| |
EPIMETHEUS. YON snow-white cloud that sails sublime in ether | |
| Is but the sovereign Zeus, who like a swan | |
Flies to fair-ankled Leda!
PANDORA. Or perchance | |
| Ixion’s cloud, the shadowy shape of Hera, | |
That bore the Centaurs.
EPIMETHEUS. The divine and human. | 5 |
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CHORUS OF BIRDS. Gently swaying to and fro, | |
| Rocked by all the winds that blow, | |
| Bright with sunshine from above, | |
| Dark with shadow from below, | |
| Beak to beak and breast to breast | 10 |
| In the cradle of their nest, | |
Lie the fledglings of our love.
ECHO. Love! love! | |
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EPIMETHEUS. Hark! listen! Hear how sweetly overhead | |
| The feathered flute-players pipe their songs of love, | |
| And Echo answers, love and only love. | 15 |
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CHORUS OF BIRDS. Every flutter of the wing, | |
| Every note of song we sing, | |
| Every murmur, every tone, | |
Is of love and love alone.
ECHO. Love alone! | |
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EPIMETHEUS. Who would not love, if loving she might be | 20 |
| Changed like Callisto to a star in heaven? | |
| |
PANDORA. Ah, who would love, if loving she might be | |
| Like Semele consumed and burnt to ashes? | |
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EPIMETHEUS. Whence knowest thou these stories?
PANDORA. Hermes taught me; | |
| He told me all the history of the Gods. | 25 |
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CHORUS OF REEDS. Evermore a sound shall be | |
| In the reeds of Arcady, | |
| Evermore a low lament | |
| Of unrest and discontent, | |
| As the story is retold | 30 |
| Of the nymph so coy and cold, | |
| Who with frightened feet outran | |
| The pursuing steps of Pan. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. The pipe of Pan out of these reeds is made, | |
| And when he plays upon it to the shepherds | 35 |
| They pity him, so mournful is the sound. | |
| Be thou not coy and cold as Syrinx was. | |
| |
PANDORA. Nor thou as Pan be rude and mannerless. | |
| |
PROMETHEUS (without). Ho! Epimetheus!
EPIMETHEUS. ’T is my brother’s voice; | |
| A sound unwelcome and inopportune | 40 |
| As was the braying of Silenus’ ass, | |
Once heard in Cybele’s garden.
PANDORA. Let me go. | |
| I would not be found here. I would not see him. She escapes among the trees. | |
| |
CHORUS OF DRYADES. Haste and hide thee, | |
| Ere too late, | 45 |
| In these thickets intricate; | |
| Lest Prometheus | |
| See and chide thee, | |
| Lest some hurt | |
| Or harm betide thee, | 50 |
| Haste and hide thee! | |
| |
PROMETHEUS (entering). Who was it fled from here? I saw a shape | |
Flitting among the trees.
EPIMETHEUS. It was Pandora. | |
| |
PROMETHEUS. O Epimetheus! Is it then in vain | |
| That I have warned thee? Let me now implore. | 55 |
| Thou harborest in thy house a dangerous guest. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Whom the Gods love they honor with such guests. | |
| |
PROMETHEUS. Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Shall I refuse the gifts they send to me? | |
| |
PROMETHEUS. Reject all gifts that come from higher powers. | 60 |
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EPIMETHEUS. Such gifts as this are not to be rejected. | |
| |
PROMETHEUS. Make not thyself the slave of any woman. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Make not thyself the judge of any man. | |
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PROMETHEUS. I judge thee not; for thou art more than man; | |
| Thou art descended from Titanic race, | 65 |
| And hast a Titan’s strength and faculties | |
| That make thee godlike; and thou sittest here | |
| Like Heracles spinning Omphale’s flax, | |
And beaten with her sandals.
EPIMETHEUS. O my brother! | |
| Thou drivest me to madness with thy taunts. | 70 |
| |
PROMETHEUS. And me thou drivest to madness with thy follies. | |
| Come with me to my tower on Caucasus: | |
| See there my forges in the roaring caverns, | |
| Beneficent to man, and taste the joy | |
| That springs from labor. Read with me the stars, | 75 |
| And learn the virtues that lie hidden in plants, | |
And all things that are useful.
EPIMETHEUS. O my brother! | |
| I am not as thou art. Thou dost inherit | |
| Our father’s strength, and I our mother’s weakness: | |
| The softness of the Oceanides, | 80 |
| The yielding nature that cannot resist. | |
| |
PROMETHEUS. Because thou wilt not.
EPIMETHEUS. Nay; because I cannot. | |
| |
PROMETHEUS. Assert thyself; rise up to thy full height; | |
| Shake from thy soul these dreams effeminate, | |
| These passions born of indolence and ease. | 85 |
| Resolve, and thou art free. But breathe the air | |
| Of mountains, and their unapproachable summits | |
| Will lift thee to the level of themselves. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. The roar of forests and of waterfalls, | |
| The rushing of a mighty wind, with loud | 90 |
| And undistinguishable voices calling, | |
Are in my ear!
PROMETHEUS. Oh, listen and obey. | |
| |
EPIMETHEUS. Thou leadest me as a child. I follow thee.They go out. | |
| |
CHORUS OF OREADES. Centuries old are the mountains; | |
| Their foreheads wrinkled and rifted | 95 |
| Helios crowns by day, | |
| Pallid Selene by night; | |
| From their bosoms uptossed | |
| The snows are driven and drifted, | |
| Like Tithonus’ beard | 100 |
| Streaming dishevelled and white. | |
| |
| Thunder and tempest of wind | |
| Their trumpets blow in the vastness; | |
| Phantoms of mist and rain, | |
| Cloud and the shadow of cloud, | 105 |
| Pass and repass by the gates | |
| Of their inaccessible fastness; | |
| Ever unmoved they stand, | |
| Solemn, eternal, and proud. | |
| |
VOICES OF THE WATERS. Flooded by rain and snow | 110 |
| In their inexhaustible sources, | |
| Swollen by affluent streams | |
| Hurrying onward and hurled | |
| Headlong over the crags, | |
| The impetuous water-courses | 115 |
| Rush and roar and plunge | |
| Down to the nethermost world. | |
| |
| Say, have the solid rocks | |
| Into streams of silver been melted, | |
| Flowing over the plains, | 120 |
| Spreading to lakes in the fields? | |
| Or have the mountains, the giants, | |
| The ice-helmed, the forest-belted, | |
| Scattered their arms abroad; | |
| Flung in the meadows their shields? | 125 |
| |
VOICES OF THE WINDS. High on their turreted cliffs | |
| That bolts of thunder have shattered, | |
| Storm-winds muster and blow | |
| Trumpets of terrible breath; | |
| Then from the gateways rush, | 130 |
| And before them routed and scattered | |
| Sullen the cloud-rack flies, | |
| Pale with the pallor of death. | |
| |
| Onward the hurricane rides, | |
| And flee for shelter the shepherds; | 135 |
| White are the frightened leaves, | |
| Harvests with terror are white; | |
| Panic seizes the herds, | |
| And even the lions and leopards, | |
| Prowling no longer for prey, | 140 |
| Crouch in their caverns with fright. | |
| |
VOICES OF THE FORESTS. Guarding the mountains around | |
| Majestic the forests are standing, | |
| Bright are their crested helms, | |
| Dark is their armor of leaves; | 145 |
| Filled with the breath of freedom | |
| Each bosom subsiding, expanding, | |
| Now like the ocean sinks, | |
| Now like the ocean upheaves. | |
| |
| Planted firm on the rock, | 150 |
| With foreheads stern and defiant, | |
| Loud they shout to the winds, | |
| Loud to the tempest they call; | |
| Naught but Olympian thunders, | |
| That blasted Titan and Giant, | 155 |
| Them can uproot and o’erthrow, | |
| Shaking the earth with their fall. | |
| |
CHORUS OF OREADES. These are the Voices Three | |
| Of winds and forests and fountains, | |
| Voices of earth and of air, | 160 |
| Murmur and rushing of streams, | |
| Making together one sound, | |
| The mysterious voice of the mountains, | |
| Waking the sluggard that sleeps, | |
| Waking the dreamer of dreams. | 165 |
| |
| These are the Voices Three, | |
| That speak of endless endeavor, | |
| Speak of endurance and strength, | |
| Triumph and fulness of fame, | |
| Sounding about the world, | 170 |
| An inspiration forever, | |
| Stirring the hearts of men, | |
| Shaping their end and their aim. | |
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