Prometheus Bound Immortality Essay Example For Students

Prometheus Bound Immortality Essay A monologue from the play by Aeschylus NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from The Dramas of Aeschylus. Trans. Anna Swanwick. London: George Bell and Sons, 1907. IO: I know not how I can deny your wish,So in clear word all ye desire to knowThat shall ye hear;Yet am I ashamed to tellWherefore on me, forlorn one, burst the stormHeaven-sent and whence this forms disfigurement.For evermore would nightly visions hauntMy virgin chambers, gently urging meWith soothing words;O damsel, highly blest,Why longer live in maidenhood when theeWait loftiest nuptials? For by passions dartInflamed is Zeus for thee and fain would shareThe yoke of Kypris. Spurn not thou, O child,The couch of Zeus, but to the grassy meadOf Lerna hie thee, to thy fathers herdsAnd cattle-stalls, that so the eye of ZeusFrom longing may find respite. By such dreamsFrom night to night still was I visited,Unhappy one; till, taking heart at length,My night-born visions to my sire I told.Then he to Pytho made a herald sentAnd to Dodona; seeking to be taughtHow best, by deed or word, to please the gods.But they returned, announcing oraclesOf riddling import, vague and hard to spell.At len gth to Inachos came clear response,By voice oracular commanding himFrom home and father-land to thrust me forth,At large to range, as consecrate to heaven,Far as earths utmost bounds. Should he refuse,From Zeus would come the fiery thunderbold,And his whole race extirpate utterly.Then yielding to such Loxian Oracles,He drove me forth, and barred me from his home,Against his will and mine; but, forcefully,The curb of Zeus constrained him this to do.Forthwith my shape and mind distorted were,And horned, as ye behold me, goaded onBy gad-fly, keen of fang, with frenzied boundsI to Kerchneias limpid current rushd,And found of Lerna. Then the earth-born herdsman,Hot-tempered Argos, ever dogged my steps,Gazing upon me with his myriad eyes.But him a sudden and unlooked-for fateDid reave of life; but I, brize-tortured, stillBefore the scorge divine am driven onFrom land to land; the past thou hearest; nowIf thou canst tell my future toils, say on,Nor, pity-moved, soothe me with lying tales,F or garbled words, I hold, are basest ills.