I burnt and led man to the riddling art

Of divination; and augury by fire,

For long in darkness hid, I brought to light.

Such help I gave, and more — beneath the earth,

The buried benefits of humanity,

Iron and bronze, silver and gold, who else

Can claim that he revealed to man but I?

None, I know well, unless an idle braggart.

In these few words learn briefly my whole tale:

Prometheus founded all the arts of man.

CHORUS

Render not aid to man unrighteously,

Neglectful of thine own misfortunes — thus

I have good hope that, from these bonds released,

Thou shalt return to power, the peer of Zeus.

PROMETHEUS

Not so nor yet hath all-determining Fate

Ordained the end, but, when ten thousand pains

Have crushed my body, from bonds shall I escape.

For Art is weaker than Necessity.

CHORUS

Who then is helmsman of Necessity?

PROMETHEUS

The Fates three-formed and the remembering Furies.

CHORUS

Is Zeus himself less powerful than these?

PROMETHEUS

He could not alter that which is ordained.

CHORUS

What is ordained for Zeus save power eternal?

PROMETHEUS

Question no more — I will not answer that.

CHORUS

Some solemn secret doth thy heart embrace.

PROMETHEUS

Nay, turn to other things — I must not yet

Make that tale manifest, but keep it veiled

Most jealously — by guarding that shall I

From these fell bonds and agonies escape.

CHORUS (Strophe 1)

Ne’er may the Ruler of all, Zeus, athwart my purpose array his supreme power,

Ne’er may I be slow to present to the gods burnt-offerings tended with prayer

Nigh my father’s waters, the slumberless stream which faileth not;

Ne’er may I sin with my lips — may this prayer abide with me and ne’er within me perish!

Antistrophe 1

Happy is he who doth pass length of life in sureness of hope and doth feed his

Heart on gladness sprung from a conscience clear: for truly I shudder as I

View the thousand sufferings fated for thee. Almighty Zeus

Dauntlessly hast thou defied, ay with froward purpose prized mankind too high, Prometheus.

Strophe 2

What reward for thy favours, and where is there succour at hand to save thee

In the things of a day? Or have thine eyes not seen how

In a vain, unavailing, dreamlike impotence the purblind peoples

Of the earth are imprisoned eternally? Ne’er shall the

Harmony ordered of Zeus be turned awry by mortal counsels.

Antistrophe 2

Thus indeed am I taught by the sight of thy hapless fate, Prometheus.

For alas! unalike the song that now I sing thee

To the tune that of old around thy bridal bath and bed was chanted,

As thou camest with gifts to my father to win from him

Beautiful Hesione for thy marriage-bed, a bride to sleep beside thee.

(Enter IO, homed like a cow)

IO

What people and place is this? whom do I see

Bridled in boulders and harnessed in stone,

Laid bare to the storm?