Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.
Prometheus Bound
By Æschylus (525–456 B.C.)Translated by Mrs. E. B. Browning
P
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!
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
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
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
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
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,
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!
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,
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.
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,—
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,
And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold.
Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast
Many children, and eke of Oceanus,—he,
Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest!
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.
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!
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.
Where the home of the shade is,
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,
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.
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
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;
Or till Another shall appear,
To win by fraud, to seize by fear
The hard-to-be-captured government.
That monarch of the blessed seed,
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,
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,
Into speaking as they want me,
Till he loose this savage chain,
And accept the expiation
Of my sorrow, in his pain.
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—
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—
Since the son of Saturnius is hard in his hate
And unmoved in his heart evermore.
P
Through pride or scorn! I only gnaw my heart
With meditation, seeing myself so wronged!
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
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,
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
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
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
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,
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!
May Zeus, the all-giver,
Wrestle down from his throne
In that might of his own
To antagonize mine!
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,
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,
Nor evermore fail, nor evermore pine.
Life lengthened out
With hopes proved brave
By the very doubt,
Till the spirit enfold
Those manifest joys which were foretold!
But I thrill to behold
Thee, victim doomed,
By the countless cares
And the drear despairs,
For ever consumed,—
And all because thou, who art fearless now
Of Zeus above,
Dost overflow for mankind below
With a free-souled, reverent love.
What ’s all the beauty of humanity?
Can it be fair?
What ’s all the strength?—is it strong?
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
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!
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,—
And thou didst lead, with gifts and vows,
Hesione, my father’s child,
To be thy wedded spouse.