Volume I Part 20 (2/2)

_Chorus._ Ah! silence here!

Nevermore, nevermore Would I languish for The stranger's word To thrill in mine ear-- Nevermore for the wrong and the woe and the fear So hard to behold, So cruel to bear, Piercing my soul with a double-edged sword Of a sliding cold.

Ah Fate! ah me!

I shudder to see This wandering maid in her agony.

_Prometheus._ Grief is too quick in thee and fear too full: Be patient till thou hast learnt the rest.

_Chorus._ Speak: teach To those who are sad already, it seems sweet, By clear foreknowledge to make perfect, pain.

_Prometheus._ The boon ye asked me first was lightly won,-- For first ye asked the story of this maid's grief As her own lips might tell it. Now remains To list what other sorrows she so young Must bear from Here. Inachus's child, O thou! drop down thy soul my weighty words, And measure out the landmarks which are set To end thy wandering. Toward the orient sun First turn thy face from mine and journey on Along the desert flats till thou shalt come Where Scythia's shepherd peoples dwell aloft, Perched in wheeled waggons under woven roofs, And tw.a.n.g the rapid arrow past the bow-- Approach them not; but siding in thy course The rugged sh.o.r.e-rocks resonant to the sea, Depart that country. On the left hand dwell The iron-workers, called the Chalybes, Of whom beware, for certes they are uncouth And nowise bland to strangers. Reaching so The stream Hybristes (well the _scorner_ called), Attempt no pa.s.sage,--it is hard to pa.s.s,-- Or ere thou come to Caucasus itself, That highest of mountains, where the river leaps The precipice in his strength. Thou must toil up Those mountain-tops that neighbour with the stars, And tread the south way, and draw near, at last, The Amazonian host that hateth man, Inhabitants of Themiscyra, close Upon Thermodon, where the sea's rough jaw Doth gnash at Salmydessa and provide A cruel host to seamen, and to s.h.i.+ps A stepdame. They with unreluctant hand Shall lead thee on and on, till thou arrive Just where the ocean-gates show narrowest On the Cimmerian isthmus. Leaving which, Behoves thee swim with fort.i.tude of soul The strait Maeotis. Ay, and evermore That traverse shall be famous on men's lips, That strait, called Bosphorus, the horned-one's road, So named because of thee, who so wilt pa.s.s From Europe's plain to Asia's continent.

How think ye, nymphs? the king of G.o.ds appears Impartial in ferocious deeds? Behold!

The G.o.d desirous of this mortal's love Hath cursed her with these wanderings. Ah, fair child, Thou hast met a bitter groom for bridal troth!

For all thou yet hast heard can only prove The incompleted prelude of thy doom.

_Io._ Ah, ah!

_Prometheus._ Is 't thy turn, now, to shriek and moan?

How wilt thou, when thou hast hearkened what remains?

_Chorus._ Besides the grief thou hast told can aught remain?

_Prometheus._ A sea--of foredoomed evil worked to storm.

_Io._ What boots my life, then? why not cast myself Down headlong from this miserable rock, That, dashed against the flats, I may redeem My soul from sorrow? Better once to die Than day by day to suffer.

_Prometheus._ Verily, It would be hard for thee to bear my woe For whom it is appointed not to die.

Death frees from woe: but I before me see In all my far prevision not a bound To all I suffer, ere that Zeus shall fall From being a king.

_Io._ And can it ever be That Zeus shall fall from empire?

_Prometheus._ _Thou_, methinks, Wouldst take some joy to see it.

_Io._ Could I choose?

_I_ who endure such pangs now, by that G.o.d!

_Prometheus._ Learn from me, therefore, that the event shall be.

_Io._ By whom shall his imperial sceptred hand Be emptied so?

_Prometheus._ Himself shall spoil himself, Through his idiotic counsels.

_Io._ How? declare: Unless the word bring evil.

_Prometheus._ He shall wed; And in the marriage-bond be joined to grief.

_Io._ A heavenly bride--or human? Speak it out If it be utterable.

_Prometheus._ Why should I say which?

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