"COMPLAINT. "How seldom, friend, a good, great man inherits 66 REPLY. "For shame, dear friend! renounce this canting strain, Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain? The good great man? Three treasures, Love and LIGHT And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, — We cannot but apply the words of Milton, weeping over his "loved Lycidas": "Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor: So sinks the day-star in the ocean's bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore So Lycidas, sunk low but mounted high, Through the dear might of him that walked the waves, * The following lines of Grotius are not misapplied: Nec vana captans lucra, nec leves plausus, In Astra tendit et Deum studet nosse. Cui charitate temperata Libertus Certat manere dissidentibus concors; P. Grotii Poemata; Lug. Bat. 1637, p. 306. THE PROMETHEUS BOUND. [We present our readers with a new and careful translation of the tragedy of Eschylus, in which fidelity to the text, and to the best text, is what is mainly attempted. We are the more readily drawn to this task, by the increasing value which this great old allegory is acquiring in universal literature, as a mystical picture of human life, and the most excellent work in that kind that exists in Greek poetry. Coleridge said of this play, that "it was more properly tragedy itself, in the plenitude of the idea, than a particular tragic poem."] PERSONS OF THE DRAMA. KRATOS and BIA, (Strength and Force.) PROMETHEUS. CHORUS OF OCEAN NYMPHS. OCEANUS. Io, Daughter of Inachus. HERMES. KRATOS and BIA, HEPHAISTUS, PROMETHEUS. KR. WE are come to the far-bounding plain of earth, Which the father has enjoined on thee, this bold one In indissoluble fetters of adamantine bonds. For thy flower, the splendor of fire useful in all arts, A crime 't is fit he should give satisfaction to the gods; To love, and cease from his man-loving ways. HEPH. Kratos and Bia, your charge from Zeus Already has its end, and nothing further in the way; But I cannot endure to bind A kindred god by force to a bleak precipice, Yet absolutely there's necessity that I have courage for these things; For it is hard the father's words to banish. High-plotting son of the right-counselling Themis, Unwilling thee unwilling in brazen fetters hard to be loosed I am about to nail to this inhuman hill, Where neither voice [you 'll hear,] nor form of any mortal Will change your color's bloom; and to you glad The various-robed night will conceal the light, Will wear you; for he that will relieve you has not yet been born. Such fruits you've reaped from your man-loving ways, For a god, not shrinking from the wrath of gods, You have bestowed honors on mortals more than just, Will you utter; for the mind of Zeus is hard to be changed; KR. Well, why dost thou delay and pity in vain? HEPH. The affinity indeed is appalling and the familiarity. How is it possible? Fear you not this more? HEPH. Aye you are always without pity, and full of confidence. Cherish not vainly troubles which avail nought. HEPH. O much hated handicraft! KR. Why hatest it? for in simple truth, for these misfortunes HEPH. Yet I would't had fallen to another's lot. KR. All things were done but to rule the gods, HEPH. I knew it, and have nought to say against these things. KR. Will you not haste then to put the bonds about him, HEPH. Already at hand the shackles you may see. KR. Taking them, about his hands with firm strength HEPH. 'T is done, and not in vain this work. KR. Strike harder, tighten, no where relax, For he is skilful to find out ways e'en from the impracticable. HEPH. Aye but this arm is fixed inextricably. KR. And this now clasp securely; that He may learn he is a duller schemer than is Zeus. HEPH. Except him would none justly blame me. KR. Now with an adamantine wedge's stubborn fang HEPH. Alas! alas! Prometheus, I groan for thy afflictions. KR. And do you hesitate, for Zeus' enemies Do you groan? Beware lest one day you yourself will pity. HEPH. You see a spectacle hard for eyes to behold. KR. I see him meeting his deserts; But round his sides put straps. HEPH. To do this is necessity, insist not much. KR. Surely I will insist and urge beside, Go downward, and the thighs surround with force. HEPH. Already it is done, the work, with no long labor. HEPH. Like your form your tongue speaks. KR. Be thou softened, but for my stubbornness HEPH. Let us withdraw, for he has a net about his limbs. KR. There now insult, and the shares of gods Falsely thee the divinities Prometheus PROMETHEUS, alone. O divine ether, and ye swift-winged winds, And thou all-seeing orb of the sun I call. Behold me what a god I suffer at the hands of gods. See by what outrages Tormented the myriad-yeared Time I shall endure; such the new Ruler of the blessed has contrived for me, Unseemly bonds. Alas! alas! the present and the coming Woe I groan; where ever of these sufferings Must an end appear. But what say I? I know beforehand all, Exactly what will be, nor to me strange Will any evil come. The destined fate As easily as possible it behoves to bear, knowing But neither to be silent, nor unsilent about this Lot is possible for me; for a gift to mortals Giving, I wretched have been yoked to these necessities; Stolen source, which seemed the teacher Of all art to mortals, and a great resource. Under the sky, riveted in chains. Ah! ah! alas! alas! What echo, what odor has flown to me obscure, A witness of my sufferings, or wishing what? The enemy of Zeus, fallen under The ill will of all the gods, as many as Through too great love of mortals. Alas! alas! what fluttering do I hear Of birds near? for the air rustles With the soft rippling of wings. Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way. PROMETHEUS and CHORUS CH. Fear nothing; for friendly this band Of wings with swift contention Drew to this hill, hardly Persuading the paternal mind. The swift-carrying breezes sent me ; For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty; PR. Alas! alas! alas! alas! Offspring of the fruitful Tethys, And of him rolling around all The earth with sleepless stream children, Of father Ocean; behold, look on me, By what bonds embraced, On this cliff's topmost rocks I shall maintain unenvied watch. CH. I see, Prometheus; but to my eyes a fearful Mist has come surcharged With tears, looking upon thy body Shrunk to the rocks By these mischiefs of adamantine bonds; Indeed new helmsmen rule Olympus; And with new laws Zeus strengthens himself, annulling the old, And the before great now makes unknown. PR. Would that under earth, and below Hades Tartarus, he had sent me, to bonds indissoluble |