Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

chariots, glory of wealth's pride of state;167

      Nor was it any one but I that found

      Sea-crossing, canvas-wingèd cars of ships:

      Such rare designs inventing (wretched me!)

      For mortal men, I yet have no device

      By which to free myself from this my woe.168

      Chor. Foul shame thou sufferest: of thy sense bereaved,

      Thou errest greatly: and, like leech unskilled,

      Thou losest heart when smitten with disease,

      And know'st not how to find the remedies

      Wherewith to heal thine own soul's sicknesses.

      Prom. Hearing what yet remains thou'lt wonder more,

      What arts and what resources I devised:

      And this the chief: if any one fell ill,

      There was no help for him, nor healing food,

      Nor unguent, nor yet potion; but for want

      Of drugs they wasted, till I showed to them

      The blendings of all mild medicaments,169

      Wherewith they ward the attacks of sickness sore.

      I gave them many modes of prophecy;170

      And I first taught them what dreams needs must prove

      True visions, and made known the ominous sounds

      Full hard to know; and tokens by the way,

      And flights of taloned birds I clearly marked, —

      Those on the right propitious to mankind,

      And those sinister, – and what form of life

      They each maintain, and what their enmities

      Each with the other, and their loves and friendships;

      And of the inward parts the plumpness smooth.

      And with what colour they the Gods would please,

      And the streaked comeliness of gall and liver:

      And with burnt limbs enwrapt in fat, and chine,

      I led men on to art full difficult:

      And I gave eyes to omens drawn from fire,

      Till then dim-visioned. So far then for this.

      And 'neath the earth the hidden boons for men,

      Bronze, iron, silver, gold, who else could say

      That he, ere I did, found them? None, I know,

      Unless he fain would babble idle words.

      In one short word, then, learn the truth condensed, —

      Allarts of mortals from Prometheus spring.

      Chor. Nay, be not thou to men so over-kind,

      While thou thyself art in sore evil case;

      For I am sanguine that thou too, released

      From bonds, shall be as strong as Zeus himself.

      Prom. It is not thus that Fate's decree is fixed;

      But I, long crushed with twice ten thousand woes

      And bitter pains, shall then escape my bonds;

      Art is far weaker than Necessity.

      Chor. Who guides the helm, then, of Necessity?

      Prom. Fates triple-formed, Errinyes unforgetting.

      Chor. Is Zeus, then, weaker in his might than these?

      Prom. Not even He can 'scape the thing decreed.

      Chor. What is decreed for Zeus but still to reign?

      Prom. Thou may'st no further learn, ask thou no more.

      Chor. 'Tis doubtless some dread secret which thou hidest.

      Prom. Of other theme make mention, for the time

      Is not yet come to utter this, but still

      It must be hidden to the uttermost;

      For by thus keeping it it is that I

      Escape my bondage foul, and these my pains.

Strophe I

      Chor. Ah! ne'er may Zeus the Lord,

      Whose sovran sway rules all,

      His strength in conflict set

      Against my feeble will!

      Nor may I fail to serve

      The Gods with holy feast

      Of whole burnt-offerings,

      Where the stream ever flows

      That bears my father's name,

      The great Okeanos!

      Nor may I sin in speech!

      May this grace more and more

      Sink deep into my soul

      And never fade away!

Antistrophe I

      Sweet is it in strong hope

      To spend long years of life,

      With bright and cheering joy

      Our heart's thoughts nourishing.

      I shudder, seeing thee

      Thus vexed and harassed sore.

      By twice ten thousand woes;

      For thou in pride of heart,

      Having no fear of Zeus,

      In thine own obstinacy,

      Dost show for mortal men,

      Prometheus, love o'ermuch.

Strophe II

      See how that boon, dear friends,

      For thee is bootless found.

      Say, where is any help?

      What aid from mortals comes?

      Hast thou not seen this brief and powerless life,

      Fleeting as dreams, with which man's purblind race

      Is fast in fetters bound?

      Never shall counsels vain

      Of mortal men break through

      The harmony of Zeus.

Antistrophe II

      This lesson have I learnt

      Beholding thy sad fate,

      Prometheus! Other strains

      Come back upon my mind,

      When I sang wedding hymns around thy bath,

      And at thy bridal bed, when thou did'st take

      In wedlock's holy bands

      One of the same sire born,

      Our own Hesione,

      Persuading her with gifts

      As wife to share thy couch.

Enter Io in form like a fair woman with a heifer's horns,171 followed by the Spectre of Argos

      Io. What land is this? What people? Whom shall I

      Say that I see thus vexed

      With bit and curb of rock?

      For what offence dost thou

      Bear

167

In Greece, as throughout the East, the ox was used for all agricultural labours, the horse by the noble and the rich, either in war chariots, or stately processions, or in chariot races in the great games.

168

Compare with this the account of the inventions of Palamedes in Sophocles, Fragm. 379.

169

Here we can recognise the knowledge of one who had studied in the schools of Pythagoras, or had at any rate picked up their terminology. A more immediate connexion may perhaps be traced with the influence of Epimenides, who was said to have spent many years in searching out the healing virtues of plants, and to have written books about them.

170

The lines that follow form almost a manual of the art of divination as then practised. The “ominous sounds” include chance words, strange cries, any unexpected utterance that connected itself with men's fears for the future. The flights of birds were watched by the diviner as he faced the north, and so the region on the right hand was that of the sunrise, light, blessedness; on the left there were darkness and gloom and death.

171

So Io was represented, we are told, by Greek sculptors (Herod. ii. 41), as Isis was by those of Egypt. The points of contact between the myth of Io and that of Prometheus, as adopted, or perhaps developed, by Æschylos are – (1) that from her the destined deliverer of the chained Titan is to come; (2) that both were suffering from the cruelty of Zeus; (3) that the wanderings of Io gave scope for the wild tales of far countries on which the imagination of the Athenians fed greedily. But, as the Suppliants may serve to show, the story itself had a strange fascination for him. In the birth of Epaphos, and Io's release from her frenzy, he saw, it may be, a reconciliation of what had seemed hard to reconcile, a solution of the problems of the world, like in kind to that which was shadowed forth in the lost Prometheus Unbound.