hope of more,
Hear me and let me speak.

In.
Well, wife, speak on.

Ar.
Thy voice forbids more than thy words invite:
Yet say whence comes this stranger. Know'st thou not?
Yet whencesoe'er, if he but wish us well,
He will not bound his kindness in a day.
Do nought in haste. Send now to Sicyon
And fetch thy son Phoroneus, for his stake
In this is more than thine, and he is wise.
'Twere well Phoroneus and Ægialeus
Were both here: maybe they would both refuse
The strange conditions which this stranger brings.
Were we not happy too before he came?
Doth he not offer us unhappiness?
Bid him depart, and at some other time,
When you have well considered, then return.

In.
'Tis his conditions that we now shall hear.

Ar.
O hide them yet! Are there not tales enough
Of what the wrathful gods have wrought on men?
Nay, 'twas this very fire thou now wouldst take,
Which vain Salmoneus, son of Æolus,
Made boast to have, and from his rattling car
Threw up at heaven to mock the lightning. Him
The thunderer stayed not to deride, but sent
One blinding fork, that in the vacant sky
Shook like a serpent's tongue, which is but seen
In memory, and he was not, or for burial
Rode with the ashes of his royal city
Upon the whirlwind of the riven air.
And after him his brother Athamas,
King of Orchomenos, in frenzy fell
For Hera's wrath, and raving killed his son;
And would have killed fair Ino, but that she fled
Into the sea, preferring there to woo
The choking waters, rather than that the arm
Which had so oft embraced should do her wrong.
For which old crimes the gods yet unappeased
Demand a sacrifice, and the king's son
Dreads the priest's knife, and all the city mourns.
Or shall I say what shameful fury it was
With which Poseidon smote Pasiphae,
But for neglect of a recorded vow:
Or how Actæon fared of Artemis
When he surprised her, most himself surprised:
And even while he looked his boasted bow
Fell from his hands, and through his veins there ran
A strange oblivious trouble, darkening sense
Till he knew nothing but a hideous fear
Which bade him fly, and faster, as behind
He heard his hounds give tongue, that through the wood
Were following, closing, caught him and tore him down.
And many more thus perished in their prime;
Lycaon and his fifty sons, whom Zeus
In their own house spied on, and unawares
Watching at hand, from his disguise arose
And overset the table where they sat
Around their impious feast and slew them all:
Alcyone and Ceyx, queen and king,
Who for their arrogance were changed to birds:
And Cadmus now a serpent, once a king:
And saddest Niobe, whom not the love
Of Leto aught availed, when once her boast
Went out, though all her crime was too much pride
Of heaven's most precious gift, her children fair.
Six daughters had she, and six stalwart sons;
But Leto bade her two destroy the twelve.
And somewhere now, among lone mountain rocks
On Sipylus, where couch the nymphs at night
Who dance all day by Achelous' stream,
The once proud mother lies, herself a rock,
And in cold breast broods o'er the goddess' wrong.

In.
Now hush thy fear. See how thou tremblest still.
Or if thou fear, fear passion; for the freshes
Of tenderness and motherly love will drown
The eye of judgment: yet, since even excess
Of the soft quality fits woman well,
I praise thee; nor would ask thee less to aid
With counsel, than in love to share my choice.
Tho' weak thy hands to poise, thine eye may mark
This balance, how the good of all outweighs
The good of one or two, though these be us.
Let not reluctance shame the sacrifice
Which in another thou wert first to praise.

Ar.
Alas for me, for thee and for our children,
Who, being our being, having all our having,
If they fare ill, our pride lies in the dust.

In.
O deem not a man's children are but those
Out of his loins engendered—our spirit's love
Hath such prolific consequence, that Virtue
Cometh of ancestry more pure than blood,
And counts her seed as sand upon the shore.
Happy is he whose body's sons proclaim
Their father's honour, but more blest to whom
The world is dutiful, whose children spring
Out of all nations, and whose pride the proud
Rise to regenerate when they call him sire.

Ar.
Thus, husband, ever have I bought and buy
Nobleness cheaply being linked with thee.
Forgive my weakness; see, I now am bold;
Tell me the worst I'll hear and wish 'twere more.

In.
Retire—thy tears perchance may stir again.

Ar.
Nay, I am full of wonder and would hear.

Pr.
Bid me not tell if ye have fear to hear;
But have no fear. Knowledge of future things
Can nothing change man's spirit: and though he seem
To aim his passion darkly, like a shaft
Shot toward some fearful sound in thickest night,
He hath an owl's eye, and must blink at day.
The springs of memory, that feed alike
His thought and action, draw from furthest time
Their constant source, and hardly brook constraint
Of actual circumstance, far less attend
On glassed futurity; nay, death itself,
His fate unquestioned, his foretasted pain,
The certainty foreknown of things unknown,
Cannot discourage his habitual being
In its appointed motions, to make waver
His eager hand, nor loosen the desire
Of the most feeble melancholy heart
Even from the unhopefullest of all her dreams.

In.
Since then I long to know, now something say
Of what will come to mine when I am gone.

Pr.
And let the maid too hear, for 'tis of her
I speak, to tell her whither she should turn
The day ye drive her forth from hearth and home.

In.
What say'st thou? drive her out? and we? from home?
Banish the comfort of our eyes? Nay rather
Believe that these obedient hands will tear
The heart out of my breast, ere it do this.

Pr.
When her wild cries arouse the house at night,
And, running to her bed, ye see her set
Upright in tranced sleep, her starting hair
With deathly sweat bedewed, in horror shaking,
Her eyeballs fixed upon the unbodied dark,
Through which a draping mist of luminous gloom
Drifts from her couch away,—when, if asleep,
She walks as if awake, and if awake
Dreams, and as one who nothing hears or sees,
Lives in a sick and frantic mood, whose cause
She understands not or is loth to tell—

Ar.
Ah, ah, my child, my child!—Dost thou feel aught?
Speak to me—nay, 'tis nothing—hearken not.

Pr.
Ye then distraught with sorrow, neither knowing
Whether to save were best or lose, will seek
Apollo's oracle.

In.
And what the answer?
Will it discover nought to avert this sorrow?

Pr.
Or else thy whole race perish root and branch.

In.
Alas! alas!

Pr.
Yet shall she live though lost; from human form
Changed, that thou wilt not know thy daughter more.

In.
Woe, woe! my thought was praying for her death.

Pr.
In Hera's temple shall her prison be
At high Mycenæ, till from heaven be sent
Hermes, with song to soothe and sword to slay
The beast whose hundred eyes devour the door.

In.
Enough, enough is told, unless indeed,
The beast once slain, thou canst restore our child.

Pr.
Nay, with her freedom will her wanderings
Begin. Come hither, child—nay, let her come:
What words remain to speak will not offend her,
And shall in memory quicken, when she looks
To learn where she should go;—for go she must,
Stung by the venomous fly, whose angry flight
She still will hear about her, till she come
To lay her sevenfold-carried burden down
Upon the Æthiop shore where he shall reign.

In.
But say—say first, what form—

Pr.
In snow-white hide
Of those that feel the goad and wear the yoke.

In.
Round-hoofed, or such as tread with cloven foot?

Pr.
Wide-horned, large-eyed, broad-fronted, and the feet
Cloven which carry her to her far goal.

In.
Will that of all these evils be the term?

Pr.
Ay, but the journey first which she must learn.
Hear now, my child; the day when thou art free,
Leaving the lion-gate, descend and strike
The Tretan road to Nemea, skirting wide
The unhunted forest o'er the watered plain
To walled Cleonæ, whence the traversed stream
To Corinth guides: there enter not, but pass
To narrow Isthmus, where Poseidon won
A country from Apollo, and through the town
Of Crommyon, till along the robber's road
Pacing, thy left eye meet the westering sun
O'er Geraneia, and thou reach the hill
Of Megara, where Car thy brother's babe
In time shall rule; next past Eleusis climb
Stony Panactum and the pine-clad slopes
Of Phyle; shun the left-hand way, and keep
The rocks; the second day thy feet shall tread
The plains of Græa, whence the roadway serves
Aulis and Mycalessus to the point
Of vext Euripus: fear not then the stream,
Nor scenting think to taste, but plunging in
Breast its salt current to the further shore.
For on this island mayst thou lose awhile
Thy maddening pest, and rest and pasture find,
And from the heafs of bold Macistus see
The country left and sought: but when thou feel
Thy torment urge, move down, recross the flood,
And west by Harma's fenced gap arrive
At seven-gated Thebes: thy friendly goddess
Ongan Athene has her seat without.

Chor.
Now if she may not stay thy toilsome destined steps,
I pray that she may slay for thee the maddening fly.

Pr.
Keep not her sanctuary long, but seek
Bœotian Ascra, where the Muses' fount,
Famed Aganippe, wells: Ocalea
Pass, and Tilphusa's northern steeps descend
By Alalcomenæ, the goddess' town.
Guard now the lake's low shore, till thou have crossed
Hyrcana and Cephissus, the last streams
Which feed its reedy pools, when thou shalt come
Between two mountains that enclose the way
By peaked Abæ to Hyampolis.
The right-hand path that thither parts the vale
Opes to Cyrtone and the Locrian lands;
Toward Elateia thou, where o'er the marsh
A path with stones is laid; and thence beyond
To Thronium, Tarphe, and Thermopylæ,
Where rocky Lamia views the Maliac gulf.

Chor.
If further she should go, will she not see
That other Argos, the Dodonian land?

Pr.
Crossing the Phthian hills thou next shalt reach
Pharsalus, and Olympus' peaked snows
Shall guide thee o'er the green Pelasgic plains
For many a day, but to Argissa come
Let old Peneius thy slow pilot be
Through Tempe, till they turn upon his left
Crowning the wooded slopes with splendours bare.
Thence issuing forth on the Pierian shore
Northward of Ossa thou shalt touch the lands
Of Macedon.

Chor.
Alas, we wish thee speed,
But bid thee here farewell; for out of Greece
Thou goest 'mongst the folk whose chattering speech
Is like the voice of birds, nor home again
Wilt thou return.

Pr.

Chorus.

In.
Bravest deliverer, for thy prophecy
Has torn the veil which hid thee from my eyes,
If thyself art that spirit, of whom some things
Were darkly spoken,—nor can I doubt thou art,
Being that the heaven its fire withholds not from thee
Nor time his secrets,—tell me now thy name,
That I may praise thee rightly; and my late
Unwitting words pardon thou, and these who still
In blinded wonder kneel not to thy love.

Pr.
Speak not of love. See, I am moved with hate,
And fiercest anger, which will sometimes spur
The heart to extremity, till it forget
That there is any joy save furious war.
Nay, were there now another deed to do,
Which more could hurt our enemy than this,
Which here I stand to venture, here would I leave thee
Conspiring at his altar, and fly off
To plunge the branding terror in his soul.
But now the rising passion of my will
Already jars his reaching sense, already
From heaven he bids his minion Hermes forth
To bring his only rebel to his feet.
Therefore no more delay, the time is short.

In.
I take, I take. 'Tis but for thee to give.

Pr.

Chor.
'Twas in the marish reed.
See to his mouth he sets its hollow flute
And breathes therein with heed,
As one who from a pipe with breathings mute
Will music's voice evoke.—
See, the curl of a cloud.

In.
The smoke, the smoke!

Semichorus.
Thin clouds mounting higher.

In.
'Tis smoke, the smoke of fire.

Semichorus.
Thick they come and thicker,
Quick arise and quicker,
Higher still and higher.
Their wreaths the wood enfold.
—I see a spot of gold.
They spring from a spot of gold,
Red gold, deep among
The leaves: a golden tongue.
O behold, behold,
Dancing tongues of gold,
That leaping aloft flicker,
Higher still and higher.

In.
'Tis fire, the flame of fire!

Semichorus.
The blue smoke overhead
Is turned to angry red.
The fire, the fire, it stirs.
Hark, a crackling sound,
As when all around
Ripened pods of furze
Split in the parching sun
Their dry caps one by one,
And shed their seeds on the ground.
—Ah! what clouds arise.
Away! O come away.
The wind-wafted smoke,
Blowing all astray,
Blinds and pricks my eyes. [Prometheus, after writing his name on the altar, goes out unobserved.]

Ah! I choke, I choke.
—All the midst is rent:
See, the twigs are all
By the flaming spent
White and gold, and fall.
How they writhe, resist,
Blacken, flake, and twist,
Snap in gold and fall.
—See the stars that mount,
Momentary bright
Flitting specks of light
More than eye can count.
Insects of the air,
As in summer night
Show a fire in flying
Flickering here and there,
Waving past and dying.
—Look, a common cone
Of the mountain pine
Solid gold is grown;
Till its scales outshine,
Standing each alone
In the spiral rows
Of their fair design,
All the brightest shows
Of the sun's decline.
—Hark, there came a hiss,
Like a startled snake
Sliding through the brake.
Oh, and what is this?
Smaller flames that flee
Sidelong from the tree,
Hark, they hiss, they hiss.
—How the gay flames flicker,
Spurting, dancing, leaping
Quicker yet and quicker,
Higher yet and higher,
—Flaming, flaring, fuming,
Cracking, crackling, creeping,
Hissing and consuming:
Mighty is the fire.

In.
Stay, stay, cease your rejoicings. Where is he,
The prophet,—nay, what say I,—the god, the giver?

Chor.
He is not here—he is gone.

In.
Search, search around.
Search all, search well.

Chor.
He is gone,—he is not here.

In.
The palace gate lies open: go, Argeia,
Maybe he went within: go seek him there. [Exit Ar.

Look down the sea road, down the country road:
Follow him if ye see him.

Chor.
He is not there.

In.
Strain, strain your eyes: look well: search everywhere.
Look townwards—is he there?

Part of Chorus returning.
He is not there.—

Other part returning.
He is not there.

Argeia re-entering.
Ar.
He is not there.

Chor.
O see!

Chor.
See where?

Chor.
See on the altar—see!

Chor.
What see ye on the altar?

Chor.
Here in front
Words newly writ.

Chor.
What words?

Chor.
A name—

In.
Ay true—
There is the name. How like a child was I,
That I must wait till these dumb letters gave
The shape and soul to knowledge: when the god
Stood here so self-revealed to ears and eyes
That, 'tis a god I said, yet wavering still,
Doubting what god,—and now, who else but he?
I knew him, yet not well; I knew him not:
Prometheus—ay, Prometheus. Know ye, my children,
This name we see was writ by him we seek.
'Tis his own name, his own heart-stirring name,
Feared and revered among the immortal gods:
Divine Prometheus: see how here the large
Cadmeian characters run, scoring out
The hated title of his ancient foe,—
To Zeus 'twas made,—and now 'tis to Prometheus—
Writ with the charred reed—theft upon theft.
He hath stolen from Zeus his altar, and with his fire
Hath lit our sacrifice unto himself.
Io Prometheus, friend and firegiver,
For good or ill thy thefts and gifts are ours.
We worshipped thee unknowing.

Chor.
But now where is he?

In.
No need to search—we shall not see him more.
We look in vain. The high gods when they choose
Put on and off the solid visible shape
Which more deceives our hasty sense, than when
Seeing them not we judge they stand aloof.
And he, he now is gone; his work is done:
'Tis ours to see it be not done in vain.

Chor.
What is to do? speak, bid, command, we fly.

In.
Go some and fetch more wood to feed the fire;
And some into the city to proclaim
That fire is ours: and send out messengers
To Corinth, Sicyon, Megara and Athens
And to Mycenæ, telling we have fire:
And bid that in the temples they prepare
Their altars, and send hither careful men
To learn of me what things the time requires. [Exit part of Chorus.

The rest remain to end our feast; and now
Seeing this altar is no more to Zeus,
But shall for ever be with smouldering heat
Fed for the god who first set fire thereon,
Change ye your hymns, which in the praise of Zeus
Ye came to sing, and change the prayer for fire
Which ye were wont to raise, to high thanksgiving,
Praising aloud the giver and his gift.

Part of Chorus.
Now our happy feast hath ending,
While the sun in heaven descending
Sees us gathered round a light
Born to cheer his vacant night.
Praising him to-day who came
Bearing far his heavenly flame:
Came to crown our king's desire
With his gift of golden fire.

Semichorus.

ODE.

[Enter other part of Chorus.
Part of Chor.
Here is wood to feed the fire—
Never let its flames expire.
Sing ye still while we advance
Round the fire in measured dance,
While the sun in heaven descending
Sees our happy feast have ending.
Weave ye still your joyous song,
While we bear the wood along.

Semichorus.