4.12.1: Io’s Tale, from Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus)

Overview

The Prometheus Bound is conspicuous for its gigantic and strictly superhuman plot. Prometheus presents to us the gods of Olympus in the days when mankind crept like emmets upon the earth or dwelt in caves, scorned by Zeus and the other powers of heaven, and—still aided by Prometheus the Titan—wholly without art or science, letters or handicrafts. For his benevolence towards oppressed mankind, Prometheus is condemned by Zeus to uncounted ages of pain and torment, shackled and impaled in a lonely cleft of a Scythian precipice. The play opens with this act of divine resentment enforced by the will of Zeus and by the handicraft of Hephaestus, who is aided by two demons, impersonating Strength and Violence. These agents of the ire of Zeus disappear after the first scene, the rest of the play represents Prometheus in the mighty solitude, but visited after a while by a Chorus of sea nymphs who, from the distant depths of ocean, have heard the clang of the demons’ hammers, and arrive, in a winged car, from the submarine palace of their father Oceanus. To them Prometheus relates his penalty and its cause: his over tenderness to the luckless race of mankind. Oceanus himself follows on a hippogriff, and counsels Prometheus to submit to Zeus. But the Titan who has handled the sea nymphs with all gentleness, receives the advice with scorn and contempt, and Oceanus retires. But the courage which he lacks his daughters possess to the full; they remain by Prometheus to the end, and share his fate, literally in the crack of doom. But before the end, the strange half human figure of Io, victim of the lust of Zeus and the jealousy of Hera, comes wandering by, and tells Prometheus of her wrongs. He, by his divine power, recounts to her not only the past but also the future of her wanderings. Then, in a fresh access of frenzy, she drifts away into the unknown world. Then Prometheus partly reveals to the sea maidens his secret, and the mysterious cause of Zeus’ hatred against him—a cause which would avail to hurl the tyrant from his power. So deadly is this secret, that Zeus will, in the lapse of ages, be forced to reconcile himself with Prometheus, to escape dethronement. Finally, Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, appears with fresh threats that he may extort the mystery from the Titan. But Prometheus is firm, defying both the tyrant and his envoy, though already the lightning is flashing, the thunder rolling, and sky and sea are mingling their fury. Hermes can say no more; the sea nymphs resolutely refuse to retire, and await their doom. In this crash of the world, Prometheus flings his final defiance against Zeus, and amid the lightning and shattered rocks that are overwhelming him and his companions, speaks his last word, “It is unjust!”

Enter IO, horned like a cow.

(*line numbers are approximations)

IO.
Alack! what land, what folk are here? 498*
Whom see I clenched in rocky fetters drear
Unto the stormy crag? for what thing done 500
Dost thou in agony atone?
Ah, tell me whither, well-a-day!
My feet have roamed their weary way?
Ah, but it maddens, the sting! it burns in my piteous side!
Ah, but the vision, the spectre, the earth-born, the myriad-eyed!
Avoid thee! Earth, hide him, thine offspring! he cometh—O aspect of ill!
Ghostly, and crafty of face, and dead, but pursuing me still!
Ah, woe upon me, woe ineffable!
He steals upon my track, a hound of hell—
Where’er I stray, along the sands and brine, 510
Weary and foodless, come his creeping eyne!
And ah, the ghostly sound—
The wax-stopped reed-flute’s weird and drowsy drone!
Alack my wandering woes, that round and round
Lead me in many mazes, lost, foredone!
O child of Cronos! for what deed of wrong
Am I enthralled by thee in penance long?
Why by the stinging bruise, the thing of fear,
Dost thou torment me, heart and brain?
Nay, give me rather to the flames that sear, 520
Or to some hidden grave,
Or to the rending jaws, the monsters of the main!
Nor grudge the boon for which I crave, O king!
Enough, enough of weary wandering,
Pangs from which none can save!

Hearken! in pity hold
Io, the ox-horned maid, thy love of old!

PROMETHEUS.
Hear Zeus or not, I hear and know thee well,
Daughter of Inachus; I know thee driven,
Stung by the gadfly, mazed with agony. 530
Ay, thou art she whose beauty fired the breast
Of Zeus with passion; she whom Hera’s hate
Now harasses o’er leagues and leagues of land.

IO.
Alack, thou namest Inachus my sire!
Wottest thou of him? how, from lips of pain,
Comes to my woeful ears truth’s very strain?
How knowest thou the curse, the burning fire
The god-sent, piercing pest that stings and clings?
Ah me! in frenzied, foodless wanderings
Hither I come, and on me from on high 540
Lies Hera’s angry craft! Ah, men unblest!
Not one there is, not one, that is unblest as I.
But thou—tell me the rest!
Utter the rede of woes to come for me;
Utter the aid, the cure, if aid or cure there be!

PROMETHEUS.
Lo, clearly will I show forth all thy quest—
Not in dark speech, but with such simple phrase
As doth befit the utterance of a friend.
I am Prometheus, who gave fire to men.

IO.
O daring, proven champion of man’s race, 550
What sin, Prometheus, dost thou thus atone?

PROMETHEUS.
One moment since, I told my woes and ceased.

IO.
Then should I plead my suit to thee in vain?

PROMETHEUS.
Nay, speak thy need; nought would I hide from thee.

IO.
Pronounce who nailed thee to the rocky cleft.

PROMETHEUS.
Zeus, by intent; Hephaestus, by his hand.

IO.
For what wrongdoing do these pains atone?

PROMETHEUS.
What I have said, is said; suffice it thee!

IO.
Yet somewhat add; forewarn me in my woe
What time shall bring my wandering to its goal? 560

PROMETHEUS.
Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow; ask it not.

IO.
Nay, hide not from me destiny’s decree.

PROMETHEUS.
I grudge thee not the gift which I withhold.

IO.
Then wherefore tarry ere thou tell me all?

PROMETHEUS.
Nothing I grudge, but would not rack thy soul.

IO.
Be not compassionate beyond my wish.

PROMETHEUS.
Well, thou art fain, and I will speak. Attend!

CHORUS.
Nay—ere thou speak, hear me, bestow on me
A portion of the grace of granted prayers.
First let us learn how Io’s frenzy came— 570
(She telling her disasters manifold)
Then of their sequel let her know from thee.

PROMETHEUS.
Well were it, Io, thus to do their will—
Right well! they are the sisters of thy sire.
’Tis worth the waste and effluence of time,
To tell, with tears of perfect moan, the doom

Of sorrows that have fallen, when ’tis sure
The listeners will greet the tale with tears.

IO.
I know not how I should mistrust your prayer;
Therefore the whole that ye desire of me 580
Ye now shall learn in one straightforward tale.
Yet, as it leaves my lips, I blush with shame
To tell that tempest of the spite of Heaven,
And all the wreck and ruin of my form,
And whence they swooped upon me, woe is me!
Long, long in visions of the night there came
Voices and forms into my maiden bower,
Alluring me with smoothly glozing words—
O maiden highly favoured of high Heaven,
Why cherish thy virginity so long? 590
Thine is it to win wedlock’s noblest crown!
Know that Zeus’ heart thro’ thee is all aflame,
Pierced with desire as with a dart, and longs
To join in utmost rite of love with thee.
Therefore, O maiden, shun not with disdain
Th’ embrace of Zeus, but hie thee forth straightway
To the lush growth of Lerna’s meadow-land,
Where are the flocks and steadings of thy home,
And let Zeus’ eye be eased of its desire.
Night after night, haunted by dreams like these, 600
Heartsick, I ventured at the last to tell
Unto my sire these visions of the dark.
Then sent he many a wight, on sacred quest,
To Delphi and to far Dodona’s shrine,
Being fall fain to learn what deed or word
Would win him favour from the powers of heaven.
But they came back repeating oracles
Mystic, ambiguous, inscrutable,
Till, at the last, an utterance direct,
Obscure no more, was brought to Inachus— 610
A peremptory charge to fling me forth
Beyond my home and fatherland, a thing
Sent loose in banishment o’er all the world;
And—should he falter—Zeus should launch on him
A fire-eyed bolt, to shatter and consume

Himself and all his race to nothingness.
Bowing before such utterance from the shrine
Of Loxias, he drave me from our halls,
Barring the gates against me: loth he was
To do, as I to suffer, this despite: 620
But the strong curb of Zeus had overborne
His will to me-ward. As I parted thence,
In form and mind I grew dishumanized,
And horned as now ye see me, poison-stung
By the envenomed bitings of the brize,
I leapt and flung in frenzy, rushed away
To the bright waters of Cerchneia’s stream
And Lerna’s beach: but ever at my side,
A herdsman by his heifer, Argus moved,
Earth-born, malevolent of mood, and peered, 630
With myriad eyes, where’er my feet would roam.
But on him in a moment, unforeseen,
Came Fate, and sundered him from life; but I,
Still maddened by the gadfly’s sting, the scourge
Of God’s infliction, roam the weary world.
How I have fared, thou hearest: be there aught
Of what remains to bear, that thou canst tell,
Speak on! but let not thy compassion warm
Thy words to cheering falsehood. Worst of woes
Are words that break their promise to our hope! 640

CHORUS.
Woe! woe! avaunt—thou and thy tale of bane!
O never, never dared I dream
Such horror of strange sounds should pierce mine ear;
Such loathly sights, such tortures hard to bear,
Outrage, pollution, agony supreme,
Wasting my heart with double edge of pain!
Ah Fate, ah Fate! I gaze on Io’s dole,
And shudder to my soul!

PROMETHEUS.
Thou wailest all too soon, fulfilled of fear—
Tarry awhile, till thou have learned the whole. 650

CHORUS.
Say on, reveal it! suffering souls are fain
To know aright what yet remains to bear.

PROMETHEUS.
Lightly, with help of mine, did ye achieve
That which ye first desired: from Io’s mouth
craved to hear, recounted by herself,
The story of her strivings. Listen now
To what shall follow, to what woefulness
The wrath of Hera must compel this maid.
(To Io)
And thou, O child of Inachus, within
Thine inmost heart store up these words of mine, 660
That thou may’st learn thy wanderings and their goal.
First from this spot toward the sunrise turn,
And cross the steppe that knoweth not the plough:
Thus to the nomad Scythians shalt thou come,
Who dwell in wattled homes, not built on earth
But borne along on wains of sturdy wheel—
Equipped, themselves, with bows of mighty reach.
Pass them avoidingly, and leave their land,
And skirt the beaches where the tides make moan,
Till lo! upon the left hand thou shalt find 670
The Chalybes, stout craftsmen of the steel—
Beware of them! no gentleness is theirs,
No kindly welcome to a stranger’s foot!
Thence to the Stream of Violence shalt thou come—
Like name, like nature; see thou cross it not,
(’Tis fatal to the forder!) till thou come
Right to the very Caucasus, the peak
That overtops the world, and from its brows
The river pants in spray its wrathful stream.
Thence, o’er the pinnacles that court the stars, 680
Onward and southward thou must take thy way,
And reach the warlike horde of Amazons,
Maidens through hate of man; and gladly they
Will guide thy maiden feet. That host, in days
That are not yet, shall fix their home and dwell
At Themiscyra, on Thermodon’s bank,
Nigh whereunto the grim projecting fang

Of Salmydessus’ cape affronts the main,
The seaman’s curse, to ships a stepmother! 690
Then at the jutting land, Cimmerian styled,
That screens the narrowing portal of the mere,
Thou shalt arrive; pass o’er it, brave at heart,
And ferry thee across Macotis’ ford.
So shall there be great rumour evermore,
In ears of mortals, of thy passage strange;
And Bosporos shall be that channel’s name,
Because the ox-horned thing did pass thereby.
So, from the wilds of Europe wander’d o’er,
To Asia’s continent thou com’st at last. 700
(To the CHORUS)
And ye, what think ye? Seems he not, that lord
And tyrant of the gods, as tyrannous
Unto all other lives? A high god’s lust
Constrained this mortal maid to roam the world!
(To Io)
Poor maid! a brutal wooer sure was thine!
For know that all which I have told thee now
Is scarce the prelude of thy woes to come.

IO.
Alas for me, alas!

PROMETHEUS.
Again thou criest, with a heifer’s low.
What wilt thou do, learning thy future woes? 710

CHORUS.
What, hast thou further sorrows for her ear?

PROMETHEUS.
Yea, a vext ocean of predestined pain.

IO.
What profit then is life to me? Ah, why
Did I not cast me from this stubborn crag?
So with one spring, one crash upon the ground,
I had attained surcease from all my woes.
Better it is to die one death outright
Than linger out long life in misery.
Mine, with whose fate it standeth not to win 720
The goal of death, which were release from pain!
Now, there is set no limit to my woe
Till Zeus be hurled from his omnipotence.

IO.
Zeus hurled from pride of place! Can such things be?

PROMETHEUS.
Thou wert full fain, methinks, to see that sight!

IO.
Even so—his overthrow who wrought my pain.

PROMETHEUS.
Then may’st thou know thereof; such fall shall be.

IO.
And who shall wrench the sceptre from his hand?

PROMETHEUS.
By his own mindless counsels shall he fall.

IO.
And how? unless the telling harm, say on! 730

PROMETHEUS.
Wooing a bride, his ruin he shall win.

IO.
Goddess, or mortal? tell me, if thou may’st.

PROMETHEUS.
No matter which—more must not be revealed.

IO.
Doth then a consort thrust him from his throne?

PROMETHEUS.

The child she bears him shall o’ercome his sire.

IO.
And hath he no avoidance of this doom?

PROMETHEUS.
None, surely—till that I, released from bonds—

IO.
Who can release thee, but by will of Zeus?

PROMETHEUS.
Fate gives this duty to a child of thine!

IO.
How? Shall a child of mine undo thy woes? 740

PROMETHEUS.
Yea, of thy lineage, thirteen times removed.

IO.
Dark beyond guessing grows thine oracle.

PROMETHEUS.
Yea—seek not therefore to foreknow thy woes.

IO.
As thou didst proffer hope, withdraw it not.

PROMETHEUS.
Two tales I have—choose! for I grant thee one.

IO.
And which be they? reveal, and leave me choice.

PROMETHEUS.
I grant it: shall I in all clearness show
Thy future woes, or my deliverance?

CHORUS.
Nay! of the two, vouchsafe her wish to her
And mine to me, deigning a truth to each— 750
To her, reveal her future wanderings—
To me, thy future saviour, as I crave!

PROMETHEUS.
I will not set myself to thwart your will
Withholding aught of what ye crave to know.
First to thee, Io, will I tell and trace
Thy scared circuitous wandering mark it well,
Deep in retentive tablets of the soul.
When thou hast overpast the ferry’s flow
That sunders continent from continent,
Straight to the eastward and the flaming face 760
Of dawn, and highways trodden by the sun,

Pass, till thou come unto the windy land
Of daughters born to Boreas: beware
Lest the strong spirit of the stormy blast
Snatch thee aloft, and sweep thee to the void,
On wings of raving wintry hurricane!
Wend by the noisy tumult of the wave,
Until thou reach the Gorgon-haunted plains
Beside Cisthene. In that solitude
Dwell Phorcys’ daughters, beldames worn with time, 770
Three, each swan-shapen, single-toothed, and all
Peering thro’ shared endowment of one eye;
Never on them doth the sun shed his rays,
Never falls radiance of the midnight moon.
But, hard by these, their sisters, clad with wings,
Serpentine-curled, dwell, loathed of mortal men,—
The Gorgons!—he of men who looks on them
Shall gasp away his life. Of such fell guard
I bid thee to beware. Now, mark my words
When I another sight of terror tell— 780
Beware the Gryphon pack, the hounds of Zeus,
As keen of fang as silent of their tongues!
Beware the one-eyed Arimaspian band
That tramp on horse-hoofs, dwelling by the ford
Of Pluto and the stream that flows with gold:
Keep thou aloof from these. To the world’s end
Thou comest at the last, the dark-faced tribe
That dwell beside the sources of the sun,
Where springs the river, Aethiopian named.
Make thou thy way along his bank, until 790
Thou come unto the mighty downward slope
Where from the overland of Bybline hills
Nile pours his hallowed earth-refreshing wave.
He by his course shall guide thee to the realm
Named from himself, three-angled, water-girt;
There, Io, at the last, hath Fate ordained,
For thee and for thy race, the charge to found,
Far from thy native shore, a new abode.
Lo, I have said: if aught hereof appear
Hard to thy sense and inarticulate, 800

Question me o’er again, and soothly learn—
God wot, I have too much of leisure here!

CHORUS.
If there be aught beyond, or aught pass’d o’er,
Which thou canst utter, of her woe-worn maze,
Speak on! if all is said, then grant to us
That which we asked, as thou rememberest.

PROMETHEUS.
She now hath learned, unto its utmost end,
Her pilgrimage; but yet, that she may know
That ’tis no futile fable she hath heard,
I will recount her history of toil 810
Ere she came hither; let it stand for proof
Of what I told, my forecast of the end.
So, then—to sum in brief the weary tale—
I turn me to thine earlier exile’s close.
When to Molossia’s lowland thou hadst come,
Nigh to Dodona’s cliff and ridge sublime,
(Where is the shrine oracular and seat
Of Zeus, Thesprotian styled, and that strange thing
And marvel past belief, the prophet-oaks
That syllable his speech), thou by their tongues, 820
With clear acclaim and unequivocal,
Wert thus saluted—Hail, O bride of Zeus
That art to be—hast memory thereof?
Thence, stung anew with frenzy, thou didst hie
Along the shoreward track, to Rhea’s lap,
The mighty main; then, stormily distraught,
Backward again and eastward. To all time,
Be well assured, that inlet of the sea
All mortal men shall call Ionian,
In memory that Io fared thereby. 830
Take this for proof and witness that my mind
Hath more in ken than ever sense hath shown.
(To the CHORUS)
That which remains, to you and her alike
I will relate, and, to my former words
Reverting, add this final prophecy.
(To Io)
There lieth, at the verge of land and sea,

Where Nilus issues thro’ the silted sand,
A town, Canopus called: and there at length
Shall Zeus renew the reason in thy brain
With the mere touch and contact of his hand 840
Fraught now with fear no more: and thou shalt bear
A child, dark Epaphus—his very name
Memorial of Zeus’ touch that gave him life.
And his shall be the foison and the fruit
Of all the land enriched by spreading Nile.
Thence the fifth generation of his seed
Back unto Argos, yet unwillingly,
Shall flee for refuge—fifty maidens they,
Loathing a wedlock with their next in blood,
More kin than kind, from their sire’s brother sprung. 850
And on their track, astir with wild desire,
Like falcons fierce closing on doves that flee,
Shall speed the suitors, craving to achieve
A prey forbidden, a reluctant bride.
Yet power divine shall foil them, and forbid
Possession of the maids, whom Argive land
Shall hold protected, when unsleeping hate,
Horror, and watchful ambush of the night,
Have laid the suitors dead, by female hands.
For every maid shall smite a man to death, 860
Dyeing a dagger’s edges in his throat—
Such bed of love befall mine enemies!
Yet in one bride shall yearning conquer hate,
Bidding her spare the bridegroom at her side,
Blunting the keen edge of her set resolve.
Thus of two scorns the former shall she choose,
The name of coward, not of murderess.
In Argos shall she bear, in after time,
A royal offspring. Long it were to tell
In clear succession all that thence shall be. 870
Take this for sooth—in lineage from her
A hero shall arise, an archer great,
And he shall be my saviour from these woes.
Such knowledge of the future Themis gave,
The ancient Titaness, to me her son.

But how, and by what skill, ’twere long to say,
And no whit will the knowledge profit thee.

IO.
O woe, O rending and convulsive pain,
Frenzy and agony, again, again
Searing my heart and brain! 880
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.]