IO

Then why so loth to make all manifest?

PROMETHEUS

I grudge it not, but fear to break thy heart.

IO

Nay, spare me not against my own desire.

PROMETHEUS

Since thou dost wish it, I must speak. Attend.

CHORUS

Not yet: to me likewise vouchsafe a favour.

First let us learn her malady and hear

The tale of her wild wanderings, before

She learns from thee what agonies yet remain.

PROMETHEUS

Io, thy task it is to grant them this.

Remember, too, they are thy father’s sisters,

And to bemoan the bitterness of fortune

To listeners who are like to be moved

To weep with thee, is labour worth the pains.

IO

I know not how I can deny your wish:

All that you seek to know shall in plain words

Be told. And yet I blush even to recall

How I, unhappy girl, was seized by that

Tempest from heaven and beauty’s swift decay.

Night after night dream-visions haunting me

Came to my chamber and beguiled me thus

With winning words: O greatly blessed maid,

Wherefore so long a virgin, when ’tis thine

To wed the Highest? Zeus with sharp desire

Of thee is smitten and longs for the embrace

Of Cypris. O my child, do not disdain

The bed of Zeus, but get thee to the deep

Meadows of Lerna, thy father’s pasturage,

That there the eye of Zeus may ease desire.

Such were the dreams that each night restlessly

Beset and troubled me, until I dared

To tell my father of those night-fantasies.

Then he sent forth his wise interpreters

To Pytho and Dodona’s oaks, to enquire

What might be said or done to please the gods.

With dimly-worded messages they returned,

Obscure reports of dark significance,

Till Inachus received at last a clear

Reply enjoining on him this command,

That he must drive me out from hearth and home

To wander to the confines of the earth,

And, if he disobeyed, the bolt of Zeus

Would visit him, destroying all his house.

Such were the oracles of Loxias,

And he, as they commanded, cast me forth

Against his will and mine, constrained to do

That which he would not by the curb of Zeus.

Then suddenly, my wit and woman’s form

Distorted, with homed temples, as you see,

I sped distraught to the Cerchnean streams

And springs of Lerna, savagely pursued

By Argus, the fierce earth-born Herdsman, who

Kept watch upon me with his hundred eyes,

Till wing-swift death, descending unawares,

Did cut him off; but, gadfly-hunted, I

Before God’s scourge still flee across the world.

Such is my story, and, if thou canst tell

What yet awaits me, speak, and let not pity

Temper the true with false, for I abhor

Above all plagues the tale compact of lies.

CHORUS

O horrible!

Words so strange, words so full of fear

I never dreamed would come to beat against my ears,

Terror and torture, a sight that doth wound the eye,

Smite my soul with scourging anguish.