Alas, O Fate, Fate, I shudder

With fear to behold the state of Io.

PROMETHEUS

Too soon thou criest, thy heart surcharged with fear.

Keep back thy tears till thou hast learnt the rest.

CHORUS

Speak, teach us all: to those who are in sickness

Foreknowledge of their suffering brings relief.

PROMETHEUS

Your first request you have obtained of me

With ease; for first from her you sought to hear

The unhappy tale of her past sufferings.

Now hear what is to come, what agonies

This young girl must endure from Hera yet.

And thou, O seed of Inachus, lay to heart

What I shall tell, and learn thy journey’s end.

First turn thy face towards the rising sun

Across the unploughed meadow-lands, until

Thou com’st unto the Scythians, wanderers

Who dwell on wheels in wicker chariots,

Armed with far-flying shafts of archery.

Approach not these, but, skirting the long strand

Beside the moaning ocean-surf, pass on

Till on thy left hand thou shalt find the tribe

Of Chalybs, iron-craftsmen, whom beware,

A savage people and inhospitable.

And thou shalt come to the Violent Stream, well-named,

Whose swollen flood must not be forded till

The highest top of Caucasus confront

Thy gaze, from whence that river pours his strength

Sheer from the summit; then, the star-neighbouring peaks

Behind thee, turn thy steps towards the south,

Till thou shalt come unto the Amazons,

Man-hating people, who in Themiscyra

Shall dwell beside Thermodon, by the rock

Of rugged Salmydessus, whose welcome waits

The fearful seaman, stepmother to ships.

And they will gladly lead thee on thy way,

Till at the gateways of the lake thou comest

To the Cimmerian Isthmus, whence pass on

And with stout heart tread the Maeotic Sea.

And of that passage shall mankind relate

The wondrous tale for ever, and shall name

Those waters Bosporus in thy memory.

Thence, leaving Europe, thou shalt come unto

The land of Asia.

(To Chorus) Is it plain to you

The tyrant of the gods is violent

In all his ways? A god, lusting to lie

With mortal woman, he persecutes her thus.

A brutal lover seeks thy hand, my child;

For that which I have now revealed hath scarce

Opened the prelude of thy agony.

CHORUS

Oh me, alas!

PROMETHEUS

Again that cry of pain! What wilt thou do

When thou hast heard the sorrows that remain?

CHORUS

Are further sufferings in store for her?

PROMETHEUS

Ay, a tempestuous sea of misery.

IO

What profit then to live? Let me in haste

Cast myself down from yonder dizzy height,

And buy with one swift leap deliverance

From all my labours! Once to die is better

Than length of days in sorrow without end.

PROMETHEUS

How ill wouldst thou endure my sufferings,

Who am by Fate appointed not to die.

That were indeed deliverance from pain,

But for my labours now there is no date

Decreed till Zeus from tyranny hath fallen.

IO

What, can it be the power of Zeus shall fail?