Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays
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AEschylus >> Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays
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IO
O woe, O rending and convulsive pain,
Frenzy and agony, again, again
Searing my heart and brain!
O dagger of the sting, unforged with fire
Yet burning, burning ever! O my heart,
Pulsing with horror, beating at my breast!
O rolling maddened eyes! away, apart,
Raving with anguish dire,
I spring, by frenzy-fiends possest.
O wild and whirling words, that sweep in gloom
Down to dark waves of doom!
[_Exit_ IO.
CHORUS
O well and sagely was it said--
Yea, wise of heart was he who first
Gave forth in speech the thought he nursed--
_In thine own order see thou wed_!
Let not the humble heart aspire
To the gross home of wealth and pride;
Nor be it to a hearth allied
That vaunts of many a noble sire.
O Fates, of awful empery!
Never may I by Zeus be wooed--
Never give o'er my maidenhood
To any god that dwells on high.
A shudder to my soul is sent,
Beholding Io's doom forlorn--
By Hera's malice put to scorn,
Roaming in mateless banishment.
From wedlock's crown of fair desire
I would not shrink--an idle fear!
But may no god to me draw near
With shunless might and glance of fire!
That were a strife wherein no chance
Of conquest lies: from Zeus most high
And his resolve, no subtlety
Could win me my deliverance.
PROMETHEUS
And yet shall Zeus, for all his stubborn pride,
Be brought to low estate! aha, he schemes
Such wedlock as shall bring his doom on him,
Flung from his kingship to oblivion's lap!
Ay, then the curse his father Cronos spake
As he fell helpless from his agelong throne,
Shall be fulfilled unto the utterance!
No god but I can manifest to him
A rescue from such ruin as impends--
I know it, I, and how it may be foiled.
Go to, then, let him sit and blindly trust
His skyey rumblings, for security,
And wave his levin with its blast of flame!
All will avail him not, nor bar his fall
Down to dishonour vile, intolerable
So strong a wrestler is he moulding now
To his own proper downfall--yea, a shape
Portentous and unconquerably huge,
Who truly shall reveal a flame more strong
Than is the lightning, and a crash of sound
More loud than thunder, and shall dash to nought
Poseidon's trident-spear, the ocean-bane
That makes the firm earth quiver. Let Zeus strike
Once on this rock, he speedily shall learn
How far the fall from power to slavery!
CHORUS
Beware! thy wish doth challenge Zeus himself.
PROMETHEUS
I voice my wish and its fulfilment too.
CHORUS
What, dare we look for one to conquer Zeus?
PROMETHEUS
Ay--Zeus shall wear more painful bonds than mine
CHORUS
Darest thou speak such taunts and tremble not?
PROMETHEUS
Why should I fear, who am immortal too?
CHORUS
Yet he might doom thee to worse agony.
PROMETHEUS
Out on his dooming! I foreknow it all.
CHORUS
Yet do the wise revere Necessity.
PROMETHEUS
Ay, ay--do reverence, cringe and crouch to power
Whene'er, where'er thou see it! But, for me,
I reck of Zeus as something less than nought.
Let him put forth his power, attest his sway,
Howe'er he will--a momentary show,
A little brief authority in heaven!
Aha, I see out yonder one who comes,
A bidden courier, truckling at Zeus' nod,
A lacquey in his new lord's livery,
Surely on some fantastic errand sped!
[_Enter_ HERMES.
HERMES
Thou, double-dyed in gall of bitterness,
Trickster and sinner against gods, by giving
The stolen fire to perishable men!
Attend--the Sire supreme doth bid thee tell
What is the wedlock which thou vauntest now,
Whereby he falleth from supremacy?
Speak forth the whole, make all thine utterance clear,
Have done with words inscrutable, nor cause
To me, Prometheus! any further toil
Or twofold journeying. Go to--thou seest
Zeus doth not soften at such words as thine!
PROMETHEUS
Pompous, in sooth, thy word, and swoln with pride,
As doth befit the lacquey of thy lords!
O ye young gods! how, in your youthful sway,
Ye deem secure your citadels of sky,
Beyond the reach of sorrow or of fall!
Have I not seen two dynasties of gods
Already flung therefrom? and soon shall see
A third, that now in tyranny exults,
Shamed, ruined, in an hour! What sayest thou?
Crouch I and tremble at these stripling powers?
Small homage unto such from me, or none!
Betake thee hence, sweat back along thy road--
Look for no answer from me, get thee gone!
HERMES
Think--it was such audacities of will
That drove thee erst to anchorage in woe!
PROMETHEUS
Ay--but mark this: mine heritage of pain
I would not barter for thy servitude.
HERMES
Better, forsooth, be bond-slave to a crag,
Than true-born herald unto Zeus the Sire!
PROMETHEUS
Take thine own coin--taunts for a taunting slave!
HERMES
Proud art thou in thy circumstance, methinks!
PROMETHEUS
Proud? in such pride then be my foemen set,
And I to see--and of such foes art thou!
HERMES
What, blam'st thou me too for thy sufferings?
PROMETHEUS
Mark a plain word--I loathe all gods that are,
Who reaped my kindness and repay with wrong.
HERMES
I hear no little madness in thy words.
PROMETHEUS
Madness be mine, if scorn of foes be mad.
HERMES
Past bearing were thy pride, in happiness.
PROMETHEUS
Ah me!
HERMES
Zeus knoweth nought of sorrow's cry!
PROMETHEUS
He shall! Time's lapse bringeth all lessons home.
HERMES
To thee it brings not yet discretion's curb.
PROMETHEUS
No--else I had not wrangled with a slave!
HERMES
Then thou concealest all that Zeus would learn?
PROMETHEUS
As though I owed him aught and should repay!
HERMES
Scornful thy word, as though I were a child--
PROMETHEUS
Child, ay--or whatsoe'er hath less of brain--
Thou, deeming thou canst wring my secret out!
No mangling torture, no, nor sleight of power
There is, by which he shall compel my speech,
Until these shaming bonds be loosed from me.
So, let him fling his blazing levin-bolt!
Let him with white and winged flakes of snow,
And rumbling earthquakes, whelm and shake the world!
For nought of this shall bend me to reveal
The power ordained to hurl him from his throne.
HERMES
Bethink thee if such words can mend thy lot
PROMETHEUS
All have I long foreseen, and all resolved.
HERMES
Perverse of will! constrain, constrain thy soul
To think more wisely in the grasp of doom!
PROMETHEUS
Truce to vain words! as wisely wouldst thou strive
To warn a swelling wave: imagine not
That ever I before thy lord's resolve
Will shrink in womanish terror, and entreat,
As with soft suppliance of female hands,
The Power I scorn unto the utterance,
To loose me from the chains that bind me here--
A world's division 'twixt that thought and me!
HERMES
So, I shall speak, whate'er I speak, in vain!
No prayer can melt or soften thy resolve;
But, as a colt new-harnessed champs the bit,
Thou strivest and art restive to the rein.
But all too feeble is the stratagem
In which thou art so confident: for know
That strong self-will is weak and less than nought
In one more proud than wise. Bethink thee now--
If these my words thou shouldest disregard--
What storm, what might as of a great third wave
Shall dash thy doom upon thee, past escape!
First shall the Sire, with thunder and the flame
Of lightning, rend the crags of this ravine,
And in the shattered mass o'erwhelm thy form,
Immured and morticed in a clasping rock.
Thence, after age on age of durance done,
Back to the daylight shall thou come, and there
The eagle-hound of Zeus, red-ravening, fell
With greed, shall tatter piecemeal all thy flesh
To shreds and ragged vestiges of form--
Yea, an unbidden guest, a day-long bane,
That feeds, and feeds--yea, he shall gorge his fill
On blackened fragments, from thy vitals gnawed.
Look for no respite from that agony
Until some other deity be found,
Ready to bear for thee the brunt of doom,
Choosing to pass into the lampless world
Of Hades and the murky depths of hell.
Hereat, advise thee! 'tis no feigned threat
Whereof I warn thee, but an o'er-true tale.
The lips of Zeus know nought of lying speech,
But wreak in action all their words foretell.
Therefore do thou look warily, and deem
Prudence a better saviour than self-will.
CHORUS
Meseems that Hermes speaketh not amiss,
Bidding thee leave thy wilfulness and seek
The wary walking of a counselled mind.
Give heed! to err through anger shames the wise.
PROMETHEUS
All, all I knew, whate'er his tongue
In idle arrogance hath flung.
'Tis the world's way, the common lot--
Foe tortures foe and pities not.
Therefore I challenge him to dash
His bolt on me, his zigzag flash
Of piercing, rending flame!
Now be the welkin stirred amain
With thunder-peal and hurricane,
And let the wild winds now displace
From its firm poise and rooted base
The stubborn earthly frame!
The raging sea with stormy surge
Rise up and ravin and submerge
Each high star-trodden way!
Me let him lift and dash to gloom
Of nether hell, in whirls of doom!
Yet--do he what extremes he may--
He cannot crush my life away!
HERMES
Such are the counsels, such the strain,
Heard from wild lips and frenzied brain!
In word or thought, how fails his fate
Of madness wild and desperate?
(_To the_ CHORUS)
But ye, who stand compassionate
Here at his side, depart in haste!
Lest of his penalty ye taste,
And shattered brain and reason feel
The roaring, ruthless thunder-peal!
CHORUS
Out on thee! if thy heart be fain
I should obey thee, change thy strain!
Vile is thine hinted cowardice,
And loathed of me thy base advice,
Weakly to shrink from pain!
Nay, at his side, whate'er befall,
I will abide, endure it all!
Among all things abhorr'd, accurst,
I hold betrayers for the worst!
HERMES
Nay, ye are warned! remember well--
Nor cry, when meshed in nets of hell,
_Ah cruel fate, ah Zeus unkind--
Thus, by a sentence undivined,
To dash us to the realms below_!
It is no sudden, secret blow--
Nay, ye achieve your proper woe--
Warn'd and foreknowing shall ye go,
Through your own folly trapped and ta'en,
Into the net the Fates ordain--
The vast, illimitable pain!
[_Thunder and lightning_.
PROMETHEUS
Hark! for no more in empty word,
But in sheer sooth, the world is stirred!
The massy earth doth heave and sway,
And thro' their dark and secret way
The cavern'd thunders boom!
See, how they gleam athwart the sky,
The lightnings, through the gloom!
And whirlwinds roll the dust on high,
And right and left the storm-clouds leap
To battle in the skyey deep,
In wildest uproar unconfined,
An universe of warring wind!
And falling sky and heaving sea
Are blent in one! on me, on me,
Nearer and ever yet more near,
Flaunting its pageantry of fear,
Drives down in might its destined road
The tempest of the wrath of God!
O holy Earth, O mother mine!
O Sky, that biddest speed along
Thy vault the common Light divine,--
Be witness of my wrong!
[_The rocks are rent with fire and earthquake,
and fall, burying_ PROMETHEUS _in the ruins_.
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